Ira writes: "hiring Jewish studies professors doesn’t necessarily translate into an improvement in the tone or accuracy of the campus conversation about Israel.
This is the nub of the problem. Hundreds of Jewish Studies professors are on record as demonizing Israel as an apartheid state and many support BDS and accuse Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. Indeed, it has been said that the establishment of Jewish Studies Departments was one of the worst things that could have happened to the State of Israel and the Jewish People generally. So Harvard must move carefully even at the price of proceeding more slowly than one might hope.
"The Trump administration drafted a confidential strategy memo in early April outlining policy demands it could impose on Harvard... Among the most significant measures floated in the memo are ... the appointment of a federally approved senior provost to oversee implementation of reforms to certain programs, which could alternatively be placed under receivership. The targeted programs included Jewish Studies, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and Ethnicity, Migration, Rights within the FAS; Religion and Public Life at the Harvard Divinity School; and the Harvard School of Public Health’s François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights."
It seems the Trump administration was considering the Jewish Studies program to be part of the problem.
The realization by Harvard that if it doesn’t make some high-profile hires, it will fall further behind who in what?
Does anyone know if the Magid appointment at the Divinity School requires the assent of Alan Garber?
Ira writes: "hiring Jewish studies professors doesn’t necessarily translate into an improvement in the tone or accuracy of the campus conversation about Israel.
This is the nub of the problem. Hundreds of Jewish Studies professors are on record as demonizing Israel as an apartheid state and many support BDS and accuse Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. Indeed, it has been said that the establishment of Jewish Studies Departments was one of the worst things that could have happened to the State of Israel and the Jewish People generally. So Harvard must move carefully even at the price of proceeding more slowly than one might hope.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/7/23/harvard-trump-memo/
"The Trump administration drafted a confidential strategy memo in early April outlining policy demands it could impose on Harvard... Among the most significant measures floated in the memo are ... the appointment of a federally approved senior provost to oversee implementation of reforms to certain programs, which could alternatively be placed under receivership. The targeted programs included Jewish Studies, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and Ethnicity, Migration, Rights within the FAS; Religion and Public Life at the Harvard Divinity School; and the Harvard School of Public Health’s François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights."
It seems the Trump administration was considering the Jewish Studies program to be part of the problem.