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New York Times Lets Harvard Professor Whitewash University’s Jew-Hate
The New York Times building in New York City. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
“Harvard Derangement Syndrome” is the headline that the New York Times put over a 4,000-word article by Steven Pinker that it recently published. Pinker’s point is that “the invective now being aimed at Harvard has become unhinged.”
Yet if anyone has “become unhinged,” it is Pinker and his editors at the Times, who look silly in their eagerness to minimize Harvard’s antisemitism problem. Pinker calls it Harvard’s “alleged antisemitism,” which gives you a flavor of just how detached from reality the overall article is.
Don’t take my word for it. Here is a White House Memo in the Times from Maggie Haberman: “On substance, there are several Republicans and Democrats who share Mr. Trump’s view that Harvard and other major colleges are long overdue in addressing cultural issues. They welcome a focus on the antisemitism that was on display at some of the campus protests against Israel’s response to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack.” Haberman writes antisemitism, not “alleged antisemitism.”
Here is a staff editorial in the New York Times: “some universities have failed to stand up to antisemitism.” Not “alleged antisemitism.”
Here is an email to the Harvard community from Harvard’s own president, Alan Garber, about a cartoon posted to social media by student and faculty anti-Israel groups: “The Antisemitic Cartoon.” Not “allegedly antisemitic.” Garber called it “flagrantly antisemitic.” The image was of a hand with a star of David and a dollar sign holding nooses around the necks of Gamal Abdel Nasser and Muhammad Ali.
Pinker goes on to write, “though the 300-page antisemitism report reviews every instance it could find in the past century, down to the last graffito and social media post, it cited no expressions of a goal to ‘destroy the Jews,’ let alone signs that it was the ‘dominant view on campus.’”
The antisemitism report was extensive, but it made no pretense of being either exhaustive or comprehensive. And even so, Pinker’s straw-man standard of a publicly expressed goal to destroy the Jews being the dominant view on campus is ridiculous. There were student groups cheering on the October 7 terrorist attack by Hamas as a justified act of liberation and resistance. There were mobs chanting “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “intifadah, intifadah, globalize the intifadah.” What does Pinker imagine is going to happen to the Jews in such a scenario? If he thinks Hamas is going to let the Jews live in peace, he’s deluding himself. The reason that members of Congress were asking then-Harvard president Claudine Gay questions about whether it was acceptable to call for the genocide of Jews on the Harvard campus wasn’t that the members of Congress were fantasizing, it was that the Jewish students at Harvard at the time and their allies perceived it as an ongoing problem.
Pinker also writes, “I have experienced no antisemitism in my two decades at Harvard, and nor have other prominent Jewish faculty members.”
Did Pinker not see the cartoon that Garber called “flagrantly antisemitic”? Did he not attend the Commencement last year when the speaker and honorary degree recipient “delivered off-the-cuff comments that appeared to echo traditional conspiracy theories about Jews, money, and power,” according to the report of Harvard’s own task force on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias, which described them as “seemingly antisemitic remarks”? Does he not read the Crimson or watch social media accounts of protests with students changing slogans such as “We don’t want no Zionists here?” If Pinker really hasn’t experienced any antisemitism, he must not get out much.
And anyway, what kind of allyship is this by Pinker to students, faculty, and staff who have been targeted by antisemitism? After a spate of campus rapes, would the Times publish a piece from a professor who feels an appropriate response is asserting, I have taught on this campus for twenty years and have never once been raped?
Writing in National Review, Stanley Kurtz of the Ethics and Public Policy Center observes, “Pinker is underplaying the problems.” Kurtz sure has that correct.
Pinker teaches psychology, so he’s an expert. But it may not be only Harvard’s critics suffering from what Pinker calls “Harvard Derangement Syndrome.” Professor Pinker seems to have come down with a variant of it himself—a variety that manifests itself by writing New York Times opinion pieces that minimize genuine problems. That doesn’t help improve the situation for those Harvard Jews who have been less lucky than Pinker or who are more perceptive than he is in understanding what is happening around them.
Ira Stoll was managing editor of The Forward and North American editor of The Jerusalem Post. He writes frequently at TheEditors.com. His media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature, can be found here.
The post New York Times Lets Harvard Professor Whitewash University’s Jew-Hate first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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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.