Shabbos Kestenbaum Sues Harvard | Real Talk

We were taught that the Israeli subjugation of the Palestinian people is analogous to the experience of Jews under Nazi Germany. I mean this was taught as fact in the classroom. What it sounds like the hatred towards Israel did not start with October 7th in Harvard. It sounds like it started well before that. My message to Jewish donors and really all donors is quite simple. Why would you give your money to an institution that repeatedly stabs a minority group in the Shabbos. Nice to meet you. I heard so much about you. Thanks for contacting us here at Trigger U. I'd like to just get to know a little bit about your background. What happened to you at Harvard and why are you launching a lawsuit against your Ivy League school? Sure. Well it's great to connect and thank you for having me. The story really begins you know when I was a child growing up. I'm a first generation American. I grew up with Jewish values and American values never seeing them as contradictory. On the contrary they're quite complimentary. And I had gone to an all religious school my entire life. So all men all rabbis who are teaching me. I lived in the old city of Jerusalem for about three years quite literally two minutes away from the church of the Holy Sepulchre the Dome of the Rock the Western Wall and it dawned on me that even though I'm obviously religious and I'm passionate about my religious identity I had never studied religion from a pluralistic academic perspective. And so I decided that I would pursue that and I applied to Harvard. Funnily enough the very few other religious Jews who had gone to Harvard Divinity School told me not to do it. But I'm someone who's been a registered Democrat since the day I turned 18. I'm pretty progressive not so much anymore but pretty progressive and I wanted to not only contribute to this intellectual conversation and the tapestry of religious life but also learn from different religions and different faiths. And when I got there this is you know a year before October 7th it was readily apparent that the diversity the tolerance the exploration of religious faiths really did not include Orthodox Jewry. It certainly did not include an attachment to the land of Israel which is of course integral to my identity. And you know I'm happy to provide a laundry list of really deep and pervasive and systemic antisemitism in certain instances but we filed the lawsuit not because we wanted to but because we had to. And I can think of no more damning indictment on the state of higher education than in order for Jewish students to receive equity and justice we have to resort to a court of law. I mean what a sorry state of affairs the Ivy League are currently embroiled in. Chavez can you give me an example of what is taught at the Harvard Divinity School? What are some things that you heard and learned in class? Sure so as I said I went to the Divinity School knowing that I unfortunately fairly or unfairly am representing not just myself but the wider Orthodox community. And so I deliberately took classes that pushed me beyond my comfortable limits that intellectually challenged me and that's great that's what a university should be. However the open dialogue as I said did not extend to dialogue that pertains to the survival hood and the sustainability of the state of Israel. So I took a course called Religion, Nationalism and Settler Colonialism the case of Israel-Palestine. And just as a tangent I used to do activist work pertaining to the Uyghurs an ethnic Muslim minority in China. I've actually been put on a Chinese Communist Party blacklist. If you were Harvard Divinity School for two years you would not know that China existed because there was one country that is that is singularly focused and that is Israel-Palestine. So in this course we read texts forget about from controversial speakers because that's not necessarily problematic but we were taught that the Israeli subjugation of the Palestinian people is analogous to the experience of Jews under Nazi Germany. In fact one of the week's titles of the course was literally called which not only tried to argue what I just said but also argued that historically Jews have been powerless and now with the advent of the state of Israel the only way the Jewish people know how to exercise that power is through internalizing the ways of their oppressors like Nazi Germany. I mean this was taught as fact in the classroom and as I said I was not a conservative. I did not believe that there was this political indoctrination. I thought that was silly and exaggerated but I saw it live in the classroom and in fact one of those professors teaches another course also on Israel-Palestine and in that course she said from the first day of class the Israeli narrative is the dominant narrative in the Middle East so therefore to understand both perspectives we are not going to learn or read texts written by Israelis. I mean that's that's shocking. That is shocking and to sound like a liberal elitist if Harvard purports to train the next generation of American leaders, thought leaders, politicians, religious leaders it's very very scary and this is not simply a Jewish issue. What it sounds like is that the hatred towards Israel and by extension towards the Jewish people did not start with October 7th at Harvard. It sounds like it started well before that from your experience. Correct and you know the irony is the anti-Israel caucus at Harvard and across college campuses they'll always say well don't start the story on October 7th start the story and you know of May of 1948 go back 75 years which number one if you want to play that game let's go back 3,000 years why stop at 75 years but but number two yeah if you want to go back in the 1920s there were official quotas on how many Jews were allowed into the university. I mean the president of Harvard, President Lowell instituted discriminatory policies and what I find so outrageous and so hypocritical is Claudine Gay before she was president she was the dean of the faculty of arts and sciences and she along with other senior administrators at Harvard recognized that words can be violent words can be dangerous so they renamed the RA. An RA resident advisor at Harvard is called a master you're a master of the house and she felt that that was racially insensitive that that made African-American students uncomfortable and I'm not necessarily commenting on whether that was right or wrong but that's what she decided to do so now it's a it's called a a tutor of the house. The problem is the plurality of undergraduate Jewish students currently live in Lowell House. They live in the building named after the same person who didn't want them on campus to begin with so if you want to play the game of words are violent and we need safe spaces and we need all minorities to feel included the double standard is breathtaking in its hypocrisy. What is your message to Jewish donors to these Ivy League schools including Harvard? What does it make you feel being a supposed recipient of these contributions while knowing that Harvard is not willing to stand up for Jewish students like you? Yeah my message to Jewish donors and really all donors is quite simple. Why would you give your money to an institution that repeatedly stabs a minority group in the back? Why would you give your hard-earned dollars to an institution that to this day has refused to articulate a single policy that they will implement to protect Jewish students? Why would you give your money to an institution that while