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Yom HaShoah and Harvard’s Complete Refusal to Address Hatred and Attacks on Jews
April 20, 2025, Cambridge, MA, USA: Harvard University and Harvard Square scenes with students and pedestrians. Photo: Kenneth Martin/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect.
Last week Israel commemorated Yom HaShoah, the country’s Holocaust Remembrance Day.
As I stood at silent attention along with an entire country, listening to the one minute long commemorative siren and thinking of the role the Holocaust has played in our collective past, I couldn’t help but hear its haunting echoes in our present.
Harvard University recently filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, purportedly in defense of “academic freedom.” The specific “freedom” Harvard is defending is to harass, intimidate, and physically assault Jewish students with impunity, and in violation of Title VI of the Federal Civil Rights Act. Harvard now claims that the White House’s actions violate the university’s First Amendment rights. They do not.
A quick note: at RealityCheck we encourage our readers to support (and oppose) policies, rather than people. How one feels about any politician (including President Trump) should be irrelevant to one’s opinion on the safety of Jewish students, and the proper enforcement of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Here’s what you need to know to build your own, well-informed opinion.
Since October 7, 2023, Harvard University has been host to more than a year and a half of attacks on Jewish students, including: physical assaults, vandalism, harassment, demonstrations, divestment resolutions, classroom disruptions, calls for “intifada” and other death threats, and a disgraced university president who infamously testified before Congress that calling for the genocide of Jews might not be antisemitic because, “it depends on the context.”
The Trump administration has demanded that Harvard University comply with a list of requirements to ensure basic safety and equal protection for all students on campus, including: banning masks by protesters, cooperating with law enforcement, reviewing disciplinary policies, increasing accountability by those responsible for student safety, and an end to so-called “Diversity Equity and Inclusion” (DEI) programs, which for years have been used to limit Jewish and Asian admissions to Harvard (and which have been rejected by the United States Supreme Court).
Upon Harvard’s refusal to comply with its demands, the administration made good on a threat to pull $2 billion in Federal funding, with the promise of more cuts to come, as well as a request that the IRS consider revoking the university’s tax exempt status.
In its lawsuit, Harvard claims it has a First Amendment right to refuse the White House’s Title VI demands. It does not.
As a general matter, the First Amendment guarantees the right to all manner of abhorrent personal expression, including: racism, obscenity, outright lies, victim blaming and victim shaming, and even the right to oppose basic American values. However, nothing in the US Constitution obligates the American people to pay for such activities.
More specifically, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act requires that, “No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”
In this case, Jewish students at Harvard most certainly suffered exclusion, and were most certainly denied the benefits of a safe education, at an institution that is Federally funded to the tune of billions of US taxpayer dollars.
Harvard has objected not only that the funding cuts are illegal under the First Amendment, but also immoral because they will impact a variety of research programs that provide positive benefits to the world, including in fields like health care. Yet a long line of Supreme Court cases, following the 1974 precedent of Bob Jones University v. Johnson, disagree. These cases hold that, by choosing to violate the Civil Rights Act, a university endangers Federal funding for all of its programs, and that it is absolutely appropriate for the Federal government to use such funding as leverage to ensure compliance. In effect, the Supreme Court’s view is that it is the university, and not the White House, that is endangering its own programs: by permitting racism within its ranks, in violation of Federal funding rules.
Harvard does have a potentially successful argument that the White House did not follow certain procedural requirements, such as providing notice and an administrative hearing. However, even if successful, this argument will not prevent Federal funding cuts, but will merely require the White House to fulfill the mechanical requirements before moving forward.
Harvard’s campus newspaper has touted an open letter signed by some 100 Jewish students objecting to the White House’s demands, claiming that President Trump is causing more harm than good. However, those 100 signatures comprise only 4.6% of Harvard’s approximately 2,300 Jewish students. In other words, over 95% of Harvard’s Jewish population did not sign the letter, including students such as Shabbos Kestenbaum, who is pursuing one of several ongoing Title VI lawsuits against the university, and students like Yoav Segev and Moshe Y. Dembitzer, who were recently a part of related suits.
