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