I'm Suing Harvard Over Rife Antisemitism

I applied to the university's Divinity School to be an ambassador for Orthodox Jews and build bridges with other cultures; instead I'm battling discrimination

- SHABBOS KESTENBAUM

IN JUDAISM, THERE IS AN IDEA of passing down knowledge and traditions "l'dor v'dor"-from generation to generation. As if called to fulfill my part, I learned that I was accepted to Harvard Divinity School while visiting the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland.

I have always been passionate about my Jewish identity and wanted to explore that identity from an academic and pluralistic perspective.

As the only Orthodox Jew in the program, I wanted to be an ambassador for my people. I wanted to share my culture with other community leaders and learn about theirs. I came to Harvard to build bridges.

Never would I have imagined that I'd need to fight for my right to exist on campus. Never would I have thought that I'd have to sue Harvard to be treated as an equal.

As my lawsuit lays out in great detail, the vicious attacks on Jewish students since October 7 have laid bare what was always there a Jewish exception. A double standard that polices the actions that harm and demean almost every group imaginable, except Jews.

My personal introduction to antisemitism at Harvard began in the first month of my first semester, when Harvard's Palestine Solidarity Committee student group invited Mohammed el-Kurd to speak on campus.

As noted by the Anti-Defamation League, el-Kurd has a history of "unvarnished, vicious antisemitism" and claims Zionists have "internalized the ways of the Nazis." Just the other day, el-Kurd called for the world to be "de-Zionized" and proclaimed "we must normalize massacres." Although he claims to have misspoken, his rhetoric speaks for itself.

When Jewish students, myself included, protested el-Kurd's invitation to Harvard's campus, we were met with shrugs. For a university that has a record of rescinding speaker invitations, Harvard's silence was deafening.