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Holocaust Museums Debate What to Say About the Israel-Hamas War

Students are bringing up antisemitic tropes and asking survivors and docents: What is Palestine? Is there a genocide in Gaza?

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By Dana Goldstein and Marc Tracy

Dana Goldstein, who covers education, reported from Atlanta. Marc Tracy, who covers cultural institutions, reported from New York.

At a Holocaust museum in Atlanta, staff members had typically ended their tours by saying that many survivors of the death camps immigrated to Palestine.

But after the start of the Israel-Hamas war, the guides noticed that some students would ask a simple but complicated question: Is this the Palestine that we’ve been hearing about?

So staff members at the museum, the Breman, made a few changes, according to Rabbi Joseph Prass, the museum’s education director. Now, docents explain to visitors that many Holocaust survivors found refuge in “the British Mandate of Palestine” or “the area that would become the country of Israel.”

Each year, roughly two dozen Holocaust museums in the United States teach millions of visitors — often students on field trips — about the Nazi genocide of six million Jews, a history that is fading from living memory.

Since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel and the ensuing war, that mission has felt especially urgent, as the number of bias incidents against Jews has risen across the country.

The Israel-Hamas war has also forced museums to confront one of the most emotional and divisive issues within the Jewish community: how to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Many Holocaust museums include the story of Israel’s founding in 1948, depicting the country as a refuge for Jewish survivors. But they often do not mention, or address only in guarded terms, a subject that increasingly interests some visitors: the Nakba, Palestinians’ term for their displacement amid Israel’s founding.

“The question is always context,” said Debórah Dwork, a Holocaust historian at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. And at these museums, she said, Israel’s founding is set in the context of the mass murder of Jews in Europe.

“The Nakba is not part of that context,” Ms. Dwork said. “It’s rarely treated, if at all.”

Many of the museums have a broader mission beyond the Holocaust: They want to raise awareness about prejudice, mass killings and human rights. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington has created case studies of other atrocities, including the Ottoman genocide of Armenians, ethnic cleansing in the Ethiopian civil war and the Burmese killings of Rohingya Muslims, which the U.S. State Department considers to be a genocide.

In May, the Illinois Holocaust Museum opened a core exhibition called “Voices of Genocide,” highlighting the experiences of witnesses to mass killings in Armenia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Guatemala.

And many museums have devoted attention to non-Jewish victims of the Nazis, like the Roma, L.G.B.T.Q. people and people with disabilities, as well as to U.S. civil rights abuses like Jim Crow laws and the internment of Japanese Americans.

Now, the museums must contend with the Israel-Hamas war, and the fact that all sides invoke the Holocaust to make their case. To supporters of Israel’s war effort, there is a direct line between the antisemitism that fueled the Holocaust and the ideology of Hamas, whose attack on Israel made Oct. 7 the deadliest day for Jews since the Nazi genocide.

Others, including many young museum visitors, have heard antiwar protesters’ claims equating the Israel military campaign with genocide. And they have been steeped in social media images that show tens of thousands of Palestinians killed and millions displaced from their homes. For them, no humanitarian crisis is more pressing.

Omer Bartov, a professor of history at Brown University and a scholar of genocide, said that in the current political climate, visitors will naturally have questions about how the museums see the war in Gaza and Israel.

“If you talk about equality, dignity, human rights as the lessons that we learned from the Holocaust, when an entire regime of international law was put into place, does that apply to everyone?” he said. “Or is the Jewish state exempt from that because of its past?”

Engaging with a New Generation

Some Holocaust museums have developed plans for how to handle questions related to the Israel-Hamas war.

If visitors raise the question of genocide, Rabbi Prass said, he and other museum speakers have developed a clear response: While the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is tragic, “The term genocide? We don’t feel this is an appropriate use of the term, given the topic we talk about. It doesn’t apply.”

Some museums point visitors to the text of the United Nations Genocide Convention, which does not define the term merely as the killing of civilians from a particular national, ethnic or religious group. It requires that the killings were committed with “intent to destroy” the group.

The Illinois Holocaust Museum — founded by Holocaust survivors in Skokie, outside Chicago — prepared an eight-page guide on the Israel-Hamas war to help volunteers answer questions. The document states that Hamas was the “aggressor”; that international legal scholars have not found the war to meet the criteria for genocide; that there is “nothing antisemitic” about supporting Palestinian statehood, but there is in supporting Hamas or in chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine must be free.”

