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Harvard, Jewish Activist ‘Shabbos’ Kestenbaum Settle Antisemitism Lawsuit
Alexander “Shabbos” Kestenbaum makes remarks during the fourth annual Countering Antisemitism Summit at the Four Seasons, Feb. 26, 2025. Photo: USA Today Network via Reuters Connect.
Harvard University and Alexander “Shabbos” Kestenbaum have settled a lawsuit in which the former student turned widely known pro-Israel activist accused the institution of violating the US Civil Rights Act of 1964 by permitting antisemitic discrimination and harassment.
The confidential agreement ends what Kestenbaum, an Orthodox Jews, had promised would be a protracted, scorched-earth legal battle revealing alleged malfeasance at the highest levels of Harvard’s administration. So determined was Kestenbaum to discomfit the storied institution and force it to enact long overdue reforms that he declined to participate in an earlier settlement it reached last year with a group of Jewish plaintiffs, of which he was a member, who sued the university in 2024.
Charging ahead, Kestenbaum vowed never to settle and proclaimed that the discovery phase of the case would be so damning to Harvard’s defense that no judge or jury would render a verdict in its favor. Harvard turned that logic against him, requesting a trove of documents containing his communications with advocacy groups, politicians, and US President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign staff during a period of time which saw Kestenbaum’s star rise to meteoric heights as he became a national poster-child for pro-Israel activism.
Harvard argued that the materials are “relevant to his allegations that he experienced harassment and discrimination to which Harvard was deliberately indifferent in violation of Title VI.” Additionally, it sought information related to other groups which have raised awareness of the antisemitism crisis since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, demanding to know, the Harvard Crimson reported, “the ownership, funding, financial backing, management, and structure” of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, Students Against Antisemitism (SAA), and Jewish Americans for Fairness in Education (JAFE).
Without the materials, Harvard claimed, it would be unable to depose witnesses.
According to the Crimson, the university and Kestenbaum failed to agree on a timeframe for producing the requested documents, prompting it to file in May a motion that would have extracted them via court order. Meanwhile, two anonymous plaintiffs who also declined to be a party to 2024’s settlement came forward to join Kestenbaum’s complaint, which necessitated its being amended at the approval of the judge presiding over the case, Richard Stearns. In filing the motion to modify the suit, the Crimson reported, Kestenbaum’s attorneys asked Stearns to “extend the discovery deadline by at least six months” in the event that he “rejects the motion.”
On April 2, Stearns — who was appointed to the bench in 1993 by former US President Bill Clinton (D) and served as a political operative for and special assistant to Israel critic and former Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern — spurned the amended complaint and granted Harvard its discovery motion, which Kestenbaum’s attorneys had opposed in part by arguing that Harvard too had withheld key documents. Kestenbaum was given five days to submit the contents of correspondence.
On Wednesday, both parties lauded the settlement — which, according to the Crimson, included dismissing Kestenbaum’s case with prejudice — as a step toward eradicating antisemitism at Harvard University, an issue that has cost it billions of dollars in federal funding and undermined its reputation for being a beacon of enlightenment and the standard against which all other higher education institutions are judged.
“Harvard and Mr. Kestenbaum acknowledge each other’s steadfast and important efforts to combat antisemitism at Harvard and elsewhere,” Harvard University spokesman Jason Newton said in a statement.
In a lengthy statement of his own, Kestenbaum expressed gratitude for having helped “lead the student effort combating antisemitism” while accusing Harvard of resorting to duplicitous and intrusive tactics to fend off his allegations.
“Harvard opposed the anonymity of two of its current Jewish students who sought to vindicate their legal rights, and the Harvard Crimson outed them, even before the court could rule on their motion for anonymity. Harvard also issued a 999-page subpoena against Aish Hatorah, my Yeshiva in Israel that has been deeply critical of the university,” he said. “Remarkably, while Harvard sought personal and non-relevant documents between me and my friends, family, and others in the Jewish community, they simultaneously refused to produce virtually any relevant, internal communication that we had asked for during discovery.”
