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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.


The post Harvard, Penn, Columbia announce steps to address antisemitism following campus turmoil appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa

Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.

Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.

“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”

GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’

Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.

“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.

“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.

“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.

After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”

RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL

Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”

Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.

“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”

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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco

Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.

People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.

“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”

Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.

On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.

Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.

On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.

“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.

Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.

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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.

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