Larry Summers blasts Harvard for picking Israel critic to fight antisemitism
Former Harvard President Larry Summers slammed the university over its appointment of a Jewish professor who has called Israel “an apartheid state” to co-chair its antisemitism task force.
Summers took issue with the appointment of Prof. Derek Penslar, a scholar of Jewish history, as co-chair of a task force that was named by the school’s interim president, Alan Garber, who took over for the ousted Claudine Gay.
“I have lost confidence in the determination and ability of the Harvard Corporation and Harvard leadership to maintain Harvard as a place where Jews and Israelis can flourish,” Summers wrote on his X social media account on Sunday.
Penslar wrote a book last year, titled “Zionism: An Emotional State,” in which he said: “Israel’s dispossession of Palestinians from their land and oppression of those who remain have made it one of the most disliked countries on the planet.”
He also claimed in the book that “Jewish culture was steeped in fantasies (and occasionally, acts) of vengeance against Christians.”
According to Summers, Penslar “publicly minimized Harvard’s antisemitism problem, rejected the definition used by the US government in recent years of antisemitism as too broad, invoked the need for the concept of settler colonialism in analyzing Israel, referred to Israel as an apartheid state and more.”
Summers also pointed to Penslar saying the BDS — boycott, divestment and sanctions — movement against Israel is “a reasonable position.” Penslar, who serves as director of Harvard’s Center for Jewish Studies, has stated that the does not support BDS.
Garber last week announced the formation of two “presidential task forces” — one focusing on antisemitism and the other on Islamophobia — at the school.
“None of this in my view is problematic for a professor at Harvard or even for a member of the task force but for the co-chair of an anti-Semitism task force that is being paralleled with an Islamophobia task force it seems highly problematic,” Summers, who served in President Obama’s cabinet as Treasury Secretary, wrote on Sunday.
The Post has sought comment from Penslar and Harvard.
Gay resigned as Harvard president earlier this month after it was learned that she plagiarized several academic papers.
She and other Ivy League presidents were criticized for failing to forcefully condemn hate speech directed at Jewish students on their campuses in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas terrorists against Israel.
Summers was among the first notable figures to take Harvard administrators to task for not sufficiently condemning Hamas in the days following the surprise attack.
Harvard became a focal point of attention after dozens of student organizations circulated a letter blaming Israel for the Hamas assault.
Bill Ackman and others then called on private companies to deny hiring opportunities to student members of the groups that signed on to the letters.
Ackman, the billionaire hedge fund manager and Harvard alum, has also criticized the Penslar appointment.
Last summer, Penslar, who has denounced what he called “Israel’s long-standing occupation” of Gaza, co-signed a letter condemning the Israeli government for what he called its aim to “ethnically cleanse all territories under Israeli rule of their Palestinian population.”
“Meanwhile, American Jewish billionaire funders help support the Israeli far right,” the letter read.
The letter was updated last month to include a call for “an immediate and lasting ceasefire” as well as a “hostage-prisoner exchange” and “supplying urgent humanitarian aid to Gaza.”
Steven Levitsky, a professor of government at Harvard, pushed back at criticism of Penslar.
“The University has to maintain independence from outside political forces seeking to shape its agenda,” Levitsky told The Harvard Crimson.
“Outside forces — Congresspeople, donors, activists — have every right to opine about Harvard or about Harvard’s policies or its leaders, but they cannot be the ones dictating who the president of Harvard is, they can’t be the ones dictating what our policies are, they can’t be the ones dictating how our committees are staffed.”