“It’s natural that when people are processing what they’re seeing in the world, to ask questions about Israel and Gaza,” said Bernard Cherkasov, the museum’s chief executive.

He added, “The hostages not being released and the innocent Palestinians paying the ultimate price — that is a humanitarian crisis that needs to be acknowledged, no matter what labels we put on it.”

Andrew Hollinger, a spokesman for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, declined a request for an interview about how the museum was responding to the war and the claim of a genocide in Gaza. In a written statement, he said that “the museum’s primary role is educating the public about how and why the Holocaust happened, and the longstanding unchecked antisemitism that made it possible.”

Ruth Wisse, a scholar of Jewish literature and politics at Harvard, said Holocaust museums should respond to the moment by teaching students more about contemporary antisemitism, including on the left and in the Muslim world.

And museums should celebrate Israel, she said, and present its founding in 1948 at the “middle point” of their historical narrative, instead of at its culmination. This would allow the museums, she said, to depict Jewish self-determination, for the first time in two millenniums, as a potent contrast to the victimization of the Holocaust.

“If they do it that way, you would have kids who would understand the story of Israel,” she said. “They would understand its miraculous nature.”

Debating a Genocide’s Legacy

Since the Israel-Hamas war began, antisemitic images have sometimes crept into antiwar protest imagery. For instance, the star of David in the Israeli flag has sometimes been replaced by a swastika, and some pro-Palestinian activists have shared images that recall classic antisemitic propaganda , like the portrayal of the Jew as a hidden and manipulative puppet master.

And more students have mentioned antisemitic tropes they have heard, like claims that the media are controlled by Jews, according to Mallory Bubar, an education consultant for Manhattan’s Museum of Jewish Heritage.

In response, the museum published a guide to antisemitism for educators. It explains some basic facts about Jewish history — for example, that for centuries, governments limited the types of jobs Jews were allowed to do, helping to explain their prevalence as moneylenders. The guide sketches how antisemitism often takes the form of conspiracy theories about Jewish power.

But the guide, and many of the museums, do not address a question that has been fraught for decades, and has been central to the U.S. political debate over the war: At what point does anti-Israel protest veer into antisemitism? It has been a matter of fierce debate among Jews, especially between generations.

For instance, there is a divide over the phrase “never again,” long associated with remembering the Holocaust. The Nancy and David Wolf Holocaust and Humanity Center in Cincinnati has used the phrase “never again is now” to highlight the horror of Oct. 7 and what the museum has characterized as global indifference to Jewish suffering.

Jackie Congedo, a spokeswoman for the museum, suggested in an interview that accusing Israel of genocide could itself be an antisemitic act. “It feels to me a lot like what has happened to Jews throughout history — the vilification and jumping to frame Jews as the worst possible thing in every given society,” she said.

But some Jewish pro-Palestinian groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow have used the same slogan — “never again is now” — to call attention to Palestinian suffering and push for a cease-fire, while referring to Israel’s conduct as genocidal.

Simone Zimmerman, 33, a founder of IfNotNow, recalled that on a visit years ago to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, stories of anti-Jewish laws and segregation reminded her of elements of the Palestinian experience.

“It’s unsurprising they are asking questions about parallels,” Ms. Zimmerman said of today’s young visitors to Holocaust museums. “The reason we make comparisons is not to say everything is exactly the same, but to learn from history.”

At the Illinois Holocaust Museum, Marion Deichmann, a 91-year Holocaust survivor, periodically shares her story with middle school students. As a girl, she journeyed with her mother from their native Germany to Luxembourg, and then France. Her mother was arrested in the 1942 Vél d’Hiv roundup of Jews in France and deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where she was killed.

Ms. Deichmann has thought about how she would respond if a student compared the present war to the Holocaust.

“There is no comparison,” she would say, “with the six million Jews that were murdered in camps.”

Dana Goldstein covers education and families for The Times.  More about Dana Goldstein

Marc Tracy is a Times reporter covering arts and culture. He is based in New York. More about Marc Tracy

Our Coverage of the Israel-Hamas War

News and Analysis

Some Gazans are urging Hamas to accept a cease-fire plan outlined by President Biden, but many remain deeply skeptical  that the United States, as Israel’s chief ally, would truly bring an end to the war.

The House voted mostly along party lines to impose sweeping sanctions on officials at the International Criminal Court  in a rebuke of efforts by the court’s top prosecutor to charge top Israeli leaders with war crimes in connection with the offensive against Hamas.

