Over the past year, Harvard has received extensive media attention, been called into a congressional hearing, and is now facing a lawsuit over antisemitism. Many groups formed in response to this challenging time on campus, including the Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias, the Presidential Task Force on Combating Anti-Muslim, Anti-Arab, and Anti-Palestinian Bias, and the Harvard College Jewish Alumni Alliance. Most recently, Professor Jesse Fried, the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and Dr. Matthew Meyerson, Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, founded Harvard Faculty for Israel (HFFI).
Meyerson approached Fried several months ago about forming HFFI, expressing his concerns about what was happening to Israeli and Jewish students over the past year.
“I think it was really seeing how difficult it was for Jewish students, and especially Israeli students, on campus this past year, but also really going back in time,” Meyerson said in an interview with the Independent. “I think there have been just been a number of examples of real exclusion and discrimination against students, and, especially students from Israel, in the classroom and extracurricular activities. And, you know, a number of these are public.”
On Sidechat, a popular anonymous social media platform, numerous posts targeted Jewish and Israeli students. Fried and Meyerson cited a series of Sidechat posts exhibiting this rhetoric in their op-ed in The Harvard Crimson. One post used a common antisemitic trope to insult an Israeli student. The user said, “She looks just as dumb as her nose is crooked.” Another student posted, “I would like us all to reflect how much power the Jewish population has over the media,” referencing another antisemitic trope. A third post proclaimed that “we got too many damn jews in state supporting our economy.”
The federal lawsuit from recent Harvard Divinity School graduate Alexander Kenstenbaum and Students Against Antisemitism, Inc v. President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance report also reference a Harvard Sidechat message that said, “stfu pedo lover! All of you Zionists are the same. Killers and rapists of children.”
For their report, HJAA interviewed 42 Jewish students and found extensive reports of antisemitic and anti-Israeli incidents on campus, dating back to even before Oct. 7. In March 2023, Kim Nahari ’26 was asked to leave a classroom she was visiting after the professor learned she was Israeli.
Last fall, in Professor Marshall Ganz’s “Organizing: People, Power, Change” class at the Harvard Kennedy School, three Israeli students were prohibited from working on a project seeking, in their words, “to harness and unite a majority of diverse and moderate Israelis to strengthen Israel’s liberal and Jewish democracy” and prohibited from describing Israel as a “Jewish democracy.”
“That was a really big factor in trying to support Israeli students and visiting scholars,” Meyerson said, referencing the incident at the Kennedy School. HFFI’s additional objectives include supporting Israeli students and scholars and Harvard exchange programs with Israeli universities.
Doron Ben Haim ’27, an Israeli student at the College, shared his view on the importance of HFFI and its efforts. “It is really significant for us, especially as it feels like people are more cautious about what they tend and tend not to say,” he said. “The fact that they feel the obligation or the ability to openly support Israel is a major difference for us than we felt last year. It’s highly appreciated and gives us a sense that there is a space for the Israeli community.”
HFFI’s membership includes hundreds of faculty from across Harvard’s schools. Meyerson said the group has mainly spread through word of mouth, which likely explains why faculty from HMS and HLS comprise the majority of HFFI’s current membership.
“My guess is that very few of [HFFI’s membership] support the current government [in Israel],” said Fried in an interview with the Independent. “Personally, when I was in Israel in 2023, I demonstrated against the government. I think they’re taking Israel in the wrong direction, and I’m very saddened about that.”
Fried continued, “If this war hadn’t happened, I would probably devote some of my energy to trying to fight the current government. But this has become sort of an existential threat, not just in Israel, but also for Jews and Israelis in the United States. So this is where I put my energy.”
HFFI plans to host weekly open lunches in Cambridge and Longwood. Fried shared his perception of the one lunch held at Hillel so far. “It was very successful. People really appreciated it, because somebody from the University seems to care about them.”
Maya Shiloni ’26 is an Israeli-American student at the College who attended the Cambridge lunch last week. She said, “I definitely feel like it was a very supportive space. We don’t get to experience a lot of support as Israelis on campus—we’re mostly pushed away, not accepted. This was a really great experience to be in such an accepting space.”
Meyerson will run the planned Longwood lunches each Thursday. Their first event took place on Sept. 19 and had about 25 attendees, including 10 faculty and 15 students and scholars, according to Meyerson. The attendees came from a mix of backgrounds, ethnicities, and religions.
“This was pretty informal. We just got together. We chatted mostly in small groups. But I definitely had the feeling, and obviously, formally from this one person,” he said, referencing a text he received, “but informally from others too, that it was a good experience and meaningful for them.”
Looking forward, Meyerson said HFFI is in a “listening and learning mode, hearing from visiting students and visiting scholars about their experiences, and really trying to understand the needs of those communities.”
“When I started talking to undergrads and Israelis, I discovered to my horror that there was this pervasive pattern of Israelis being discriminated against and shunned,” said Fried.
Peleg Samuels, a Ph.D. candidate in Economics at Harvard University, shared, “I’ve stopped attending spaces I previously did—I am gay, so LGBTQ spaces, or our union, because it’s been made very clear that my acceptance is conditioned on my capitulation to others’ definitions of Jewish identity. The HFFI is like a small light in what has been a much more lonely, and, at least perceived by me, hostile Harvard.”
Fried’s conversations with students emphasized the importance of creating a space supporting students and faculty both within and outside Harvard. He felt compelled to build on his previous work in pro-Israel movements and decided to co-found HFFI and serve on the antisemitism task force at Harvard. His position in these organizations allows him to serve different but essential roles on campus.
“With the task force, I can’t do some of the things I’m doing through HFFI.” Fried elaborated, “I can’t signal to Israelis on campus that there are a lot of faculty behind you and to Israelis outside of Harvard that there are a lot of people at Harvard who are behind you. I can’t get people together for lunch where they feel supported through the antisemitism task force.”
While the task force has a more institutional role, its efforts and discussions are more distanced from Israeli and Jewish students’ day-to-day experiences.
Yet, Fried also underscored the importance of the task force’s ability to collect data and make recommendations to Harvard. While the task force will make recommendations, some of which may be permanently implemented, the task force itself will not be a permanent fixture at Harvard. Its official charge ends with releasing a final report on its findings and recommendations.
“At some point, it’s going to stop its operating. And so, HFFI will continue.”
One of HFFI’s main initiatives is supporting academic exchanges between Harvard and Israel. Meyerson explained, “There are a number of efforts that have attempted to or to really exclude or boycott Israeli universities.”
The US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel has thousands of signatures and endorsements from faculty at American universities, international colleagues, and academic associations. In 2019, the NYU Department of Social and Cultural Analysis ruled in favor of non-cooperation with NYU’s Tel Aviv campus. More recently in Feb. 2024, the Student Senate at Pitzer voted for the College to cut ties with Israeli universities. In addition, five Norwegian universities cut ties with Israeli universities. Academics for Palestine cites universities from around the world that are engaged in academic boycotts against Israeli universities.
In light of these global efforts to weaken or cut academic ties between Israeli universities and other universities and the antisemitic and anti-Israel incidents occurring on campus, Meyerson made a final request regarding HFFI’s mission.
“Israeli students or scholars who are finding any challenges on campus, I would just say that they should feel free to reach out to our group either to individual professors who they know already or to Jesse or me. And we could see if we can provide support in any way or refer them to others who can,” Meyerson said.
Hannah Davis ’25 (hannahdavis@college.harvard.edu) writes News for the Independent.