He continued, “I am comforted knowing that as we have now resoled our lawsuit, the Trump administration will carry the baton forward.”
Harvard’s legal troubles continue.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the university sued the Trump administration in April to request an injunction that would halt the government’s impounding of $2.26 billion of its federal grants and contracts and an additional $450 billion that was confiscated earlier this week.
In the complaint, shared by interim university president Alan Garber, Harvard says the Trump administration bypassed key procedural steps it must, by law, take before sequestering any federal funds. It also charges that the Trump administration does not aim, as it has publicly pledged, to combat campus antisemitism at Harvard but to impose “viewpoint-based conditions on Harvard’s funding.”
The administration has proposed that Harvard reform in ways that conservatives have long argued will make higher education more meritocratic and less welcoming to anti-Zionists and far-left extremists. Its “demands,” contained in a letter the administration sent to Garber — who subsequently released it to the public — called for “viewpoint diversity in hiring and admissions,” the “discontinuation of [diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives],” and “reducing forms of governance bloat.” They also implore Harvard to begin “reforming programs with egregious records of antisemitism” and to recalibrate its approach to “student discipline.”
Harvard rejects the Trump administration’s coupling of campus antisemitism with longstanding grievances regarding elite higher education’s alleged “wokeness,” elitism, and overwhelming bias against conservative ideas. Republican lawmakers, for their part, have maintained that it is futile to address campus antisemitism while ignoring the context in which it emerged.
On April 28, a Massachusetts district court judge, appointed to the bench by former US President Barack Obama, granted Harvard its request for the speedy processing of its case and a summary judgement in lieu of a trial, scheduling a hearing for July 21.
The following day, Harvard released its long anticipated report on campus antisemitism and along with it an apology from Garber which acknowledged that school officials failed in key ways to address the hatred to which Jewish students were subjected following the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre
The over 300-page document provided a complete account of antisemitic incidents which transpired on Harvard’s campus in recent years — from the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee’s (PSC) endorsement of the Oct. 7 terrorist atrocities to an anti-Zionist faculty group’s sharing an antisemitic cartoon which depicted Jews as murderers of people of color — and said that one source of the problem is the institution’s past refusal to afford Jews the same protections against discrimination enjoyed by other minority groups. It also issued recommendations for improving Jewish life on campus going forward.
“I am sorry for the moments when we failed to meet the high expectations we rightfully set for our community. The grave, extensive impact of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas assault on Israel and its aftermath had serious repercussions on campus,” Garber said in a statement accompanying the report. “Harvard cannot — and will not — abide bigotry. We will continue to provide for the safety and security of all members of our community and safeguard their freedom from harassment. We will redouble our efforts to ensure that the university is a place where ideas are welcomed, entertained, and contested in the spirt of seeking truth; where argument proceeds without sacrificing dignity; and where mutual respect is the norm.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Harvard, Jewish Activist ‘Shabbos’ Kestenbaum Settle Antisemitism Lawsuit first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Inaugural ‘Jewish Joy’ Convention Highlighting Pop Culture, Arts Scheduled for March 2026 in Florida
A flyer for “Jewish Joy Con.” Photo: Jewish Joy, LLC
A unique three-day convention that will celebrate Jewish pop culture, the arts, and creativity was officially launched on Tuesday by organizers, and will take place in early spring 2026.
The inaugural Jewish Joy Con is scheduled for March 13–15, 2026, at the Broward County Convention Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
The convention will include live music, comedy, and storytelling; panel discussions with bestselling Jewish authors and special guests; meet-and-greets with Jewish actors, writers, leaders, and influencers; a marketplace highlighting Jewish-owned businesses and vendors; immersive experiences with Jewish food, tradition, and spirituality; and discussions about Jewish identity, resilience, and joy. There will also be a Shabbat dinner experience and “Matzah Ball” dance party.