The case has been set for oral arguments on July 21 before US District Court Judge Allison Burroughs, an Obama appointee, who previously ruled in favor of Harvard’s racially motivated admissions policies. Judge Burroughs’ decision was subsequently overruled by the Supreme Court.
To get an idea of how Harvard’s lawsuit is likely to play out, either at the trial level or eventually on appeal, one may look to the ongoing case of Gartenberg v Cooper Union, the New York college where students attempted to hide in a library while under violent, antisemitic attack, just weeks after the massacre of October 7. In February, Judge John P. Cronan vigorously denied the college’s motion to dismiss stating, “The Court is dismayed by Cooper Union’s suggestion that the Jewish students should have hidden upstairs or left the building, or that locking the library doors was enough to discharge its obligations under Title VI. These events took place in 2023—not 1943—and Title VI places responsibility on colleges and universities to protect their Jewish students from harassment, not on those students to hide themselves away in a proverbial attic or attempt to escape from a place they have a right to be.”
I could not have said it better myself, and so I won’t attempt to: these events took place in 2023 — not 1943.
Excluding Jews from academic life through violence and intimidation, all while cloaked in the garment of arrogant moralizing, was one of the most notable hallmarks of early Nazi Germany, long before such exclusion became codified into Nazi law. Whether history will repeat itself depends on what America does next.
This year, on Yom HaShoah, “never again” must mean now.
Daniel Pomerantz is the CEO of RealityCheck, an organization dedicated to deepening public conversation through robust research studies and public speaking.
The post Yom HaShoah and Harvard’s Complete Refusal to Address Hatred and Attacks on Jews first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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French Authorities Replant Memorial Olive Tree and Launch Seventh Ilan Halimi Award
A crowd gathers at the Jardin Ilan Halimi in Paris on Feb. 14, 2021, to commemorate the 15th anniversary of Halimi’s kidnapping and murder. Photo: Reuters/Xose Bouzas/Hans Lucas
French authorities planted a new olive tree on Wednesday to honor Ilan Halimi, nearly a decade after the young French Jewish man was tortured to death and two weeks after a previous commemorative tree was cut down.
Hervé Chevreau, mayor of the norther Paris suburb Épinay, announced that several olive trees will be replanted in Halimi’s memory, praising “a remarkable outpouring of solidarity” reflected in the donations.
With a commemorative ceremony on Wednesday, the first olive tree will be planted in Saint-Ouen, a northern suburb of Paris in the Île-de-France region.
“In the context of rising antisemitic acts, the community aims to reaffirm its steadfast commitment against hatred, forgetfulness, and indifference,” Chevreau said in a statement. “This gesture of reflection and resilience responds to the serious act of vandalism in Épinay-sur-Seine, where the commemorative tree was deliberately cut down.”
Halimi was abducted, held captive, and tortured in January 2006 by a gang of about 20 people in a low-income housing estate in the Paris suburb of Bagneux.
Three weeks later, he was found in Essonne, south of Paris, naked, gagged, and handcuffed, with clear signs of torture and burns. The 23-year-old died on the way to the hospital.
In 2011, an olive tree was planted in Halimi’s memory. Earlier this month, the memorial was found felled — probably with a chainsaw — in Epinay-sur-Seine.
Halimi’s memory has faced attacks before, with two other trees planted in his honor vandalized in 2019 in Essonne.
During Wednesday’s ceremony, numerous prominent figures attended, including France’s Chief Rabbi Haim Korsia, Yonathan Arfi, President of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF), Labor Minister Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet, and Minister for Gender Equality and the Fight Against Discrimination Aurore Bergé.
At the event, Bergé announced the launch of the seventh edition of the Ilan Halimi Award, marking 20 years since his disappearance.
