Shabbos Kestenbaum is a Master’s student at Harvard University, researching the evolution of Hasidic thought in light of the Holocaust and Public Policy. A former chapter Director of NCSY, Shabbos is one of six students suing Harvard University for its failure to protect Jewish students from campus antisemitism.
In an article he wrote for the Tablet Magazine, Shabbos explains Harvard’s virulent anti semitic policies and how they have affected his campus life.
Shabbos recounts, “During April 2023, Pro-Palestine supporters erected an illegal encampment of students and professors in Harvard Yard demanding a complete and total divestment from “the Zionist entity.”
They called for the violent destruction of the Jewish state, and established a self-appointed security system that monitored and recorded Jews on our way to class.” But instead of punishing them for their heinous actions, in exchange for packing up their encampment, Harvard revoked the suspensions of all graduate and almost all undergraduate students.
As a Jewish student at Harvard University, Shabbos was not only exposed to death threats but he also had to endure his fellow students calling for the globalization of the intifada and blaming the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust on Jews themselves.
If that wasn’t enough, Harvard proudly hosted Noura Erakat, with senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad who has promised to repeat Oct. 7 “again and again ... October 7, October 10, October one-millionth.”
Harvard deployed 24/7 private security to stand guard in front of the Palestine Solidarity Committee’s “Apartheid Wall.” which had offensive Holocaust imagery and a quote from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
But Jews were obviously not afforded the same privilege: Shabbos explains how “when it came to Chabad installing a menorah during Chanukah, not only did Harvard not provide any security, but also instructed that it be removed each night.”
Commencement was interrupted by close to 1,000 students, faculty, and supporters staging a mass walkout., in protest of the Israel-Gaza War.
What’s worse is that it wasn’t only the students who were allowed to act in any way they deemed fit — it was also the faculty.
In fact, earlier this year, Shabbos describes how “close to 100 Harvard faculty and staff published a cartoon depicting the hand of a Jew, imprinted with the Star of David and the dollar sign, holding nooses around the necks of an Arab and a Black man.”