Two of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right partners threatened to bring down his government  should Israel agree to a cease-fire deal that would end the war in Gaza without eliminating Hamas.

Columbia Law School: The website of the Columbia Law Review was taken offline by its board of directors after its editors published  an article arguing Palestinians are living under a “brutally sophisticated structure of oppression” by Israel that is a crime against humanity.

A Debate at Holocaust Museums: The Israel-Hamas war has also forced Holocaust museums to confront one of the most emotional and divisive issues within the Jewish community: how to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict .

In the West Bank: Since the war in Gaza began, armed Jewish settlers in the Israeli-occupied territory, often accompanied by the army, have stepped up seizures of land long used by Palestinians .

A Fateful Encounter: In an Israeli prison infirmary, a Jewish dentist came to the aid of a desperately ill Hamas inmate. Years later, the prisoner became a mastermind of the Oct. 7 attack .

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Harvard College Israel Trek Will Not Take Place Amid War in Gaza, Campus Strife

Harvard College Israel Trek, an annual subsidized trip to Israel and the West Bank held over spring break, will not be taking place this year, according to Hillel President Nathan B. Gershengorn ’26.

The absence of Israel Trek — which has long drawn controversy and calls for a boycott from pro-Palestine student activists — comes as the Oct. 7 attacks and ensuing war in Gaza have sewn fear and uncertainty across Israel and the West Bank and widened political divisions on Harvard’s campus.

But Gershengorn wrote in a Monday statement that there was no specific reason Israel Trek is not being held this year, adding that it “just isn’t happening.”

This year marks the first time since the pandemic that the trip has not been launched.

In response to the war in Gaza, the Office of International Education suspended study-abroad programs in Israel and the Mignone Center for Career Success halted funding for Israel-based internships through fall 2024.

Though Israel Trek is not taking place, Hillel student organizers will be co-hosting the Harvard-Yale Jewish Heritage Program, a 10-day trip in May to Hungary and Poland for forty Jewish and non-Jewish students from Harvard and Yale University.

Attendees will explore Jewish history in Hungary before traveling to Poland along the same route that Hungarian Jews were taken to Auschwitz. Students will learn about European Jewish communities before and after World War II and study the “growth of perilous antisemitism in Hungarian and Polish societies” in the lead-up to the war.

Planning for the trip first began during the summer, according to co-organizer and former Hillel Holiday Chair Zebulon Erdos ’25.

Gerhengorn wrote that the two trips are not substitutes for each other and that he hopes both trips will continue to take place in the future.

“Both trips provide extremely valuable and unique experiences, and we want as many people as possible to be able to participate,” he wrote.

Erdos wrote in a Tuesday statement that the trip will allow students to investigate “the question of how hatred can galvanize some to violence and paralyze others into complicit by-standing.”

“Our hoped for goals are simple: to foster conversation across generations and backgrounds about Hungarian and Polish Jewish past and present, conversations that can continue beyond our trip and can serve as inspiration for Jews and non-Jews of all backgrounds in exploring their own place in the world,” Erdos wrote.

Hillel Campus Rabbi Getzel Davis wrote in a Tuesday email that he is “very excited” that Hillel is able to support the new trip this year, adding that he believes it is “a wonderful thing that Jews and non-Jews will attend this Trek together.”

“I hope that when students return, they together will be better equipped to help our campus heal,” Davis wrote.

—Staff writer Madeleine A. Hung can be reached at [email protected] .

—Staff writer Joyce E. Kim can be reached at [email protected] . Follow her on X at @joycekim324 .

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© THE INTERCEPT

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A Federal Judge Visited Israel on a Junket Designed to Sway Public Opinion. Now He’s Hearing a Gaza Case.

Activists suing the Biden administration over Gaza policy are demanding the judge recuse himself over the sponsored trip.

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Plaintiffs suing the Biden administration over Gaza policy have asked a federal appellate judge to recuse himself because of a trip he took to Israel in March. The World Jewish Congress, which sponsored the junket for 14 federal judges, framed the delegation as part of Israel’s “fight in the international court of public opinion.”

In an emergency motion filed Tuesday, the plaintiffs’ lawyers argued they were “ethically compelled” to ask Judge Ryan Nelson of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to recuse himself because the WJC trip was “explicitly designed to influence U.S. judicial opinion regarding the legality of ongoing Israeli military action against Palestinians.”

