The co-chairman of a task force set up by Harvard University to combat anti-Semitism resigned Sunday, the second high-profile resignation in the university’s efforts to address complaints that Jewish students are increasingly uncomfortable on campus since the Hamas attack on October 7.
The co-chair, Raffaella Sadun, a professor of business administration, did not give a reason for her resignation, but a colleague said she appeared to be frustrated by how long it was taking to make progress on the issue.
“Basically her bottom line is that she didn’t feel confident or satisfied that she could lead and influence this process in a way that made sense to her,” said Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi of Harvard Chabad, a Jewish campus organization. He said he had spoken to many people who had knowledge of Dr. Sadun.
A prominent national rabbi, David Wolfe, resigned from a previous anti-Semitism advisory committee in early December, following widespread criticism of campus anti-Semitism before Congress by former Harvard president Claudine Gay. “Both the events on campus and the painfully inadequate testimony have reinforced the idea that I can’t make the difference I’d hoped,” he wrote in X at the time.
Then in January, the current task force’s co-chair, Derek Penslar, was revealed to have signed a letter calling Israel an “apartheid regime,” prompting protests from many pro-Israel students and alumni who questioned whether it had their interests at heart. at heart.
Dr Sadun did not return emails or phone messages asking about her departure. But the turmoil shows how volatile the climate at Harvard has been since Hamas attacked Israel. The attack, and Harvard’s often confused responses to it, have heightened long-standing anxiety among Jewish students and alumni that they can no longer feel at home at the Ivy League school.
Some Jewish students say they have given up their kippahs, or skullcaps, for baseball caps. They say they now keep their Zionist beliefs to themselves in classrooms and living quarters.
Last week, a cartoon circulated on Instagram by pro-Palestinian student groups showed a hand with a Star of David and a dollar sign holding nooses around the necks of a black man and an Arab man.
After complaints about the cartoon, student groups and a faculty group associated with them apologized for the images.
The resignation of Dr. Sadun is the latest in a series of setbacks for Harvard’s efforts to address anti-Semitism on campus.
Last year, Dr Gay set up an advisory committee to tackle anti-Semitism. On December 5, he testified before a congressional committee and gave legal answers when asked whether Harvard would punish students who called for the genocide of the Jews.
Rabbi Wulpe’s resignation came two days later, and on January 2, Dr. Gay resigned under pressure. Later that month, Alan M. Garber, who took over as Harvard’s interim president, created two new task forces, one on anti-Semitism and one on anti-Muslim and anti-Arab prejudice.
Appointed Dr Sadun and Dr Penslar as co-chairs of the anti-Semitism task force. Dr Sadun was seen as a counterweight to Dr Penslar, a professor of Jewish history, who had faced protests.
“She was the one who was supposed to be the reassuring voice and leader on the task force,” Rabbi Zarchy said.
Dr. Penslar, who still heads the task force, did not help matters by downplaying the extent of anti-Semitism at Harvard in interviews shortly after his appointment. In an interview with The Boston Globe, he questioned how serious a problem anti-Semitism was on campus.
“It’s not a myth, but it’s been exaggerated,” Dr. Penslar was quoted as saying.
He said that even before Oct. 7, some Jewish students were “shunned” by “progressive political communities” because of the students’ attachment to Israel. “Is this vicious anti-Semitism? No,” he told The Globe. “But it is a form of social exclusion and social pressure.”
But his supporters note that he also told The Globe that Israel was “a state that has every right to exist.”
Although he accepted the resignation of Dr. Sadun on Sunday, the university announced the members of both task forces, and named a law professor, Jared Ellias, to replace Dr Sadun.
“Over the past five months, grief, anger and fear have affected members of our community as divisions on our campus persist,” Dr. Garber, the university’s interim president, said in the release. “We need to do more to bridge the cracks.”
Alain Delaquerière contributed to the research.