Established in 2018, the award seeks to fight racism and antisemitism by inspiring young people to take action.
Since then, French authorities have annually recognized projects led by young people aged 13 to 25 from schools, universities, associations, and civic or integration programs.
“The launch of the 2026 edition of the Ilan Halimi Award in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois is more than an act of remembrance — it is a pledge to the future,” Bergé said during the ceremony.
Ils peuvent tronçonner un arbre, nous replanterons.
Ils peuvent abattre un arbre, nous ferons vivre la mémoire.Nous ne laisserons pas Ilan Halimi disparaître une nouvelle fois.
Le Prix Ilan Halimi 2026 est lancé. pic.twitter.com/Tn9SxlARJA
— Aurore Bergé (@auroreberge) September 2, 2025
Last week, two 19-year-old Tunisian twin brothers, undocumented and with prior convictions for theft and violence, were arrested in France for allegedly vandalizing and cutting down Halimi’s memorial.
Both brothers appeared in criminal court and were remanded in custody pending their trial, scheduled for Oct. 22.
They will face trial on charges of “aggravated destruction of property” and “desecration of a monument dedicated to the memory of the dead on the basis of race, ethnicity, nationality, or religion,” offenses that, according to prosecutors, carry a sentence of up to two years in prison.
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After Deadly Firebombing, Boulder Jews Forced to Hide Weekly Hostage March Due to Escalating Harassment
Boulder attack suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman poses for a jail booking photograph after his arrest in Boulder, Colorado, US, June 2, 2025. Photo: Boulder Police Department/Handout via REUTERS
A group of Jewish activists advocating for the Israeli hostages still held captive by Hamas terrorists in Gaza has announced plans to cease publicizing planned demonstrations and increase security in response to continued community intimidation in the months following a June 1 Molotov cocktail attack that left one person dead and 13 injured.
The group Run for Their Lives includes more than 230 chapters globally, and the one based in Boulder will now take extra measures to protect participants since the attack, for which authorities have charged alleged assailant Mohamed Sabry Soliman, which has in turn provoked further opposition.
Videos reviewed by the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) show anti-Israel demonstrators calling event attendees “Nazi,” “racist,” and “genocidal c**t.”
A local politician running for city council has also demonized the hostage supporters.
CBS Colorado reported that Aaron Stone allegedly called Rachel Amaru, the chapter’s Jewish founder, a “Nazi,” a slur he defended as “a very strong word to use.” He further said that in looking at Amaru he was “not seeing a Jewish person” but rather “someone who is walking down the street talking about 20 hostages and ignoring the two million Palestinian hostages that are being kept in Gaza.”
Brandon Rattiner, senior director of the local Jewish Community Relations Council, said in a statement that “participants are facing a level of harassment that makes it impossible to continue safely in public view.”
Stefanie Clarke, who serves as co-executive director of Stop Antisemitism Colorado, added in a statement that “it is unacceptable that less than three months after a deadly antisemitic attack, Jews in Boulder are once again being forced into hiding.”
Clarke stated that “we will not be intimidated, and we will not be driven out of public spaces where we should feel safe. The fact that someone seeking a seat on City Council is at the center of this harassment should be cause for alarm. Boulder cannot claim to be a city of inclusion and justice while giving a platform to Jew hate.”
The mountain states regional branch of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released its own statement in support of the pro-Israel activists.
“We stand in firm solidarity with the Boulder chapter of Run for Their Lives following their difficult decision to no longer publicly disclose the location of their events,” the organization said. “It is deeply unfortunate that after enduring the horrific June 1 firebomb attack that resulted in the death of a community member, participants now face such persistent harassment that they must keep their gatherings secret to simply stay safe.”
On July 15, Soliman, who pleaded not guilty, waved his right to a preliminary hearing in a case where the 150 state charges and 12 federal charges include murder and attempted murder. He will see a judge on Tuesday for a scheduled arraignment and faces life imprisonment if convicted.