The plaintiffs are a mix of Palestinian human rights organizations and individual Palestinians, including Dr. Omar Al-Najjar, who has written about his experiences working in the decimated health infrastructure in Gaza. In November, they filed a complaint in federal court against President Joe Biden and other top officials, seeking “an injunction requiring the United States to fulfill its international law duty to prevent and cease being complicit — through unconditional financial and diplomatic support — in the unfolding genocide in Gaza.”

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The district court dismissed the case in late January but urged the administration “to examine the results of their unflagging support of the military siege against the Palestinians in Gaza.” The plaintiffs appealed to the 9th Circuit, which is scheduled to hear oral arguments next week. Nelson’s selection for the three-judge argument panel was announced on Monday.

In March, Nelson joined 13 colleagues from the federal bench on the WJC-sponsored trip. Like Nelson, many of the judges on the trip were appointed by former President Donald Trump.

According to a disclosure about the trip, the judges met with high-ranking members of the Israel Defense Forces about “Operation Swords of Iron” — what Israel calls its current military operation in Gaza — and the application of international humanitarian law during war. The trip also included sessions with one of the attorneys defending Israel before the International Court of Justice, Tal Becker ; former Israeli President Reuven Rivlin; and members of Israel’s Supreme Court and Knesset, the disclosure shows.

The judges met with a high-ranking official at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, to get the “American perspective,” one judge  told  the Jerusalem Post. State Department Secretary Antony Blinken is one of the defendants in the case before the 9th Circuit.

In a LinkedIn post summarizing lessons from the trip, Judge Matthew Solomson of the Federal Court of Claims, who helped organized the delegation, wrote, “Israel’s military culture is very attuned to international law; commanders consult lawyers at every step and the lawyers have veto power. We watched many video clips of Israeli military lawyers stopping strikes based on proportionality and collateral damage assessments. Their enemy doesn’t play by such rules.”

In late March, Nelson and Solomson spoke about the trip at a lunch talk hosted by Harvard Law School’s chapters of the Federalist Society and the Jewish Law Students Association. Their remarks were not made public, but Solomson wrote in a LinkedIn post that Nelson “expressed his inspiring faith in God and, concomitantly, an optimistic view of the future.”

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In their recusal motion, the plaintiffs highlight coverage of the trip in the Israeli press, particularly by the English-language ILTV. “This invaluable experience allowed them to delve deeper into the legality of Israel’s conduct in the operation,” ILTV said of the trip in an Instagram post .

“At this time, when Israel is facing so much in the court of public opinion and in the courts around the world,” WJC’s chief marketing officer, Sara Friedman, told ILTV in March, “it’s so important for people who understand the judicial system, who understand the laws of war, to come here.”

“The World Jewish Congress is sending a message by bringing these groups that we are supporting the state of Israel,” Friedman told ILTV. “By bringing these groups here and showing them the truth about what is going on, it’s the best diplomacy we can do.”

Friedman did not immediately respond to The Intercept’s request for comment about the trip. The Intercept also asked WJC for copies of materials given to the judges during the trip.

An anonymous statement by federal judicial clerks last month criticized the Israel trip .

Peter Joy, who studies legal ethics at Washington University in St. Louis, said it is often difficult to predict how judges will rule on recusal.

“They make a strong case for the judge to step down,” said Joy. “Here’s somebody who went on a trip, the explicit purpose of which was to try to get Israel’s point of view across.”

Cassandra Burke Robertson, director of the Center for Professional Ethics at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, did not think it was a clear-cut case for recusal.

“The closest issue here is that it sounds like officials on the trip may have been providing specific information about the legality of the operation,” Robertson said. “But if the information was more general, then I don’t think it would be disqualifying.”

“Although Judge Nelson certainly COULD recuse, I don’t think recusal is required under the statute or Judicial Canons,” Rory Little, a professor at UC Law San Francisco, told The Intercept in an email. “He might recuse; it’s not a clear case in either direction.”

Arguments are scheduled for January 10, and the plaintiffs asked the 9th Circuit to rule on their emergency recusal motion by Thursday. A spokesperson for the 9th Circuit said the panel will address the motion, “presumably before Monday.”

The Justice Department, which did not oppose the recusal motion, declined to discuss the case.

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‘Message of Hope’: 11 Harvard Affiliates Visit Israel in Solidarity Trip

Updated: March 28, 2024, at 12:30 a.m.

