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Henry Rosovsky, refugee from the Nazis who shaped Harvard University, dies at 95
BOSTON (JTA) — When Harvard University’s rabbi first pushed to relocate the Hillel from the outskirts of campus to its center, Henry Rosovsky was initially skeptical.
“He was absolutely right. I was wrong,” Rosovsky told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in 2017, at a 25th anniversary party for the Hillel building that bears his name: Rosovsky Hall.
The event was also a 90th birthday party for Rosovsky, an economist who almost all of his career at Harvard, spanning decades in which he influenced the school’s curriculum, led a committee charged with improving conditions for Black students and shepherded the flourishing of Jewish life on campus.
Rosovsky died Nov. 11 at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he lived and worked since joining the Harvard faculty in 1965. He was 95.
“His legacy continues to influence the experience of every person on our campus today,” Harvard President Lawrence Bacow, who is Jewish, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “With his passing, Harvard has lost one of its greatest champions and its finest citizens.”
At his funeral at Temple Israel of Boston, Rosovsky was remembered by family, colleagues and friends for his brilliance, witty humor, love of tennis and jazz, and his sage advice and mentorship.
His daughter, Leah Rosovsky, said her father took his greatest satisfaction in the role he played in establishing what is now Harvard’s African and African American Studies Program and recruiting its longtime chair, historian Henry Louis Gates Jr., who attended the funeral.
Born in a Jewish family on Sept. 1, 1927 in what is now Gdansk, Poland, Rosovsky immigrated to the United States with his parents and brother in 1940, after escaping the Nazis through France, Portugal, Spain and Belgium. He volunteered for the U.S. Army in World War II and also served in the Korean War, according to an obituary published by Harvard. After graduating from the College of William and Mary, he arrived at Harvard for the first time in 1949 to pursue a doctorate in economics.
In 1965, he returned as a professor of economics, with a specialty in Japanese and Asian economic development. He would stay at the university for the rest of his career, shaping not only the Ivy League college but Boston’s Jewish community.
As dean of Harvard’s College of Arts and Sciences from 1973 to 1991, Rosovsky led implementation of the school’s groundbreaking core curriculum. He also served two terms as Harvard’s acting president; was appointed a member of the Harvard Corporation, where he was the first Jew on the school’s governing body; and oversaw the establishment of Harvard’s Center for Jewish Studies.
In 1969, with student unrest spurring changes at many universities, Rosovsky led a committee to study the experience of Black students at Harvard. The resulting “Rosovsky report” urged the creation of a standalone department for African and African American studies and other steps to integrate and empower Black students. Rosovsky quit the committee after students were given equal say, a move that he said should have taken place only after careful study. He resumed his involvement shortly before his retirement in the 1990s, recruiting high-profile scholars including Gates to transform the department into an academic powerhouse.
Rosovsky’s 1990 book “The University: An Owner’s Manual,” exposed outsiders to the complex operations of a research university. But the former dean was equally helpful to university insiders, Bacow said, noting the time Rosovsky devoted to doling out advice to college presidents. Several of Harvard’s presidents, including Drew Gilpin Faust, Lawrence H. Summers and Neil Rudenstine, echoed that sentiment in published remarks at the celebration of his 90th birthday.
His reach extended beyond Harvard, too. As chair of the Boston Jewish federation’s strategic planning committee in the 1990s, Rosovsky shared his analytical expertise and his ability to bring people together to help chart a course for Boston’s Jewish community, according to Barry Shrage, who for decades led the Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston.
“It was a turning point in terms of Jewish learning, adult Jewish education, building community at the grassroots and engaging synagogues,” Shrage told JTA in a conversation at the funeral. “It all emerged in the strategic plan.”
Shrage added, “He was a secular Jew but his Jewish identity deeply influenced his vision of the world.”
Rosovsky is survived by Nitza, his wife of 66 years and a former longtime curator of the Semitic Museum at Harvard; his children, Leah, Judy and Michael and their spouses; four grandchildren; and one great-granddaughter.
“He didn’t set out to trumpet his own Jewish identity,” Rabbi Jonah Steinberg, Harvard Hillel’s executive director, told JTA in 2017 about Rosovsky. “By being very honestly who they are, they were an example to others.”
