Professors Put Pharaoh on Trial

After a few thousand years, the jury is still out.

As Jews are midway through observing the holiday of Passover, famed defense attorney and Frankfurter Professor of Law Alan M. Dershowitz faced off against Wolfson Professor of Jewish Studies Jay M. Harris in a mock trial of Pharaoh last night. The two men debated Pharaoh’s guilt on charges of persecuting and enslaving the Jews and attempted genocide but neither side won.

Harris, who teaches Moral Reasoning 54, “‘If There Is No God, Then All Is Permitted,’: Theism and Moral Reasoning” prosecuted the case in front of over 100 attendees while Dershowitz defended Pharaoh.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve defended political characters,” Dershowitz said.

“Last year at the Divinity School, I defended Jesus. And then, of course, there was OJ Simpson.”

The trial was marked by the professors’ jokes and jabs at each other, though they did give opening statements, cross-examined “witnesses,” and delivered closing statements. Executive Director of Hillel Bernard Steinberg, who moderated yesterday’s event, characterized the case by saying, “We’re dealing here with evil.”

Harris’ opening remarks charged Pharaoh with a number of crimes, including coitus interruptus.

“The big problem is not his own coitus that he was trying to interruptus—it was the coitus of all Israelites,” Harris said, referring to the killing of the Israelites’ first-born children in Egypt.

When Harris said that Pharaoh’s motive was to react to “two professors who wrote about the Hebrew lobby,”­— a reference to a controversial paper authored by Kennedy School Academic Dean Stephen M. Walt and the University of Chicago political scientist John J. Mearsheimer that criticizes pro-Israel activists in the U.S.,— Dershowitz responded by saying, “You just stole my thunder.”

Dershowitz argued that Pharaoh was simply responding to chemical and biological threats, the plagues of frogs, vermin, and boils.

“It’s the policy of civilized nations not to give in to terrorism. Pharaoh did the right thing,” he said.

Harris acknowledged that even if Moses, Aaron, and God could all be considered terrorists, that didn’t clear Pharaoh of guilt.

“If we asked Pharaoh to put on the glove, would it fit? If it would fit, then we would not acquit,” Harris said.

Ultimately, Steinberg said that were it not for Pharaoh’s crimes, none of us would be here today.

“We must let history render the judgment,” Steinberg said.

After the trial, Dershowitz quipped, “I spent months preparing for this; I took a leave of absence to get ready.”

Organizer Philip A. Ernst ’06, Vice President for Education at Hillel and also a Crimson editor, said he was very pleased with the turnout.

Emil Pitkin ’09 said of the trial, “It was a remarkable pleasure to be in the presence of two scholars and entertainers who represented the craft [of law].”