Ten Harvard professors and one undergraduate joined a delegation of academics to visit Israel on a solidarity trip earlier this month.

Harvard Medical School professor Gabriel Kreiman led 30 academics — 11 from Harvard and 19 from Stanford and Dartmouth — on a trip to Israel from March 17 through March 21.

Kreiman wrote in an emailed statement to The Crimson that at a time when the region is facing conflict, “we wanted to bring our expertise and knowledge to support, to generate new collaborations and to think of solutions for pressing problems.”

According to Kreiman, the group featured a wide range of expertise, including “faculty at Harvard, Stanford and Dartmouth at the forefront of research in areas such as computer science, economics, psychiatry and more.”

Shai-Li Ron ’24, the only student who attended the trip, wrote in a statement that she “saw this delegation as an opportunity to approach the situation with action.”

“How can we at Harvard, and professors at Stanford, Dartmouth provide help instead of recreating the conflict,” she added.

The visit comes amid lingering tensions on campus since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on Israel. In December, Congress opened an investigation against Harvard, and six Jewish students brought a lawsuit against the University alleging administrative handling of antisemitism on campus. Late last month, two pro-Palestine student groups reposted an antisemitic cartoon on Instagram.

The trip was funded by donation from the Blavatnik Family Foundation, according to Kreiman. Leonard V. Blavatnik, a billionaire philanthropist and major Harvard donor, stopped donating to the University over its response to Oct. 7.

Discussing antisemitism on Harvard’s campus, Kreiman wrote that he is concerned “the dialogue has stalled, that facts are neglected, and that people have become quite reticent to engage in academic discussion.”

Kreiman wrote that his key takeaway from the trip “was a sense of possibility.”

“Imagine a world where Arab boys and girls, Jewish boys and girls, and US boys and girls can work synergistically to tackle climate change, cure Alzheimer’s disease, or build the next generation of AI algorithms,” he wrote.

During the visit, participants discussed numerous initiatives, including creating a center “fostering academic collaborations among the US, Israel, and Arab countries — creating a nexus of excellence in innovation and cutting-edge research,” Ron wrote.

On the trip, the group also met with academic counterparts at Tel Aviv University, Ben Gurion University, and Hebrew University, as well as visiting sites of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on Israel.

Kreiman wrote that during one such visit, he was struck by his host’s “message of hope and optimism.”

“He pointed to Gaza, which is two kilometers away, and manifested that he wanted a future with peace, where his children could play with children in Gaza, where he could invite people from Gaza for dinner,” Kreiman added.

“I found it remarkable that despite the dark times, there continues to be a strong consensus to seek peace,” he wrote.

—Staff writer Veronica H. Paulus can be reached at [email protected] . Follow her on X @VeronicaHPaulus .

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At Yeshiva University commencement, John Fetterman disavows his alma mater Harvard

N ew York Jewish Week via JTA — US Senator John Fetterman, the Pennsylvania Democrat who has emerged as an unlikely champion for Israel since Hamas’s invasion and massacre in southern Israel on October 7, disavowed his alma mater, Harvard University, while receiving an award at Yeshiva University’s commencement ceremony.

Fetterman and YU leaders used Wednesday’s event, held at Louis Armstrong Stadium in Queens, to portray the flagship Modern Orthodox university as a counterpoint to college campuses across the United States (including Harvard’s) that have had pro-Palestinian encampments against Israel and whose graduation ceremonies have been marked by disruptive protests.

In his remarks on stage after receiving the Presidential Medallion, which YU says is its most prestigious award for global leadership, Fetterman echoed that comparison. He said the last time he attended a graduation ceremony was his own at Harvard, 25 years ago.

At the mention of Harvard, the crowd hissed — and Fetterman responded.

“I have been profoundly disappointed,” he said, mentioning “Harvard’s inability to stand up for the Jewish community after October 7.”

He then removed a red stole from his shoulders, from Harvard’s traditional graduation robes.

“I do not fundamentally believe that it’s right for me to wear this today,” he said to applause.

Since the Israel-Hamas war began nearly eight months ago, Fetterman has been one of the most outspoken supporters of Israel at the US Capitol, wallpapering his office with the pictures of hostages held by Hamas and wearing dog tags to show his support for their release. The approach has earned him opponents on the left and, uncharacteristically, friends on the right.

“I’m just a senator with a big mouth that happens to be committed to Israel,” he said in his remarks at the ceremony, which drew enthusiastic applause. In addition to voicing support for Israel’s war effort, Fetterman said, “I actually grieve for all the innocent Palestinian women and children that Hamas is responsible for taking.”

