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Harvard, Penn, Columbia announce steps to address antisemitism following campus turmoil
(JTA) — Three Ivy League universities have announced steps to fight antisemitism after weeks of turmoil on their campuses and others.
Harvard University has put together a group of advisors to address antisemitism on campus, and both the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University announced on Wednesday that they would convene task forces on antisemitism.
The announcements come as those schools and many others have contended with complaints that their administrations have not taken sufficient action to protect Jewish students or condemn Hamas following its Oct. 7 attack on Israel. At Cornell University, another Ivy League school, a junior was recently arrested for threatening to kill Jewish students.
At Harvard, the team of advisors includes Harvard faculty, staff, alumni, and religious leaders from the Jewish community, President Claudine Gay announced on Friday. They include Dara Horn, a 1999 graduate and author of “People Love Dead Jews,” an essay collection on antisemitism; Rabbi David Wolpe, who recently retired from Los Angeles’ Sinai Temple and is currently teaching at Harvard; Thomas Dunne, Harvard College’s dean of students; and Martha Minow, the former dean of Harvard Law School, who is Jewish.
“They will help us to identify all the places — from our orientations and trainings to how we teach — where we can intervene to disrupt and dismantle this ideology, and where we can educate our community so that they can recognize and confront antisemitism wherever they see it,” Gay said at a Shabbat dinner at Harvard Hillel on Friday. “They will help us find opportunities to foster the empathy, literacy, and understanding across identities and beliefs that we need to be the Harvard the world is calling for and that our community deserves.”
The advisory group’s formation comes three weeks after Hamas’ attack ignited conflict at Harvard. Dozens of student groups, including representatives of Palestinian, Arab, Black, Bengali, Pakistani, South Asian and Sikh student associations, signed onto a letter the day of the attack that solely blamed Israel for the violence and called on Harvard to “take action to stop the ongoing annihilation of Palestinians.”
The university did not issue a statement of its own for days, drawing criticism and in some cases consequences from concerned pro-Israel alumni and donors. Several groups pulled their names from the letter following backlash, which included websites publishing identifying details of students who were linked to the signatories.
Gay addressed the tensions in comments during the school’s Family Weekend on Friday. She said that while the university encourages free expression, some members of the community had failed to condemn various types of hatred.
“Harvard rejects terrorism. Harvard rejects hate—antisemitism, Islamophobia, hate of any group of people based on their faith, their national origin, or any aspects of their identity,” Gay said. “Harvard rejects the harassment or intimidation of individuals based on their beliefs. Pernicious ideologies—and the unconscionable actions they can inspire—are an affront to all that we are and all that we seek to accomplish. They have no place here.”
At Penn, where tensions over the Israeli-Palestinian issue were roiling even before Hamas’ attack, the university said it would review its public safety practices, create both an antisemitism task force and a student advisory group, and send a delegation of university leaders to a conference about antisemitism in higher education being held at Brandeis University later this month.
After a conference at the school showcasing Palestinian authors drew criticism last month, Penn is also scrutinizing how it allows outside groups to use university space And it is adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, known as IHRA, as a tool for its task forces. Advocates for the definition, which has been adopted by an array of institutions and governments, say it provides a useful yardstick for determining whether statements are bigoted against Jews, while its critics say its inclusion of some forms of Israel criticism could have a chilling effect on free speech.
At Columbia, where students and faculty have been trading letters about Israel and where a former student is facing hate crime charges after allegedly assaulting an Israeli student during a confrontation related to the Israel-Hamas war, a new task force will identify short- and long-term strategies to combat antisemitism at the university and its affiliated institutions.
“One would hope that by the twenty-first century, antisemitism would have been relegated to the dustbin of history,” Columbia University president Minouche Shafik, Barnard President Laura Rosenbury and Teachers college President Thomas Bailey wrote in their announcement. “But it has been rising here in New York, across the country, and around the world in recent years.”
The announcement Wednesday named Ester Fuchs, director of the Urban and Social Policy Program at the School of International and Public Affairs; Nicholas Lemann, Journalism School dean emeritus; and David Schizer, the Law School dean emeritus, as heads of the task force. Fuchs, Lemann and Schizer were the primary authors of an open letter that demanded the university “unambiguously” condemn Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, in response to another faculty letter that said it aimed to “recontextualize” the attack as a “military response.”
“Speaking out on issues like this helps strengthen Columbia and prevent the kind of disputes that are a very healthy part of the University from tearing apart the sort of fabric of respect and safety in the University,” Lemann told the Columbia Spectator.
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Israel to Send Delegation to Qatar for Gaza Ceasefire Talks
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a news conference in Jerusalem, Sept. 2, 2024. Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg/Pool via REUTERS
Israel has decided to send a delegation to Qatar for talks on a possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal, an Israeli official said, reviving hopes of a breakthrough in negotiations to end the almost 21-month war.
