A prominent rabbi announced his resignation from Harvard’s antisemitism board after the university’s president offered what he described as “painfully inadequate testimony” on Capitol Hill this week.
Harvard President Dr. Claudine Gay was among university leaders called to testify in a hearing addressing the growing antisemitism that has taken place on college campuses since the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks against Israel. Gay, along with her counterparts at UPenn and MIT, failed to say whether calling for “intifada” or the genocide of Jews is against Harvard’s code of conduct.
Rabbi David Wolpe, a visiting scholar at Harvard Divinity School, announced his exit from Harvard’s antisemitism advisory committee, offering a “Hanukkah message” ahead of the Jewish holiday.
“As of today I have resigned from the antisemitism advisory committee at Harvard,” Wolpe began his message Thursday on X. “Without rehashing all of the obvious reasons that have been endlessly adumbrated online, and with great respect for the members of the committee, the short explanation is that both events on campus and the painfully inadequate testimony reinforced the idea that I cannot make the sort of difference I had hoped.”
However, when pressed on whether rhetoric calling for “intifada” or the genocide of Jewish people violated Harvard’s code of conduct, Gay replied saying it “depends on the context.”
Historically, what’s called the First Intifada was a deadly series of attacks and protests carried out by Palestinians against Israelis during the 1980s. The Second Intifada occurred in the early 2000s as at least 1,000 Israelis were killed by terrorist attacks carried out by Palestinians using suicide bombers on buses and shooting civilians in the streets, bars and restaurants in cities like Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
Following intense backlash after the hearing, Gay released a statement saying, “There are some who have confused a right to free expression with the idea that Harvard will condone calls for violence against Jewish students. Let me be clear: Calls for violence or genocide against the Jewish community, or any religious or ethnic group are vile, they have no place at Harvard, and those who threaten our Jewish students will be held to account.”
Joseph A. Wulfsohn is a media reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to joseph.wulfsohn@fox.com and on Twitter: @JosephWulfsohn.
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