Derek Penslar, a Canadian scholar of Jewish history, hopes to fix Harvard’s antisemitism problem

The CJN Daily with Ellin Bessner

Six months have passed since the president of Harvard University was forced to resign after she refused to sanction pro-Palestinian protesters. Claudine Gay was one of several university leaders who came under fire at a congressional hearing in Washington, D.C., last December during an investigation into how America’s Ivy League schools were failing their Jewish students and staff. In January, Harvard appointed a presidential task force to study antisemitism, and named professor Derek Penslar as co-chair. Penslar is a prominent Canadian scholar of Jewish history who runs Harvard’s Jewish studies centre. Just a few weeks ago, the task force issued an interim report, saying it couldn’t wait until the fall because they’d found a “dire” situation facing Harvard’s Israeli students, including derision and social exclusion. Harvard faculty and teaching assistants were also reportedly discriminating against and harassing pro-Israel students. On Tuesday, the report was publicly slammed by 28 Republican lawmakers as weak and a “re-inventing of the wheel”, while some Harvard Jewish students and leaders are upset the antisemitism group is committed to working closely with Harvard’s other task force currently studying anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bias. Derek Penslar joins The CJN Daily from Toronto to respond to the criticism, and explain why he nearly quit in the face of allegations he wasn’t Zionist enough to do the job.

What we talked about:

• Read the Harvard Presidential Task Force on Combatting Antisemitism’s preliminary report, and read the interim report from the Task Force on Anti-Muslim and Anti-Arab bias, both published on June 26, 2024.
• Read the letter from 28 Republican members of Congress slamming Harvard’s antisemitism task force’s findings, and released to the interim Harvard president on July 16.
• Read why Derek Penslar thought anti-Zionism was not a big problem for university campuses back in 2014, in the CJN archives.

**Credits: **

The CJN Daily is written and hosted by Ellin Bessner (@ebessner on Twitter). Zachary Kauffman is the producer. Michael Fraiman is the executive producer. Our theme music is by Dov Beck-Levine. We’re a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To subscribe to this podcast, please watch this video. Donate to The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt by clicking here. Hear why The CJN is important to me.