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Lebanon Plans UN Complaint Against Israel Over Border Wall
A UN vehicle drives near a concrete wall along Lebanon’s southern border which, according to the Lebanese presidency, extends beyond the “Blue Line”, a U.N.-mapped line separating Lebanon from Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, as seen from northern Israel, November 16, 2025. REUTERS/Shir Torem
Lebanon will file a complaint to the U.N. Security Council against Israel for constructing a concrete wall along Lebanon’s southern border that extends beyond the “Blue Line,” the Lebanese presidency said on Saturday.
The Blue Line is a U.N.-mapped line separating Lebanon from Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Israeli forces withdrew to the Blue Line when they left south Lebanon in 2000.
A spokesperson for the U.N. secretary-general, Stephane Dujarric, said on Friday the wall has made more than 4,000 square meters (nearly an acre) of Lebanese territory inaccessible to the local population.
The Lebanese presidency echoed his remarks, saying in a statement that Israel’s ongoing construction constituted “a violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 and an infringement on Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Dujarric said the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) had requested that the wall be removed.
An Israeli military spokesperson denied on Friday that the wall crossed the Blue Line.
“The wall is part of a broader IDF plan whose construction began in 2022,” the spokesperson said, referring to the Israel Defense Forces.
“Since the start of the war, and as part of lessons learned from it, the IDF has been advancing a series of measures, including reinforcing the physical barrier along the northern border.”
UNIFIL, established in 1978, operates between the Litani River in the north and the Blue Line in the south. The mission has more than 10,000 troops from 50 countries and about 800 civilian staff, according to its website.
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Iran Says US Is Not Ready for ‘Equal and Fair’ Nuclear Talks
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi speaks during a meeting with foreign ambassadors in Tehran, Iran, July 12, 2025. Photo: Hamid Forootan/Iranian Foreign Ministry/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Washington’s current approach toward Tehran does not indicate any readiness for “equal and fair negotiations,” Iran’s foreign minister said on Sunday, after US President Donald Trump hinted last week at potential discussions.
Following Israel’s attack on Iran in June, which was joined by U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, attempts at renewing dialogue on Tehran’s nuclear program have failed.
The United States, its European allies and Israel accuse Tehran of using its nuclear program as a veil for efforts to develop the capability to produce weapons. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.
Tehran and Washington underwent five rounds of indirect nuclear talks prior to the 12-days-war, but faced obstacles such as the issue of domestic uranium enrichment, which the U.S. wants Iran to forego.
“The U.S. cannot expect to gain what it couldn’t in war through negotiations,” Abbas Araqchi said during a Tehran conference named “international law under assault.”
“Iran will always be prepared to engage in diplomacy, but not negotiations meant for dictation,” he added.
During the same conference, deputy foreign minister Saeed Khatibzadeh accused Washington of pursuing its wartime goals with “negotiations as a show.”
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Israeli Government Decides ‘Independent’ Commission to Investigate Oct. 7 Failures
The Israeli Supreme Court in Jerusalem. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
i24 News – The Israeli government has approved the creation of an “independent” commission of inquiry to examine the failures that enabled the Hamas assault of October 7, 2023.
However, in a move sharply criticized by the opposition and contrary to the recommendation of the Supreme Court, the panel will not be a formal state commission of inquiry. Instead, its mandate, authorities, and scope will be determined directly by government ministers.
According to the decision, the commission will receive full investigative powers and must be composed in a way that ensures “the broadest possible public trust.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will form a special ministerial committee tasked with defining what the inquiry may investigate, the time periods to be reviewed, and the authority it will receive. The committee has 45 days to deliver its recommendations.
For the past year, the government has repeatedly resisted calls to establish a state commission, arguing at first that such a body could not operate during wartime. Later, some ministers accused Supreme Court President Isaac Amit of being incapable of appointing an impartial chairperson.
But on October 15, the High Court of Justice ruled that there was “no substantive argument” against forming a state commission, giving the government 30 days to respond.
Netanyahu maintains that responsibility for the October 7 failures lies primarily with Israel’s security agencies rather than with political leaders.
His critics accuse him of creating a weaker, government-controlled inquiry designed to limit scrutiny of his decisions, undermining the prospect of full accountability for the deadliest attack in Israel’s history.