The convention will unite authors, readers, artists, creatives, influencers, and small business owners. The space can hold up to 10,000 attendees, more than 300 vendors, and a main stage with more than 2,500 seats.
The convention is being organized by Jewish Joy, LLC, an umbrella organization that includes various initiatives including the Facebook group Jewish Women Talk About Romance Books, The Jewish Joy Book Club, The Jewish Joy Box of curated and delivered packages, and Jewish Joy Con. The founder and CEO of Jewish Joy LLC is international bestselling author Jean Meltzer. Jewish Joy LLC is organizing the convention in collaboration with Mischief Management.
Meltzer is the author of five novels: “The Matzah Ball,” “Mr. Perfect on Paper,” “Kissing Kosher,” “Magical Meet Cute,” and “The Eight Heartbreaks of Hanukkah.” She is also a founding member of The Artists Against Antisemitism, and the creator and host of the podcast “Chronically Fabulous with Jean Meltzer.”
For more information about sponsoring, exhibiting, or presenting at Jewish Joy Con, people can visit the event’s website. Ticket sales will open in August.
The post Inaugural ‘Jewish Joy’ Convention Highlighting Pop Culture, Arts Scheduled for March 2026 in Florida first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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The New York Times Continues Its Campaign to Accuse Israel of ‘Genocide’
The headquarters of The New York Times. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
On and after Oct. 7, 2023, Israel’s prime minister and then-foreign minister made clear their plans for Hamas, the group responsible for the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.
On the day of the massacre, as Hamas attackers swarmed Israeli towns, Netanyahu spoke of the country’s straightforward goals: to repel the attack, defeat Hamas in Gaza, and deter other fronts. Per Haaretz:
Speaking at the beginning of the security cabinet meeting later on Saturday, Netanyahu said that “Our first goal is to purge the area of enemy forces that have infiltrated and restore security and peace to the towns that were attacked.”
The second goal according to Netanyahu, is to “exact a huge price from the enemy, also in the Gaza Strip. The third goal is to fortify other arenas so that no one makes the mistake of joining this war. [emphasis added]
In a separate statement that same day, Netanyahu said:
The IDF will immediately use all its strength to destroy Hamas’s capabilities. We will destroy them and we will forcefully avenge this dark day that they have forced on the State of Israel and its citizens. As Bialik wrote: ‘Revenge for the blood of a little child has yet been devised by Satan’.
All of the places which Hamas is deployed, hiding and operating in, that wicked city, we will turn them into rubble.
I say to the residents of Gaza: Leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere.
At this hour, the IDF is clearing the terrorists out of the last communities. They are going community by community, house by house, and are restoring our control.
I embrace and send heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families whose loved ones were murdered today in cold blood and endless brutality. [emphasis added]
Two days after the attack, defense minister Yoav Gallant said of Hamas, “We are fighting human animals.” It was a phrase he also used elsewhere to refer to the terror group that he dubbed the ISIS of Gaza.
Three weeks later, as Israel began its ground offensive in Gaza, Netanyahu explained that Israel’s army “does everything to avoid harming non-combatants” and stated that the goals of the war are clear: “Destroying Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, and bringing the captives back home.”
In that speech, he also recited a verse from Deuteronomy. “Remember what Amalek did to you,” he said several sentences after speaking about protecting non-combatants in Gaza. It is a passage that Jewish tradition and Holocaust memorials have long used as a call to remember the oppressors of the Jewish people, including the Nazis, which some consider the spiritual heirs of Amalek.
None of these quotes are particularly surprising or, given the context, notable. Hamas slaughtered Israeli civilians in one of the worst terror attacks in modern memory. Israel said that in response it would destroy the group, and its leaders had harsh words for the group behind the massacre.
And yet so many anti-Israel commentators have absurdly cited those very statements as purported evidence of “genocide.”
A New York Times Guest Essay this week by Omer Bartov is just the latest example. Bartov points to the passages cited above as his leading examples to purport “genocidal intent” by Israel’s leaders.
