A Harvard faculty group formed to support pro-Palestinian students posted an antisemitic image on Monday — then deleted it and apologized, but not before triggering an outcry on campus and earning the attention of congressional investigators.
The post, published on Instagram by Harvard Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (FSJP), included a depiction of a hand with a Jewish religious symbol holding leashes that controlled two black figures. It was supposedly a caricature from the 1960s.
Harvard *faculty* just posted an explicitly antisemitic poster depicting a Jewish hand controlling the black mind. With Professors like these, it’s easy to see why we Jewish students don’t feel safe in class pic.twitter.com/AiqADJSIFw
— Shabbos Kestenbaum (@ShabbosK) February 19, 2024
Many Jewish organizations on campus noted the illustration as just the latest shocking example of antisemitism at Harvard.
The Harvard Crimson reported that the university would investigate the faculty post, which originated with two student groups:
The University announced Monday evening that it is investigating social media posts that contained an antisemitic image from two pro-Palestine student groups and would refer the matter to the Harvard College Administrative Board.
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While the post originated from two student organizations — Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee and the African and African American Resistance Organization, most of the initial criticism was directed at a Harvard faculty and staff pro-Palestine group that reposted the image in an Instagram story.
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Former Harvard Hillel President Jacob M. Miller ’25, a Crimson Editorial chair, wrote that Harvard’s “antisemitism problem is so deep it even extends to the school’s faculty. Shameful.”
The Harvard Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine group apologized for the post, which it said “was linked to our account,” as if the group had not taken the time to publish the post itself on Instagram, and it had played nothing more than a passive role.
The post was flagged by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, which had issued a subpoena to Harvard just last Friday demanding that it explain the rise of antisemitism on campus.
This repugnant antisemitism should have no place in our society, much less on Harvard's faculty. https://t.co/X1TsdP4TSG
— House Committee on Education & the Workforce (@EdWorkforceCmte) February 19, 2024
Former Harvard president Claudine Gay resigned last month after failing to explain to Congress whether calling for the genocide of Jews would violate campus policies — though the immediate trigger for her departure was a deepening plagiarism scandal, and not her noncomittal stance on antisemitism at Harvard.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