Prosecutors say that Soliman, an Egyptian who came to the United States on a B-2 Tourist Visa in August 2022, told police that “he wanted to kill all Zionist people” and that he sought to murder 20 of the demonstrators. A note found in his car read “Zionism is our enemies untill [sic] Jerusalem is liberated and they are expelled from our land.”
Soliman also reportedly said that he had planned the attack for a year and planned it for after his daughter’s graduation. Federal officials sought to deport Soliman’s family; however, a judge blocked that effort.
“This is a proper end to an absurd legal effort on the plaintiff’s part. Just like her terrorist husband, she and her children are here illegally and are rightfully in ICE [US Immigration and Customs Enforcement] custody for removal as a result,” Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement. “This terrorist will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. We are investigating to what extent his family knew about this heinous attack, if they had knowledge of it, or if they provided support to it.”
In August, the ADL released a report ranking Colorado — which contains approximately 110,400 Jewish residents, accounting for 1.9 percent of the population — as eighth in the country for combating antisemitism.
“I am thrilled that the Anti-Defamation League has recognized Colorado as a national leader in fighting antisemitism, but there is much more to do,” the state’s governor Jared Polis said at the time. “Such hate and violence have no place in our Colorado for All, and that is why Colorado is leading the way to combat these trends and protect Coloradans’ right to worship how you want, making Colorado safer.”
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Lead Writer of Upcoming DC Comics Series Celebrated Oct. 7 Massacre in Resurfaced Social Media Posts
Gretchen Felker-Martin joins a virtual discussion from home. Photo: Screenshot
Gretchen Felker-Martin, an author and film critic who was recently announced as lead writer of the upcoming DC Comics series “Red Hood,” has an extensive history of endorsing terrorist acts and defending the murder of Jews and Israelis, according to a review of the writer’s social media posts.
In the posts — screenshots of which circulated on X/Twitter and other platforms this week — Felker-Martin appeared to praise Osama bin Laden for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the US and expressed support for Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
During the Oct. 7 onslaught, as Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages in the deadliest single-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, Felker-Martin argued that Israeli civilians are “settlers” and an “occupying force whose daily lives serve to grind out the hope, culture, and memory of those they oppress.” She also seemingly defended Hamas’s murdering of Israeli babies, saying that Israel is an “imperialist nightmare” and that Hamas is trying to “survive their rule by any means necessary.”
Hamas is designated by several countries as a terrorist organization.
“You cannot subject human beings to brutal conditions under which no hope for a meaningful future exists and then blame them for violent action taken to correct this state. Free Palestine,” she wrote on Oct. 7.
Later that month, Felker-Martin wrote that “Zionism is full-fledged Nazism and has accrued mainstream support throughout the west because of that, not in spite of it.”
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As the ensuing war in Gaza continued in the months ahead, Felker-Martin sharpened her criticisms of Israel, condemning Zionists as “crazy” and comparing them to “slime.” The writer also lambasted Neil Druckmann, the Israeli creator of the popular “The Last of Us” video game series, for being a “Zionist.” She encouraged fellow progressives not to support then-US Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, condemning Harris for not “moving an inch on the genocide.” She also falsely accused Israel of inflicting a “famine” in Gaza and repudiated actress Hailee Steinfeld as a “Zionist piece of s**t.” Steinfeld has seemingly not made public statements about Israel but came under fire from leftists after she visited the Jewish state with family in 2019 for a party.
Felker-Martin separately defended Osama bin Laden’s role in the Sept. 11 terror attacks, writing that “blowing up the World Trade Center is probably the most principled and defensible thing he ever did.”
Jewish organizations and antisemitism watchdog groups quickly condemned the remarks. StandWithUs, a nonpartisan pro-Israel organization, urged DC Comics to reconsider hiring Felker-Martin, citing her inflammatory and offensive commentary.