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Here is the official Harvard 2025 yearbook, in which 10/7/2023, the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, was labeled "War Breaks Out in Gaza."
This is like describing 9/11 as "War Breaks Out in Afghanistan." The above link comes from Shabbos Kestenbaum @ShabbosK, who also says, Please watch these 7 minutes of my graduation ceremony at Harvard. In this X post, he links to an appalling (but sadly, not very surprising) video. For those not on X, the video can also be found on Facebook.
It's not just Harvard. Here's graduation at the Hunter Graduate School for Social Work, which is part of the City University of New York. (Video link.)
How about that revered cornerstone of American science and technology, MIT? Guy Ziskind writes at X:
Today should have been a happy day. I finally got my PhD from MIT, with my 5-year-old twins, my 2-year-old and my parents (children of Holocaust survivors) traveling halfway around the world just to be there. Instead, MIT’s student commencement speaker decided it was appropriate to use the moment for hate-filled rhetoric against Israelis and Jews. And it wasn’t just one person; too many in the crowd erupted with cheers and anger. My kids might not have understood every word, but they felt the fear and hostility, and kept asking questions from that point on. It was distressing for them, upsetting for us, and deeply distasteful for everyone else who came to celebrate. How could MIT let this happen and ruin a special day for hundreds of Jewish graduates and thousands of their family members? This is even more heartbreaking considering that just last week, a beautiful Jewish American couple was murdered in DC. Shame on MIT for allowing hate and division to overshadow a day meant for celebration and unity.
Here is the video. If you go all the way to end end, you can see university president Sally Kornbluth's reaction, best described by the phrase "deer in the headlights."
In fairness, it should be noted that MIT did later ban the speaker from the full commencement ceremony. But as Gerard Baker notes in the WSJ, [T]his is the face of America’s academic institutions—privileged, extremist little Maoists spouting ahistorical drivel and bigoted cant to people who thought they were attending a celebration and got a Nuremberg rally.
Not all academic institutions, of course, but a high proportion of them. And those institutions that are considered 'elite' are clearly the worst ones. At Princeton, graduates handed the president a Palestinian flag during their graduation ceremony, "protesting the university's complicity with Israel." Video link.
While there are many factors behind the growth of anti-Semitism in America in recent years, the part played by the universities has been particularly important and malign. America's 'elite' universities have certainly contributed massively to the climate that led to the murder of the Israeli couple in Washington, DC and the burning of Jews in Boulder.
It should also be noted that the "pro-Palestine", anti-Israel, and anti-Semitic fanatics are very often also anti-capitalist, anti-American, and anti-Western Civilization; they subscribe to almost all the leftist memes that have become current in the past decade or so. See, for example, this and this.
America has given our universities vast financial resources and entrusted them with future generations. They have betrayed that trust.
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Discussion (43)
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There could not be an event more lopsidedly ignominious and horrific than Hamas' October 7th, 2023, attack on Israel. "Free Palestine" is a farce. It is a lie, and all who proclaim are, in truth, saying "Kill the Jews."
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Defund, decertify, deconstruct these incendiary bastions of propaganda and indoctrination.
They have lost everything of value, that they once were revered for.
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Every story feels like I've been struck. It's still difficult to digest. How did we come to this??
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Some commentators complain that the Trump administration and others are unfairly singling out Harvard for defunding, contract cancellation, revoking tax exempt status, etc.
But since Harvard is America's oldest university, and holds itself out as the elite of the elite, it is the exemplar to which others aspire. What Harvard does others emulate.
Therefore, it is entirely reasonable to single out Harvard for scrutiny when its policies and procedures undermine basic American values. If Harvard does not want the attention that goes with being an elite institution, possibly America's most elite university, then it should forcefully relinquish its claim to be such.
As long as Harvard claims to be the elite of the elite, Harvard deserves all the scrutiny, criticism, and consequences for its bad behavior as it gets.
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