Harvard University’s Hillel chapter noted that the start of the campus Palestine Solidarity Committee’s “Israeli Apartheid Week” on Sunday yet again featured a hateful art installation referred to as an “apartheid wall.”
NGO StopAntisemitism tweeted photos of the antisemitic “apartheid wall” with their followers on March 26th accusing Harvard of allowing the harassment to occur.
Jewish students at Harvard University are being harassed at the slightest mention of their connection to Israel.
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) March 26, 2023
Still, the school’s administration allows these blatant anti-Israel lies to be perpetuated on campus, further endangering the safety of Jewish students and faculty. pic.twitter.com/64xnGXJHtw
Harvard Hillel Israel Chair Daniel Denenberg, Hillel Intern for Combating Antisemitism Sabrina Goldfischer, and Hillel President and Crimson Editorial editor Jacob Miller described in an email sent to Hillel affiliates that the wall was “offensive,” The Harvard Crimson reported.
“We’re emailing you because in previous years this wall has been a talking point for much of Harvard’s Jewish community. For some Jews, it has also been painful and offensive,” they wrote. “However much you care, Israel is the world’s only Jewish state. It is our historic homeland. It has held together our people and shaped our culture and practice for eighty generations.”
“We therefore unambiguously reject the PSC’s characterization of Zionism as racist or colonialist,” they said.
The “apartheid wall” promotes the BDS movement and features multiple panels containing anti-Israel propaganda, including claims that Israel only exists because of “racism, colonialism and ethnic cleansing.”
One of its panels consists of black and white imagery that Hillel described as “reminiscent of the Holocaust concentration camps for many last year.”
The co-president of Harvard Israel Initiative, Sarah Bolnick, told the campus newspaper that the installation is “a form of hate speech” and is “very offensive and aggressive.”