This is because intent — not simply death resulting from war — is key to the legal definition of “genocide,” as Bartov must acknowledge in his piece:
The crime of genocide was defined in 1948 by the United Nations as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” In determining what constitutes genocide, therefore, we must both establish intent and show that it is being carried out.
He then claims — as if he hadn’t just cited unremarkable martial language by Israel’s decision makers — that “In Israel’s case, that intent has been publicly expressed by numerous officials and leaders.”
Some lower-ranking Israeli politicians have gone farther. After misconstruing Netanyahu and Gallant’s words, the author points to vitriolic statements by Israel’s finance minister and deputy speaker of Parliament. Both are hardliners far to the right of those with practical authority over the direction of the war — the prime minister and defense minister. But clearly Bartov recognizes that the words by lower-ranking officials, however over-the-top, weren’t enough to make his case. So he invents genocidal rhetoric to manufacture genocidal intent.
Bartov recruits others in support of his allegation. These include Francesca Albanese, the extremist rapporteur and rape denier who herself has relied on misquoted and misrepresented statements by Israeli officials to justify her allegation, and Amnesty International, whose charge of genocide hinges on an assembly line of distorted quotes.
And at the same time, Bartov laments that “only a few scholars of the Holocaust” have echoed his allegation, and that “Most Holocaust scholars I know don’t hold, or at least publicly express” the view that the war is a genocide. (Somewhat puzzlingly, Bartov insists that it isn’t even a war because it is — by contrast? — a series of battles against a group that “continues to fight Israeli forces” while “retaining control” over territory not held by Israel.)
If most scholars don’t agree with Bartov and fellow anti-Israel activists who seem to dominate the discussion, perhaps it is because they recognize that Israel’s calls to destroy Hamas and angry descriptions of the terror group are hardly evidence of genocidal intent — even if The New York Times has chosen to join the campaign to misrepresent those statements.
Gilead Ini is a Senior Research Analyst at CAMERA, the foremost media watchdog organization focused on coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The post The New York Times Continues Its Campaign to Accuse Israel of ‘Genocide’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Despite Pending Federal Agreement, Columbia University Still Tolerates Antisemitism
A pro-Palestinian protester holds a sign that reads, “Faculty for justice in Palestine,” during a protest urging Columbia University to cut ties with Israel, Nov. 15, 2023, in New York City. Photo: Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Columbia University may soon earn a dubious distinction in civil rights history — it may become the first American college so contaminated by antisemitism that it must sign a contract promising to remedy the affliction.
After October 7, 2023, when the Hamas terrorist group launched its latest war on Israel, Columbia University became the epicenter of antisemitism in American higher education.
According to a 2024 Congressional report on college antisemitism, Columbia officials displayed “deliberate indifference” as pro-Palestinian students and faculty attacked Jewish students and faculty with physical assaults, vandalism, classroom disruptions, and harassment in breach of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
Columbia’s leadership acknowledged the civil rights breakdown by the end of 2023, and took steps to correct it. Unfortunately, events since then have proven that the remedial efforts fell short.
Last semester, the school logged four more outbursts of antisemitism, including an illegal and antisemitic “occupation” in the school’s Belmont Library. In March, the US Department of Education canceled $400 million of Federal grants to Columbia based on its failure to address the antisemitic abuses. On May 22, a Federal government civil rights agency notified Columbia that it remained in violation of the law. In June, the government reported the legal malfeasance to Columbia’s accreditation agency. Meanwhile, the Anti-Defamation League’s 2025 Campus Antisemitism Report Card rated Columbia “D” for “Deficient.”
Columbia is now negotiating a settlement agreement with the government in which the university must improve its civil rights record in exchange for the restoration of its Federal funding. Observers predict the school will compensate the victims of antisemitic discrimination and make data disclosures designed to ensure that its policies of hiring, admissions, and donations from foreign governments do not cause future discrimination.
