The hypocrisy of Harvard’s first-ever Jewish affinity celebration was encapsulated by the fact that the university’s chief DEI officer, Sherri Charleston, had the gall to give the closing remarks. Charleston also gave closing remarks at a concurrent Arab affinity celebration, which her office funded, where student speakers praised the “student intifada” and vilified the “normalization of Zionism” as well as the Arabs who “distanced themselves from the radical Palestinians” after October 7.
When the administration announced that it would be holding an affinity celebration for Jewish students, I suspected it would be a feeble attempt to redress the unwillingness of Harvard’s leadership to combat the hostility to Jews on campus. I also fundamentally rejected the idea that including Jews under the DEI umbrella could help — DEI drives inter-group division by design. Nonetheless, I decided to go. I was driven by curiosity and the slight hope that the celebration would prove to be a rare pleasant moment: an opportunity to celebrate my accomplishments without hearing jeers against the Jewish state.
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