Rabbi Ari Berman, YU’s president, said the decision to invite Fetterman was “unanimous” for the university.

“Standing for Israel is a source of great strength for our community and it’s our privilege to honor him,” Berman told the New York Jewish Week. “Everyone was very excited about it.”

Before appearing on stage, Fetterman — clad in shorts and black sneakers under his commencement robe — told the New York Jewish Week that he was surprised by the invitation to speak at the ceremony, especially after finding out that last year’s commencement speaker was the inventor of Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.

“I was blown away. I was like, ‘I don’t belong in that kind of category,’” Fetterman said.

The ceremony was filled with references to Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza. Popular Orthodox singer Mordechai Shapiro sang a blessing for Israeli soldiers, and a video presentation honored fallen troops, including children of YU alumni. Police were stationed outside and security checked entrants at the gate, but there was no sign of anti-Israel protests.

The ceremony had its celebratory moments. After speeches by Berman and Fetterman, Shapiro sang a song with the refrain “Am yisrael chai,” Hebrew for “the people of Israel live.” Graduates danced in front of the podium next to Fetterman, who clapped his hands with the music as the students waved Israeli flags overhead.

Speakers, including Berman, highlighted students’ efforts to support Israel, including by fundraising, organizing prayer groups, and tutoring Israeli children online.

“After October 7, every prayer, every class, every day at Yeshiva University has changed and been charged with the mission of supporting Israel and the Jewish people,” Berman said in his commencement address.

Fetterman said that the commencement was a cause for celebration, despite Hamas’s attack and the war.

“I really believe there’s two things that are true today — that you can’t ignore what happened, but there’s a lot of joy and a lot of reasons to celebrate today,” he told the New York Jewish Week.

Berman also portrayed the university’s approach as a counterpoint to anti-Israel activism on other campuses, decrying other colleges for “capitulating to misbegotten demands” from protesters who have called to boycott Israel. YU has sought to capitalize on anti-Israel activism on other campuses, including by extending its transfer application deadline to students looking to leave other campuses.

“We are taking the opposite stance,” Berman said to applause. “At YU we don’t divest, we invest. We invest in Israel, we always invest in Israel.”

The post At Yeshiva University commencement, John Fetterman disavows his alma mater Harvard appeared first on The Times of Israel .

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‘I’m just a senator with a big mouth that happens to be committed to standing with Israel,’ Fetterman said

Anthony Behar/Sipa USA via AP Images

Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) seen removing his colored hood from Harvard University as a sign of protest against their policies concerning the ongoing Israel-Palestinian war during the commencement ceremony for 2024 Yeshiva University graduating class, at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center's Louse Armstrong Stadium, Flushing Meadow-Corona Park, Queens, NY, May 29, 2024.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) renounced his association with Harvard University over its “inability to stand up for the Jewish community” during his Yeshiva University commencement address on Wednesday, removing the crimson hood representing his alma mater while on stage.

Fetterman made the gesture early in his address, which culminated in him receiving the Presidential Medallion, the private Orthodox university’s highest honor, for his advocacy on behalf of Israel and the Jewish people. He joked that he didn’t deserve to be in the same company as previous recipients of the award, describing himself as “just a senator with a big mouth that happens to be committed to standing with Israel.”

The Pennsylvania senator, who has emerged since Oct. 7 as one of Israel’s strongest allies in his party, said he had been “reflecting” on his “last graduation, and that was literally a quarter century ago. I was graduating from Harvard University.”

“Today, I have been profoundly disappointed with Harvard’s inability to stand up for the Jewish community after Oct. 7. Personally, I do not fundamentally believe that it is right for me to wear this today,” Fetterman said while pointing to his hood, which he then removed from around his neck. 

The move sparked audible gasps and subsequent cheers from the crowd. 

Fetterman, who graduated from the Harvard Kennedy School in 1999 with a master’s in public policy, vowed to remain a staunch supporter of Israel and fight for the release of the hostages, pointing to a memento given to him by a family member. 

“Of course, we cannot ignore the somber context of today. In fact, on my wrist I’m wearing the wristband from the Nova music festival. It was given to me by a family member of someone that was taken hostage. If you look at it, it reads Oct. 7, 2023. It’s a constant reminder of the horrors of that day,” Fetterman said. “The Jewish community everywhere deserves our support and I promise you will always have mine. And I will not stop speaking out until every last hostage is brought back home.”