But the reasons for Columbia’s continuing noncompliance are obvious.
To begin with, the institution’s Board of Trustees lacks respect for the civil rights of its Jewish students.
In March, when they appointed board member Claire Shipman to serve as Columbia’s acting president, they must have known she had downplayed the college’s antisemitism crisis as a public relations headache. Her emails to colleagues from 2023 to 2024 recommended the creation of an antisemitism task force as “one of very few workable responses” to take the “pressure” off the school and “inoculate” it from government scrutiny, which she called “capital [sic] hill nonsense.”
She believed the widespread student fear of antisemitic aggression was “not necessarily a rational feeling.” Regarding a pro-Israel Jewish board member, she remarked “I don’t think she should be on the board.” She thought that the board should include an “Arab” or someone else from the Middle East. She pushed to “unsuspend” certain campus protest groups. And she wanted a brighter academic spotlight for a hardline pro-Palestinian professor. By elevating Shipman to the role of acting president, the board irresponsibly put a PR-minded inmate in charge of the legally imperiled asylum.
Columbia’s foot-dragging on the civil rights issue is not limited to the trustees. Certain Columbia faculty members attended the school’s antisemitic rallies and propagandized in favor of Hamas. In early March, dozens of the professors lambasted Columbia’s then President Katrina Armstrong for buckling under the pressure of President Trump’s funding cuts to enforce the civil rights of Jewish students. Apparently, they forgot that Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy had federalized National Guard troops to enforce the civil rights of African American students. Days after the internal blowback, Armstrong resigned.
A second deficiency in Columbia’s civil rights governance is its lax definition of antisemitism. Columbia declined to update its Rules of University Conduct with the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism. The IHRA definition has been adopted by the student governments of major universities nationwide, as well as most US states, the US government, Canada, 26 EU member states, and many other countries.
Columbia crafted a narrower definition of antisemitism that creates loopholes for antisemitic invective while evading institutional responsibility for the resulting harm. For example, the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is considered antisemitic under the IHRA standard because it implicitly denies the Jewish right of self-determination. Columbia’s own former President Minouche Shafik admitted in 2024 that the slogan is antisemitic.
The offensive phrase was chanted by Columbia protestors at an illegal demonstration in 2024 and repeated by the Belmont Library offenders in May. Nevertheless, this hate speech is not antisemitic under Columbia’s limited definition, because that definition ignores denials of Jewish self-determination — and calls for the destruction of Israel (which “From the river to the sea” is).
Columbia doesn’t even use its minimized interpretation of antisemitism in civil rights investigations. The concept is expressly authorized only for training.
Radical Columbia opponents of the IHRA standard of antisemitism defend their Jew-baiting insults as expressions of free speech. But IHRA does not regulate speech. It only helps identify antisemitism, just as the “N” word helps identify racism. Even where speech is deemed antisemitic, it is punishable only to the extent it creates a “hostile educational environment” or serves as a heightening factor in determining the penalty for otherwise criminal activity.
A third failure in Columbia’s civil rights program is the lack of accountability. After the Belmont Library fiasco, Columbia’s Judicial Board imposed interim suspensions on 65 of the guilty students. The large number of sanctions was an encouraging sign. But because the penalty periods vary greatly in length and mostly remain undisclosed, their deterrent effect is weak. In February, after three pro-Palestinian lawbreakers were suspended for one to two years, they showed no remorse. On the contrary, they sued the university, swearing “We will not stop. We will not rest.”
All American schools must protect American civil rights. The job should not require the discipline of a government contract.
Joel M. Margolis is the Legal Commentator, American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, US Affiliate of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists. His 2021 book, The Israeli-Palestinian Legal War, analyzed the major legal issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Previously he worked as a telecommunications lawyer in both the public and private sectors.
The post Despite Pending Federal Agreement, Columbia University Still Tolerates Antisemitism first appeared on Algemeiner.com.