A Harvard task force on anti-Semitism got off to a rocky start, with complaints that the professor chosen to help lead the panel had signed a letter who criticized Israel, describing it as “an apartheid regime” for its treatment of the Palestinians.
Harvard’s new interim president, Alan Garber, announced Friday the formation of two “presidential task forces,” one to combat anti-Semitism and the other to combat Islamophobia and anti-Arab prejudice. The move came less than a month after her predecessor, Claudine Gay, was forced to resign over accusations of plagiarism and criticism that she had been weak in reining in anti-Semitism.
But the choice of Derek J. Penslar, a professor of Jewish history at Harvard, to co-chair the task force, was opposed by Lawrence H. Summers, former president of Harvard, and Bill Ackman, a hedge fund manager whose relentless Las Criticism of Dr. Gay helped bring about his downfall.
Dr. Penslar was among nearly 2,900 academics, clergy and other public figures who signed an open letter in August, before the Hamas attack on October 7, condemning the Israeli government and saying it was determined to “ethnically cleanse all the territories under Israeli rule. government of its Palestinian population.”
“In the meantime,” the letter, written by a group called Academics4Peace, said: “American Jewish billionaire financiers help support the Israeli far right.”
The same group circulated another letter in December with a call for a ceasefire and an exchange of hostages and prisoners in the war between Israel and Hamas. Dr. Penslar did not sign that version.
The dispute over his selection shows that the long-running debate over what constitutes anti-Semitism still continues, and Dr. Penslar’s position is at odds with that of his critics.
Dr. Penslar said in a statement that he viewed the task force as “an important opportunity to determine the nature and extent of anti-Semitism and more subtle forms of social exclusion affecting Jewish students at Harvard.”
But in a Opinion essay of December 29 In the campus publication The Harvard Crimson, Dr. Penslar called for “a better understanding of what is (and is not) anti-Semitic.”
“Conflating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism,” he said, “magnifies divisions within our Harvard community and hinders a common fight against hate.”
Harvard said in a statement that Dr. Penslar approached his work “with an open mind and respect for conflicting points of view.”
But to donors and critics, his worldview didn’t seem to fit the job description.
Mr. Ackman aware that with the selection of Dr. Penslar, Harvard “continues down the path of darkness.”
Jonathan Greenblatt, executive director of the Anti-Defamation League, posted about Dr. Penslar’s appointment: “Lessons in How NOT to Fight Antisemitism, Harvard Edition.”
Dr. Summers said in a social media post on Sunday that he had no problem with Dr. Penslar’s scholarship and believed him to be “a person of good will without a trace of personal anti-Semitism.”
“However,” he said, “I believe that, given his record, he is unfit to lead a task force whose role is to combat what many consider a serious problem of anti-Semitism at Harvard.”
Dr. Summers criticized Dr. Penslar for having a narrow view of anti-Semitism and for underestimating the problem of anti-Semitism at the university.
“Could one imagine Harvard appointing as head of the anti-racism task force someone who had downplayed the problem of racism or who had argued against federal anti-racism efforts?” he wrote. “This is yet another example of a double standard between anti-Semitism and other forms of prejudice.”
Several teachers responded.
Criticism of Israel may not be popular in all circles, but it is “not a marginal position” among American and Israeli Jews, Alison Frank Johnson, a history professor, and Steven Levitsky, a government professor, wrote in an article. opinion essay Monday on The Harvard Crimson.
They also expressed alarm about outside pressure.
“Donors, politicians and right-wing activists are welcome to share their opinions, as is everyone in a free society,” they wrote, “but they cannot be allowed to de facto dictate university policies, for example on regulation of speech and protests on campuses. — remove university leaders or veto appointments to important university working groups.”
Yehudah Mirsky, a professor of Jewish and Near Eastern Studies at Brandeis University, said he would not have signed the letter calling the Israeli government an apartheid regime. But he said the rhetoric surrounding Dr. Penslar’s appointment did not do justice to “a wide-ranging cosmopolitan scholar.”
Dr. Mirsky, a dual American-Israeli citizen, suggested the reaction reflected the “supercharged” atmosphere on college campuses surrounding the war between Israel and Hamas, which he said seemed divorced from reality.
He described the tense scene on October 7, while taking refuge in a bomb shelter in Jerusalem with his wife: “If I had turned to her and said, ‘You know, this means that the president of Harvard will have to resign,’ She “He would have looked at me like I was a lunatic.”
