Facing Harvard inhospitality, academic delegation seeks to expand dialogue on Israel

Facing an inhospitable environment with antisemitism and discrimination on campus, Harvard University academics have sought to engage in dialogue and discourse in Israel by joining a delegation of professors from six universities last Sunday.

A Harvard undergraduate student accompanying the professors said that before the October 7 Massacre, there were areas that the university had to improve for Jews and Israelis – especially those who had served in the IDF – to feel comfortable on campus. Students often didn’t feel comfortable in sharing or revealing their identities or opinions.

October 7 “felt like an earthquake,” said the student, one that reverberated also on campuses across the United States. There was an explosion of antisemitism.

Harvard medical school professor and delegation head Gabriel Kreiman said that there was “rampant antisemitism” on campus,” in which students didn’t feel safe.

The university was one of the American schools at the center of controversy in December when ex-Harvard president Claudine Gay said that calls for the genocide of Jews were only considered bullying or harassment depending on certain contexts.

Kreiman said that a lot of agitators came from off campus, and while some faculty members joined in anti-Israel activity and protests, it was a minority of the staff. He also noted many of those who took part in the activism were in the humanities rather than the sciences.

Harvard hasn't had a constructive dialogue on its campus on the topic of October 7

After October 7, many student groups issued a joint letter condemning Israel. Kreiman and other professors issued their own open letter countering the anti-Israel missive.

The undergraduate student said that they encountered one student asking their peers to sign a letter thanking Hamas for their “resistance” activities. At first, they thought that it was a joke; it soon became clear that they were serious.

Harvard had not done enough to create a sense of security, said the student.

Harvard Medical School Prof. Galit Lahav said that she hadn’t encountered any discrimination herself, but had heard of a lot of students that had. She had seen a lot of protests on campus since the war started.

Kreiman said “Sadly I think a lot of the students don’t know what they’re talking about.

The professor was a pacifist at heart, believing in education as the answer to such conflict. He said that most people want peace, and the way to achieve it was to engage in conversation, but people had to be allowed to speak.

Harvard saw “a re-creation of the conflict on campus,” said the student. The university is an amazing institution overall, they said, with people with vision and knowledge, but it was upsetting for them that these great thinkers were engaging in antagonism rather than conversation.

“I’ve seen boycotting and shouting, but not talking,” said the student.

The student, who had in the past organized trips to Israel for over 200 students and staff, spoke to one of their professors about organizing a delegation of academics to see the situation in Israel firsthand. They discovered that Kreiman was also organizing such a group visit with financial support from the Blavatnik Family Foundation. Together they worked with Israel Destination to organize a delegation of 31 academics from Harvard, Stanford, Dartmouth, the Italian International School for Advanced Studies, and the University Kore of Enna. A concurrent Yale delegation brought over 20 academics.

“I believe in action,” Kreiman said, he wanted to do more than just write an email.

Kreiman had been to Israel many times for science conferences and to visit friends, but his first trip since October 7 was a very different experience.

Mostly composed of tenured professors, the delegation members came from a variety of disciplines including trauma resilience, economics, psychology, neuroscience, and Middle East history. They not only visited fellow academics at Sapir College, the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Tel Aviv University, and the Weizmann Institute of Science, but met with President Isaac Herzog, Supreme Court Justice Alex Stein, the families of hostages, and medical and psychological professionals treating October 7 survivors and soldiers.

 The missions had several goals, not least among them to show solidarity with Israelis, who may feel isolated seeing the rise of antisemitism and academic boycotts. In reality, there was only a small but vicious minority attacking Israel, said Kreiman, and that “there is strong support for Israel in academia.”

“You are not alone, you are not isolated, there are a lot of academics in the US who feel sad about what happened,” said Kreiman.

The professors were also in Israel to bear witness to what happened, said Kreiman. They had visited Kibbutz Be’eri, Kfar Aza, and the site of the Supernova festival massacre. Kreiman said that it was emotional and impactful – The people there were young enough to be his children. Lahav said that she hoped to be able to return and share what she had seen and heard.

Yair Jablinowitz from Israel Destination said “Solidarity missions such as this offer an opportunity to dive deep into Israeli society at this difficult time in our history, to visit the worst-affected communities, and to hear a cross-section of opinions and experiences. They strengthen both visitor and Israeli alike, forging close personal and professional connections and allowing for better understanding of a complex situation based on first-hand experience.”

One aspect that sets the delegation apart from others is that they are seeking to create “connections that could lead to synergistic collaborations,” with Israeli academics, said Kreiman.

“One of the things I was impressed by was how receptive people were here, how kind,” said Kreiman. Despite October 7, Israelis showed “hope and optimism talking about collaborations, looking toward the future.”

Kreiman was interested in doing Zoom lectures for Sapir College students who couldn’t return to class because of the war. Many in the delegation were also considering promoting a trilateral scientific collaboration between the EU, US, and Israel that would engage with parties from the Arab world. This would strengthen Arab-Israeli ties and “show the world that there can be a fruitful future of scientific collaboration between Arabs and Jews.”

Lahav said they were also considering creating exchange programs with Israeli schools and mentorship plans for Israeli students. She said the delegation members hoped to meet in the US after the trip and discuss more ideas.The Harvard student said that the academics were eager to utilize their expertise. One of the medical experts was looking into the case of a friend who was wounded in the war.

What truly interested the student, was all the interesting conversations that the academics were having. They had a diversity of opinion, and an embrace of different political thoughts that they enjoyed hearing – Something that Harvard had to improve.

Lahav was hopeful that Harvard’s new leadership would address antisemitism on campus.

“I think things are better than they were at Harvard, but there are some things that still have not been resolved,” said Kreiman. “There is still a lot of work to do.”