The Democratic senator has bucked his party’s shift away from Israel in recent months, refusing to waver in his support for continued offensive military aid despite the objections of some far left colleagues. He has also led on legislation combating antisemitism on college campuses alongside Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA). 

He told the graduating class that one of his “most proud moments as a United States senator was voting for billions in aid for Israel with no conditions to allow Israel to push back at that singular evil force.” 

Fetterman also urged students to take some time to celebrate their accomplishments and embrace the joy they felt on this day despite the tragedy that has unfolded in Israel and Gaza on and since Oct. 7. 

“Joy can coexist with tragedy,” Fetterman said. “And today, never forget that today is a day of celebration for all of you and all of these families here.”

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The Dallas Mavericks’ Luka Doncic realizes childhood dream of playing in NBA Finals

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Luka Doncic didn’t stay up all night to watch NBA Finals games as a kid. They usually started at something like 3 a.m. in his native Slovenia. He had school to get to a few hours later. He’d wake up and find out who won.

Make no mistake, though: Doncic was paying attention.

“Every kid who plays basketball dreams about this,” Doncic said. “I was one of them.”

Dreams become reality for Doncic on Thursday night, when the 25-year-old makes his NBA Finals debut for the Dallas Mavericks as they take on the Boston Celtics in Game 1 of this year’s title series. He could become the first player to win a scoring title and a championship in the same season since Shaquille O’Neal in 2000, and a title surely would only add to the argument that Doncic — who leads all players in this postseason in points, rebounds and assists — may be the best player in the game right now.

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“This is going to be the international finals,” said Kyrie Irving, Doncic’s backcourt mate in Dallas. “Everybody’s going to be watching. Every finals is international, but the world is watching.”

He didn’t have to clarify why. Yes, the NBA Finals have long been available in more than 200 countries and territories, broadcast in something like 50 languages and dialects. And it’s hardly a new thing for foreign players to star on the NBA’s biggest stage; two of the past three NBA Finals MVPs were Greece’s Giannis Antetokounmpo for Milwaukee in 2021 and Serbia’s Nikola Jokic for Denver last year.

Doncic — who became a father for the first time this season, calling that development “the greatest thing in the world” — is a global corporation by himself, a player who speaks four languages fluently and has an enormous following everywhere. And a championship would only add to his rapidly growing legend.

“Luka is at a spectacular, stratospheric level,” Hall of Famer Pau Gasol said at an event in Spain this week. “What he has done … is within the reach of very few in the history of this sport.”

The numbers back up what Gasol is saying.

Doncic is averaging 28.7 points per game in his six regular seasons; only Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain — both at 30.1 — have a higher career average. He’s the only player in NBA history to have averages of at least eight assists and eight rebounds per game. He’s one of two players with at least 10,000 points, 3,000 rebounds and 3,000 assists through his first 400 career games; Oscar Robertson is the other.

“Game’s too simple, too easy,” Mavericks coach Jason Kidd said late in the regular season, when asked why voters haven’t rewarded Doncic with an MVP award yet. “He makes it look too easy. Unfortunately, that’s what happens with some of the greats ... we take for granted their talent.”

Doncic wants no part of talk that winning is easy. He may make it look easy — he had a league-best 73-point game this season, 13 games of scoring at least 40 points in the regular season, and that number could have been even higher considering he scored 39 points on eight other occasions.

Stopping Doncic in these finals is not an option, Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said. Containing is the goal.

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“You’ve just got to be very aware of what you’re willing to live with and what you’re willing to take away and when it’s time to adjust,” Mazzulla said. “There’s not one coverage. There’s not one player. It’s going to take multiple coverages. It’s going to take multiple players. It’s going to take a team effort.”

The numbers don’t just happen, Doncic insists. Nor do the wins. Doncic was a proven pro before he even got to the NBA after starring as a teenager for Real Madrid, a club he has remained very close with. But his star has continued shining brighter in each of his NBA seasons — and now, kids in Slovenia will be waking up over the next couple weeks to see how their hero did in the finals.

“It’s very hard to win,” Doncic said. “You watch a lot of film and go to work. And it’s very hard. I don’t think people understand how hard it is to win games in this league, especially in the playoffs. So, I think we earned to be here. We deserved that. Because every game we’re playing in the playoffs, it’s really hard to win.”

Reynolds writes for the Associated Press.

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