Reading period is now in full swing. To ease stress for students (and anyone else in the HDS community) during this hectic time, the library will welcome Norah and Sophie, certified therapy dogs! They will visit today, May 5, 2026, 2-3:00.
In honor of their visit, we found some additional canine companions in this book describing animals in the bible from 1834.
Fisher, Jonathan. Scripture animals, or, Natural history of the living creatures named in the Bible : written especially for youth : illustrated with cuts. Portland [Me.]: Published by William Hyde, 1834.
HARVARD ID’s STUDENTS FOR SILENTLY PRAYING FOR PALESTINE AT DIVINITY SCHOOL
Today, Jewish students at Harvard Divinity School, a nonsectarian school dedicated to the religion scholarship, led a pray-in for Palestine in the library.
Nearly 70 students attended and prayed silently with religious materials in hand and signs against the ongoing genocide and Harvard’s complicity. Admin quickly arrived to ID all participants, including people who were simply holding prayer books without a sign or keffiyeh.
This is the first pray-in during a wave of recent study-ins across the university — students have been undeterred in their solidarity with the Palestinian people despite receiving bans from their own libraries.
When it comes to restoring academic quality and combating antisemitism, Harvard’s actions continue to defy its lofty promises. Consider just
by David Litman
When it comes to restoring academic quality and combating antisemitism, Harvard’s actions continue to defy its lofty promises. Consider just the most recent example: the appointment of Shaul Magid as a “Professor of Modern Jewish Studies in Residence” at Harvard Divinity School.
According to Harvard, the faculty search review committee, composed of Terrence Johnson, Ann Braude, and Charles Stang, “lauded Magid’s scholarship, mentorship, and commitment to intellectual diversity. His appointment, they noted, will be pivotal in enriching Harvard’s strengths in Jewish studies.”
One must wonder whether Johnson, Braude, and Stang bothered to review Magid’s history. Consider just one recent remark by Magid at a two-day conference on “Non-Zionist Jewish Traditions” at Brown University:
“Are we doing this as disinterested scholars? My answer would be no. We are here because we are most interested scholars. Most of us come here because we agree that, with all that has been accomplished, something has gone very wrong with the Jews today.”
He continued: “Nationalism poisoned the well of Jewish nature.”
So, too, did those other “interested scholars” with whom Magid proudly surrounded himself. Another, Omer Bartov, echoed Magid’s “poisoned well” remark, declaring “a poison has been distilled into the veins of the country [of Israel], and slowly but surely it proceeds toward savagery.” Adi Ophir declared that Jews must openly reject support of Israel or “they are complicit.” Beshara Doumani declared “Israel…has become the North Star of the rise of fascism all over the world,” and that Zionism is “a child of antisemitism.” Another academic, Ariella Azoulay, known for particularly outlandish antisemitic rants, claimed Europe “invented us as Jews” and that there is “an evangelical settler colonial death drive implanted in Jews’ hearts.”
Not one participant challenged the conference speakers’ absurdly antisemitic rhetoric.
This is “intellectual diversity” and “enrichment,” according to Harvard Divinity School.
Just last month, in an attempt to ward off government intervention, Harvard University President Alan Garber promised that he understood the “importance of ending antisemitism” and “embrac[ing] a multiplicity of viewpoints rather than focusing on narrow orthodoxies.”
Well aware of the “chilling…contemporary antisemitism” that has overtaken Harvard Divinity School, Garber has made similar claims before.
The evidence is mounting that Harvard’s leadership simply cannot match its words with action.
I love the irony/synergy of a class about insane, nonexistent postmodern gobbledygook operating out of a school about insane nonexistent religious gobbledygook.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — A Jewish university student needed a police escort to enter the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s anti-Israel encampment on Friday.
Shabbos Kestenbaum, a student at Harvard Divinity School, spoke at a pro-Israel rally across the street from the encampment hosted by the Israeli American Council before deciding to cross the street and enter the encampment.
Kestenbaum walked up to the encampment and was denied entry by a keffiyeh-wearing man blocking the perimeter of the protest. Police eventually agreed to escort him into the encampment, according to video taken by The Daily Wire.
“I want to let all of you know that you’re not going to intimidate Jewish people,” he told the campers. “You can hide behind your masks as long as you want, we will not be scared.”
“All of you should be ashamed of yourselves,” he added. “This is the state of being Jewish in America, I need police to exercise my First Amendment right.”
Kestenbaum is a student at Harvard University, but spoke at the MIT counter-demonstration in support of Jewish students there.
