8 | MAY 19 • 2022

column
Harvard, BDS and the Nazis
T

he editors of Harvard’s
student newspaper
have just urged a boy-
cott of the Jewish state and
praised a campus group that
has celebrated
a murderer of
Jewish college
students. In
the 1930s, the
editors of the
same newspaper
asserted that
Harvard should
grant an award to a Nazi offi-
cial who promoted anti-Jewish
boycotts and celebrated mur-
derers of Jews.
Is there a basis for com-
paring today’s editors of the
Harvard Crimson to their pre-
World War II predecessors?
The Crimson’s editors
recently accused Israel of

committing “crimes against
humanity” and endorsed
the Boycott, Divestment and
Sanctions (BDS) movement.
One presumes the editors are
aware of the fact that BDS
founder Omar Barghouti has
said his goal is not to oppose
“settlements” or “occupation,”
but rather to “oppose a Jewish
state in any part of Palestine.”
The editorial heaped praise
on the “colorful” and “spir-
ited” anti-Israel activities
organized on campus by the
Harvard College Palestine
Solidarity Committee. For
some reason, it did not refer
to the Committee’s 2015 post
of a video that justified knife
attacks against random Israeli
Jews, or its 2016 event in
support of Rasmea Odeh, the
convicted murderer of two

Hebrew University students in
Jerusalem.
It would not be a stretch to
imagine that if Ernst “Putzi”
Hanfstaengl were alive today,
he would be an enthusiastic
supporter of the BDS cam-
paign, the Palestine Solidarity
Committee and Rasmea Odeh.
The shameful story of
Hanfstaengl and Harvard was
documented in the landmark
2005 book The Third Reich in
the Ivory Tower by Professor
Stephen Norwood.
The German-born
Hanfstaengl attended Harvard
and graduated in 1909. He
later returned to Germany and
became an active supporter of
the Nazi Party from its earliest
days. Eventually, he rose to
become Hitler’s foreign press
spokesman. Hanfstaengl’s

announcement in 1934 that
he would attend his 25th class
reunion sparked a debate over
whether he ought to be wel-
come on the Harvard campus.
The editors of the Crimson
at the time argued that not
only should Hanfstaengl
be “warmly welcomed,” but
also received by the Harvard
administration “with the
marks of honor appropriate
to his high position in the
government of a friendly
country, which happens to be
a great world power — that
is, by conferring upon him an
honorary degree.” Nevermind
that the policies of the regime
Hanfstaengl represented made
a mockery of the ideals of
liberty and free inquiry for
which Harvard stood.
Harvard also maintained

Rafael
Medoff
JNS.org

PURELY COMMENTARY

student’s corner
New ADL Report has
Antisemitism on the Rise
T

he Anti-Defamation
League (ADL) tracks
antisemitic incidents
worldwide. Recently, the
ADL released its 2021 Audit
of Antisemitic
Incidents, with
2,717 incidents
reported, the
most incidents
reported in one
year since 1979.
This includes
assaults, harass-
ment, and vandalism. This
trend is not isolated to the
United States. Antisemitism
is trending upward in the EU

and other parts of the world.
On MSNBC’s Morning
Joe, ADL CEO Jonathan
Greenblatt characterized the
rise in antisemitic incidents as
the “normalization of antisem-
itism.” Greenblatt said that the
casual way people say antise-
mitic remarks is what makes
it more acceptable. He said
we are seeing “soft” antisem-
itism, for example, when
Congresswoman Marjorie
Taylor Green recently likened
NATO soldiers to Nazis or
last year when Jim Walsh, a
Washington-state legislator,
wore a yellow Star of David

like the one Jews were forced
to wear in the Holocaust to
protest the state’s COVID-19
vaccine mandates.
The issue of “soft antisem-
itism” is not restricted to
politics. Meyers Leonard, a
former NBA player with the
Miami Heat, recently post-
ed an antisemitic comment
on Twitch. After someone
brought the statement to his
attention, he immediately
ended the stream, but it had
already gone viral.
Julian Edelman is a former
New England Patriot and
three-time Super Bowl cham-

pion. His father is Jewish,
but he was raised Catholic.
However, he now identifies
as a Jew. Edelman was one of
the first people to respond to
Leonard’s comment and, in
his response, Edelman invit-
ed Leonard over for Shabbat
dinner.
Greenblatt said on Morning
Joe, “this kind of casual rhet-
oric leads to shocking results
in the real world.” Greenblatt
continued to say that “social
media has a lot to do with the
increased incidents.”
Just a few weeks ago, like we
do every year, we sat around

Spencer
Cherrin