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Wexner Foundation cuts ties with Harvard amid backlash over colleges’ response to Israel attack
(JTA) — The Wexner Foundation is cutting ties with Harvard University, where it has funded a fellowship for emerging Israeli leaders for more than three decades, over Harvard’s response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
More than 30 student groups signed a letter on the day of the attack blaming Israel while Harvard’s president, Claudine Gay, said nothing for two days, then issued a statement that critics panned as tepid. (Gay then issued two additional statements that more forcefully condemned Hamas.) The sequence of events has made Harvard a focal point for Jews and others concerned about how colleges and universities are responding to the attack and the ensuing Israel-Gaza war.
The Wexner Foundation funds a wide range of leadership programs for Jewish professionals, including a program at the Harvard Kennedy School that has brought 280 Israeli leaders to Harvard over 34 years. The current class will be the last, the foundation said, because of Harvard’s “tiptoeing, equivocating” response to the attack, in which 1,400 people were murdered.
“In the absence of this clear moral stand, we have determined that the Harvard Kennedy School and the Wexner Foundation are no longer compatible partners,” the foundation wrote in a letter made public on Monday.
The letter suggests that Gay’s response was a final straw in a diminishing relationship. The Israeli fellows have felt “increasingly marginalized,” the letter charges, and the university had not figured out how to “enable Israeli students to engage in productive — if difficult — dialogue within the school.”
The foundation’s decision drew applause from many of its former and current fellows on social media. “As both a Harvard alum & a Wexner alum, I was pleased to see this news today,” Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz posted on Facebook.
The decision also accomplished what some critics of the foundation had sought because of its ties to Jeffrey Epstein. The deceased convicted sex offender and alleged sex trafficker, who long touted his Harvard connections, was the personal financial advisor of Les Wexner, the foundation’s benefactor, causing some students to question their school’s continued acceptance of foundation funding.
Other prominent Harvard donors have raised concerns about the university’s handling of the attack in Israel but the foundation was the first to definitively and publicly cut off funding.
Harvard is not the only elite university to face backlash from major donors over Israel in recent days. Jon Huntsman, the non-Jewish politician and businessman, told the University of Pennsylvania this week that his family foundation will “close its checkbook” to the university because of “the University’s silence in the face of reprehensible and historic Hamas evil against the people of Israel (when the only response should be outright condemnation).”
Huntsman’s announcement followed a call by Marc Rowan, a member of the board of overseers of Penn’s Wharton School, for donors to halt their giving to the school to protest its response to the attack in Israel and its hosting last month of a Palestinian writers festival.
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The post Wexner Foundation cuts ties with Harvard amid backlash over colleges’ response to Israel attack appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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North London Synagogue, Nursery Targeted in Eighth Local Antisemitic Incident in Just Over a Week
Demonstrators against antisemitism in London on Sept. 8, 2025. Photo: Campaign Against Antisemitism
A synagogue and its nursery school in the Golders Green area of north London were targeted in an antisemitic attack on Thursday morning — the eighth such incident locally in just over a week amid a shocking surge of anti-Jewish hate crimes in the area.
The synagogue and Jewish nursery were smeared with excrement in an antisemitic outrage echoing a series of recent incidents targeting the local Jewish community.
“The desecration of another local synagogue and a children’s nursery with excrement is a vile, deliberate, and premeditated act of antisemitism,” Shomrim North West London, a Jewish organization that monitors antisemitism and also serves as a neighborhood watch group, said in a statement.
“This marks the eighth antisemitic incident locally in just over a week, to directly target the local Jewish community,” the statement read. “These repeated attacks have left our community anxious, hurt, and increasingly worried.”
Local law enforcement confirmed they are reviewing CCTV footage and collecting evidence to identify the suspect and bring them to justice.
This latest anti-Jewish hate crime came just days after tens of thousands of people marched through London in a demonstration against antisemitism, amid rising levels of antisemitic incidents across the United Kingdom since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
In just over a week, seven Jewish premises in Barnet, the borough in which Golders Green is located, have been targeted in separate antisemitic incidents.
