Harvard Antisemitism Task Force Co-chair Resigns; No Confidence in University

The co-chair of Harvard’s antisemitism task force resigned Monday, reportedly because she did not have confidence that the university would implement any of the committee’s recommendations on ending Jew-hatred at the nation’s top university.

The Harvard Crimson reported:

Harvard Business School professor Raffaella Sadun resigned from the presidential task force on antisemitism, according to a source familiar with the situation.

Interim Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 appointed Sadun in January to lead the task force as a co-chair last month. Her decision to resign was confirmed in statements from Sadun and Garber on Sunday.

…

Sadun’s decision to resign is just the latest setback for Garber’s antisemitism task force, which has been dogged by controversy since its inception.

The committee’s other co-chair is history professor Derek Penslar, whose appointment drew criticism because of his anti-Israel views. The Wall Street Journal noted: “We don’t know what’s in Mr. Penslar’s heart, though we wonder what’s in his head. It seems obvious that he can’t lead a credible investigation into campus antisemitism if he [falsely] equates Israel with apartheid.”

Rabbi David Wolpe resigned from the committee in December, after then-Harvard president Claudine Gay testified in Congress that the question of whether calls for the genocide of Jews would violate campus policy would depend upon the “context.”

Harvard has lurched from one antisemitism crisis to another. Earlier this month, a faculty group apologized for posting an antisemitic image on social media.

This week, a concert organized by a Harvard Jewish group featuring an Israeli musician, Ishay Ribo, faces pressure after staff at the Sinclair Music Hall in Cambridge, Massachusetts, refused to staff the event. (Similar tactics have been used against American Jewish reggae musician Matisyahu.) The concert will go on Tuesday after replacement staff were hired, but anti-Israel activists intend to protest the event, in what appears to be another demonstration of antisemitism.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.