A Jewish Perspective on Harvard You Won’t Hear at the RNC

Today, Alexander “Shabbos” Kestenbaum, frequent Fox News talking head, recent Divinity School graduate, and self-proclaimed spokesperson for Jewish students at Harvard is headed to the Republican National Convention. There, he will endorse former reality TV star, fraudster, and convicted white collar criminal, Donald J. Trump, for president of the United States.

In other surprising news, a giraffe was spotted at the Franklin Park Zoo.

Anyone tuned in to this year’s on-campus political tensions probably knows Kestenbaum’s name. As the lead plaintiff in the Harvard antisemitism lawsuit, he is an ardent critic of the school, an apoplectic social media presence, and one of the most vocal counter-protesters at pro-Palestine events.

Kestenbaum says that at the convention, he will address the “moral degradation, illiberalism, and systemic antisemitism” in Harvard’s culture.

For evidence of moral degradation on campus, Kestenbaum need look no further than a sign he proudly held in opposition to the pro-Palestine encampment in The Yard, which read, “From the river to the plaza, send these students/antisemites off to Gaza” (he had two versions).

If that’s not enough, he can turn to his (now wisely deleted) comment on a recent Instagram post from Harvard’s pro-Palestine groups, which read, “If you guys love the intifada so much, have you considered blowing yourselves up too? That would really show those Zionists.”

Take a second to read that again. It speaks for itself.

Further, Kestenbaum’s aversion to illiberalism also seems to mysteriously disappear when it comes to sharing a stage with the other RNC speakers this week in Milwaukee.

Now, Shabbos is not wrong that there is antisemitism on our campus, and that some of it is baked in deep. An encounter with anti-Jewish bias is pretty much a given, in one form or another, for most Jews at Harvard — especially those who vocally support Israel’s existence.

These biases are clearly present within our campus’s pro-Palestine organizing. While their unwavering condemnation of Israeli violence against innocent Palestinians resonates with me, I too see some classmates who are unwilling to do the same for Hamas’s atrocities, and who have turned Zionism into a slur, a disqualification for their respect.

Like many, I am dismayed by the targeted after-dark protest of Interim President Garber at his home and by what I believe is a vocal yet destructive minority — such as leaders of one of the groups mutually responsible for the PSC’s antisemitic cartoon — refusing to move away from tropes like “intifada.” Their choices tacitly endorse violence and signal an unwillingness to take the concerns of their Jewish peers seriously.

I’m sure Shabbos would agree with these critiques. But instead of working to break down barriers to talk about these issues in what should be a thoughtful, constructive, academic environment, Kestenbaum — like many of the people he disavows — has quite literally fought hate with hate.

It is for this reason that, as I reflect on a complex and difficult school year, Shabbos is one of the people toward whom I feel the most anger and frustration.

While so many students from diverse religious and ethnic backgrounds physically and emotionally exhausted themselves trying to build bridges between their peers and create spaces for respectful conversation around Israel and Palestine, Kestenbaum actively fanned the flames of vitriol on our campus, straining their efforts.

All the while, as he instigated demonstrators in Harvard Yard and as he continues to comment at large on our campus culture, he — as a student of one of Harvard’s smallest, most insular graduate schools, and now as a graduate — has been largely shielded from the residual impact of his actions on the wider student body.

At this point, any conversation about ensuring Jewish safety, comfort, and inclusion at Harvard or elsewhere is completely debilitated when Kestenbaum is at the forefront. Critiques of violent rhetoric aren’t very salient when they traffic in, well, violent rhetoric.

I don’t care that he used to support Bernie, or that he’s still a registered Democrat. Frankly, I don’t care who he votes for. I care that his actions made our campus a more hostile environment, and that he is now wielding a claim to the Jewish experience at Harvard for political gain.

Kestenbaum can go on, enjoy the RNC, stump for Trump, and snuggle up to the same people who have embraced white nationalism and antisemitism like the great replacement theory, which has inspired multiple murderous attacks against Jews across this country.

He can let Republicans use his words as weapons to lambaste higher education and continue their crusade on our political freedoms all he wants.

But he doesn’t speak on behalf of anybody other than himself.

Matthew E. Nekritz ’25, an Associate Editorial editor, is a Social Studies concentrator in Cabot House.