Prominent rabbi resigns from Harvard anti-Semitism committee, citing Gay's 'painfully inadequate' testimony
'The system at Harvard along with the ideology that grips far too many of the students and faculty, the ideology that works only along axes of oppression and places Jews as oppressors and therefore intrinsically evil, is itself evil.'
David Wolpe, a prominent rabbi and visiting scholar at Harvard University, publicly announced his resignation from Harvard’s anti-Semitism committee following Harvard University President Claudine Gay’s Tuesday congressional testimony, in which she refused to state that “calling for the genocide of Jews” is unacceptable at Harvard.
“The system at Harvard along with the ideology that grips far too many of the students and faculty, the ideology that works only along axes of oppression and places Jews as oppressors and therefore intrinsically evil, is itself evil,” Wolpe wrote on X.
“Battling that combination of ideologies is the work of more than a committee or a single university,” he added. “It is not going to be changed by hiring or firing a single person, or posting on X, or yelling at people who don’t post as you wish when you wish, as though posting is the summation of one’s moral character.”
“This is the task of educating a generation, and also a vast unlearning. Part of the problem is a simple herd mentality – people screaming slogans whose meaning and implication they know nothing of, or not wishing to be disliked by taking an unpopular position.”
Wolpe called Gay a “kind and thoughtful person,” but said that her comments during her testimony were “painfully inadequate.”
“Without rehashing all of the obvious reasons that have been endlessly adumbrated online, and with great respect for the members of the committee, the short explanation is that both events on campus and the painfully inadequate testimony reinforced the idea that I cannot make the sort of difference I had hoped,” stated Wolpe.