Palestinian group Hamas said on Friday it had responded to a US-backed Gaza ceasefire proposal in a “positive spirit,” a few days after US President Donald Trump said Israel had agreed “to the necessary conditions to finalize” a 60-day truce.
The Israeli negotiation delegation will fly to Qatar on Sunday, the Israeli official, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter, told Reuters.
But in a sign of the potential challenges still facing the two sides, a Palestinian official from a militant group allied with Hamas said concerns remained over humanitarian aid, passage through the Rafah crossing in southern Israel to Egypt and clarity over a timetable for Israeli troop withdrawals.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is due to meet Trump in Washington on Monday, has yet to comment on Trump’s announcement, and in their public statements Hamas and Israel remain far apart.
Netanyahu has repeatedly said Hamas must be disarmed, a position the terrorist group, which is thought to be holding 20 living hostages, has so far refused to discuss.
Israeli media said on Friday that Israel had received and was reviewing Hamas’ response to the ceasefire proposal.
The post Israel to Send Delegation to Qatar for Gaza Ceasefire Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Tucker Carlson Says to Air Interview with President of Iran
Tucker Carlson speaks on July 18, 2024 during the final day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Photo: Jasper Colt-USA TODAY via Reuters Connect
US conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson said in an online post on Saturday that he had conducted an interview with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, which would air in the next day or two.
Carlson said the interview was conducted remotely through a translator, and would be published as soon as it was edited, which “should be in a day or two.”
Carlson said he had stuck to simple questions in the interview, such as, “What is your goal? Do you seek war with the United States? Do you seek war with Israel?”
“There are all kinds of questions that I didn’t ask the president of Iran, particularly questions to which I knew I could get an not get an honest answer, such as, ‘was your nuclear program totally disabled by the bombing campaign by the US government a week and a half ago?’” he said.
Carlson also said he had made a third request in the past several months to interview Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will be visiting Washington next week for talks with US President Donald Trump.
Trump said on Friday he would discuss Iran with Netanyahu at the White House on Monday.
Trump said he believed Tehran’s nuclear program had been set back permanently by recent US strikes that followed Israel’s attacks on the country last month, although Iran could restart it at a different location.
Trump also said Iran had not agreed to inspections of its nuclear program or to give up enriching uranium. He said he would not allow Tehran to resume its nuclear program, adding that Iran did want to meet with him.
Pezeshkian said last month Iran does not intend to develop nuclear weapons but will pursue its right to nuclear energy and research.
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Hostage Families Reject Partial Gaza Seal, Demand Release of All Hostages
Demonstrators hold signs and pictures of hostages, as relatives and supporters of Israeli hostages kidnapped during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas protest demanding the release of all hostages in Tel Aviv, Israel, Feb. 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Itai Ron
i24 News – As Israeli leaders weigh the contours of a possible partial ceasefire deal with Hamas, the families of the 50 hostages still held in Gaza issued an impassioned public statement this weekend, condemning any agreement that would return only some of the abductees.
In a powerful message released Saturday, the Families Forum for the Return of Hostages denounced what they call the “beating system” and “cruel selection process,” which, they say, has left families trapped in unbearable uncertainty for 638 days—not knowing whether to hope for reunion or prepare for mourning.
The group warned that a phased or selective deal—rumored to be under discussion—would deepen their suffering and perpetuate injustice. Among the 50 hostages, 22 are believed to be alive, and 28 are presumed dead.
“Every family deserves answers and closure,” the Forum said. “Whether it is a return to embrace or a grave to mourn over—each is sacred.”
They accused the Israeli government of allowing political considerations to prevent a full agreement that could have brought all hostages—living and fallen—home long ago. “It is forbidden to conform to the dictates of Schindler-style lists,” the statement read, invoking a painful historical parallel.
“All of the abductees could have returned for rehabilitation or burial months ago, had the government chosen to act with courage.”
The call for a comprehensive deal comes just as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares for high-stakes talks in Washington and as indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas are expected to resume in Doha within the next 24 hours, according to regional media reports.
Hamas, for its part, issued a statement Friday confirming its readiness to begin immediate negotiations on the implementation of a ceasefire and hostage release framework.
The Forum emphasized that every day in captivity poses a mortal risk to the living hostages, and for the deceased, a danger of being lost forever. “The horror of selection does not spare any of us,” the statement said. “Enough with the separation and categories that deepen the pain of the families.”
In a planned public address near Begin Gate in Tel Aviv, families are gathering Saturday evening to demand that the Israeli government accept a full-release deal—what they describe as the only “moral and Zionist” path forward.
“We will return. We will avenge,” the Forum concluded. “This is the time to complete the mission.”
As of now, the Israeli government has not formally responded to Hamas’s latest statement.
The post Hostage Families Reject Partial Gaza Seal, Demand Release of All Hostages first appeared on Algemeiner.com.