By The Free Press | Created at 2024-09-23 22:35:26 | Updated at 2024-09-30 07:32:09
6 days ago
At the age of 63, when I enrolled as a master’s degree student at Harvard Divinity School in the fall of 2022, I anticipated two years to contemplate the great works of the past and engage in stimulating discussions with brilliant teachers and students. That, I accomplished. What I didn’t expect was that the school would also provide a chilling education in the contemporary antisemitism that’s on its way to overtaking higher education.
I was raised a Reform Jew in Atlanta in a family of stalwart Zionists—both parents were avid moral and financial supporters of Israel. My religious observance waned for many years, but over the past decade has been reenergized.
Before I retired and decided to embark on theological studies, I was the chief investment officer of a $25 billion mutual fund. I was attracted to Harvard Divinity because of its avowed religious pluralism. The school was established in 1816 as the country’s first nonsectarian theological school, and today, while it still prepares some students for the clergy, it also attracts leaders from many fields in order to enrich their understanding of religion.
I don’t think of myself as a naive person. But as my time at Harvard Divinity School unfolded, I was shocked to discover there was a hidden mission in some corners of the school: a fervent opposition to the existence of Israel to the point of encouraging its elimination.