it calls out the murder of George Floyd and the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the reversal of Roe v. Wade cannot call out and condemn the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust? It is it is unconscionable that we Jewish students or many of us at least are trying to reform our university and institutions of higher education and there are still so many donors who refuse to join us in that fight. So be like Ken Griffin, be like Bill Ackman because Harvard will not change without your voice. It will not change without sustained public pressure and donors are a crucial if not the most crucial component to that fight. Any advice for students who are looking to go to these Ivy League schools including Harvard? I mean just imagine what it's like to be in high school right now and listen to you and contemplate where should these kids go? Yeah you know my thinking on this has evolved and it's sort of been informed through Congressman Richie Torres who of course is a progressive and a proud democrat and he pointed out that our ideological adversaries are chanting Jews off our campus, Zionists off our campus. Why would we give them exactly what they want? Why would we acquiesce to their demands? That's on the one hand. I do think it's important to fight back. I do think that the values we are espousing and standing up for are good and just and right. At the same time I'll give you a quick anecdote. I spoke at the Christians United for Israel conference about two weeks ago and I had flown the red eye from LA to DC and as I enter my hotel room there's a gift basket waiting for me of exclusively kosher food and obviously this was not organized by Jewish people. These are Christians who don't keep kosher and it suddenly dawned on me that what we have been fighting for at Harvard for the last 10 months is the minimum, is a basic standard, is treat us not differently but equally under the law and it occurred to me there are institutions, there are organizations, there are people who don't just tolerate and accept Jews but love Jews, that actively want Jews to contribute their talents and their creativity to American society, to a college campus. So people like Ben Sass at the University of Florida, they are actively creating institutions that will harness the intelligence and the creativity and the passion of Jewish students. So on the one hand yes we have to fight, we have to stand up, but on the other hand I think some of these institutions I don't say they're irredeemable but they have so wronged not just Jewish students but the American people have so abandoned those values and I think we really have to reconsider where we want young people to be studying at and Forbes just had about two, three months ago the new Ivy Leagues, a really thought-provoking article and I do think that there's something to be said of you know Vanderbilt or Brown or Duke or wherever I think those are you know really intriguing places. Have your political opinions changed since October 7th? Are you one of those who have walked away from the left-wing mindset? Are you one of those liberal Jews that we're here with arms wide open welcoming into the era of common sense? Well I did speak at the Republican convention so I guess technically but you know to quote Ronald Reagan, I did not abandon the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party you know abandoned us and I do feel that there are certain ideologies within the Democratic Party that are not liberal, that are not progressive, that are illiberal, that are harmful to minority groups and are harmful to the United States. In terms of my political positions many of them really haven't changed but I am aware that the Democratic Party and I said this in my speech at the Republican convention has become ideologically poisoned where so much of their policy pertaining to Israel, pertaining to campus antisemitism has been trying to appease the violent radical mob within their party and it's very difficult for me to say that I can remain a Democrat without there being major acknowledgments and major concessions that our party has lost its way and I don't see why that's a controversial position to take. So I'm not ready to throw in the towel just yet but it's quite clear the Democratic Party is ready to throw in the towel with its Jewish constituency and I'm happy to be proven wrong but as the months go on I've really only been vindicated. Where do you think your lawsuit is headed and where is it right now? What stage are you within the actual lawsuit? So our lawsuit is quite historic. As of last week the judge ruled that our lawsuit will in fact go to trial. This is the first case in American history pertaining to violations of title six of antisemitism that will actually see its day in court. So pretty historic, pretty significant. Now we begin the discovery process. We are eager and we are excited to bring to light, to show the public Harvard's inability and unwillingness to protect its Jewish students. We are ecstatic to uncover those emails, those text messages, minutes and meetings, anything and everything because Harvard has a systemic problem with antisemitism and during the trial and during the discovery phase, which is the most immediate next step, we will be bringing all of that to light. And I will say that if Harvard wants to play the long game, if they want to delay this, which they clearly do, they file three separate motions to dismiss with prejudice, I am more than happy to play at their own game because I'm not going anywhere, the lawsuit's not going anywhere and Jewish Americans aren't going anywhere. I'm sure that many people listening either have some connections at Harvard or would like to support you. What's a way to stay in touch with you and know what's going on with the lawsuit as well as maybe give you some tips on other information that might be helpful to you? Sure, you know, let me just talk about the tips real quick. I'm not an activist, I'm not a politician, I'm not a lawmaker, I'm a student. I'm really good at studying, I'm really good at writing research papers, but I and so many students across the country have been thrust into these positions where we're testifying in Congress, we're speaking to the media, we're talking at major party conventions. And it's not that we're not happy to do it, but we shouldn't be doing this. We should not be at the forefront of these changes. But as I said earlier, it is a damning indictment on the state of higher education that students have to leave the classrooms, they have to leave their research and their studies to talk about these issues because without it, the universities won't change. So pre-October 7th, I did not know how to use Twitter. And on the night of October 7th, when I realized that we were not only fighting for the right of the state of Israel to defend itself, but for the right of Jewish students to be on campus. So I took to social media and you can follow me there. My name is Shabbos K and on Instagram it's Shabbos Kest. And I update really everyone on the ongoing trial. I update everyone on what's going on at Harvard and I will continue to do so. I will continue to speak out for as long as I can, whenever I can. And as I said earlier, we're not giving up. This is just the beginning of our fight. You know what Shabbos, you're probably getting the best education you can get, except that it's not in a classroom. It's in the real world. So welcome to the fight. It's great getting to know you. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it.