According to the Metropolitan Police, an investigation has been launched into the targeted attacks, all of which involved the use of bodily fluids.
During the incidents, a substance was smeared on four synagogues and a private residence, while a liquid was thrown at a school and over a car in two other attacks.
As the investigation continues, local police said they believe the same suspect is likely responsible for all seven offenses, which are being treated as religiously motivated criminal damage.
No arrests have been made so far, but law enforcement said it is actively engaging with the local Jewish community to provide reassurance and support.
The Community Security Trust (CST), a nonprofit charity that advises Britain’s Jewish community on security matters, condemned the recent wave of attacks and called on authorities to take immediate action.
“The extreme defilement of several Jewish locations in and around Golders Green is utterly abhorrent and deeply distressing,” CST said in a statement.
“CST is working closely with police and communal partners to support victims and help identify and apprehend the perpetrator,” it continued.
The Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) also denounced the attacks, calling for urgent measures to protect the Jewish community.
“These repeated incidents are leaving British Jews anxious and vulnerable in their own neighborhoods, not to mention disgusted,” CAA said in a statement.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, the United Kingdom has experienced a surge in antisemitic crimes and anti-Israel sentiment.
Last month, CST published a report showing there were 1,521 antisemitic incidents in the UK from January to June of this year. It marks the second-highest total of incidents ever recorded by CST in the first six months of any year, following the first half of 2024 in which 2,019 antisemitic incidents were recorded.
In total last year, CST recorded 3,528 antisemitic incidents for 2024, the country’s second worst year for antisemitism despite being an 18 percent drop from 2023’s record of 4,296.
In previous years, the numbers were significantly lower, with 1,662 incidents in 2022 and 2,261 hate crimes in 2021.
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Germany to Hold Off on Recognizing Palestinian State but Will Back UN Resolution for Two-State Solution
German national flag flutters on top of the Reichstag building, that seats the Germany’s lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, in Berlin, Germany, March 25, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Lisi Niesner
Germany will support a United Nations resolution for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but does not believe the time has come to recognize a Palestinian state, a government spokesman told Reuters on Thursday.
“Germany will support such a resolution which simply describes the status quo in international law,” the spokesman said, adding that Berlin “has always advocated a two-state solution and is asking for that all the time.”
“The chancellor just mentioned two days ago again that Germany does not see that the time has come for the recognition of the Palestinian state,” the spokesman added.
Britain, France, Canada, Australia, and Belgium have all said they will recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly later this month, although London said it could hold back if Israel were to take steps to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and commit to a long-term peace process.
The United States strongly opposes any move by its European allies to recognize Palestinian independence.
Last week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the US has told other countries that recognition of a Palestinian state will cause more problems.
Those who see recognition as a largely symbolic gesture point to the negligible presence on the ground and limited influence in the conflict of countries such as China, India, Russia, and many Arab states that have recognized Palestinian independence for decades.
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UN Security Council, With US Support, Condemns Strikes on Qatar
Qatar’s Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani attends an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council, following an Israeli attack on Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar, at UN headquarters in New York City, US, Sept. 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
The United Nations Security Council on Thursday condemned recent strikes on Qatar’s capital Doha, but did not mention Israel in the statement agreed to by all 15 members, including Israel‘s ally the United States.
Israel attempted to kill the political leaders of Hamas with the attack on Tuesday, escalating its military action in what the United States described as a unilateral attack that does not advance US and Israeli interests.
The United States traditionally shields its ally Israel at the United Nations. US backing for the Security Council statement, which could only be approved by consensus, reflects President Donald Trump’s unhappiness with the attack ordered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Council members underscored the importance of de-escalation and expressed their solidarity with Qatar. They underlined their support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Qatar,” read the statement, drafted by Britain and France.
The Doha operation was especially sensitive because Qatar has been hosting and mediating negotiations aimed at securing a ceasefire in the Gaza war.
“Council members underscored that releasing the hostages, including those killed by Hamas, and ending the war and suffering in Gaza must remain our top priority,” the Security Council statement read.
The Security Council will meet later on Thursday to discuss the Israeli attack at a meeting due to be attended by Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani.