https://www.thefp.com/p/attacking-jews-at-harvard-doesnt?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Instead of discipline, the students behind an attack that went viral got a fellowship, accolades—and a commencement spotlight.
In the year and a half since the Hamas massacre of October 7, 2023, there have been so many alarming incidents on college campuses aimed at Jews. Many stick out for their grotesque imagery, for their outrageous slanders, and for their Soviet-style tactics. But the incident that I remember most vividly is the one that took place at Harvard University less than two weeks after Hamas invaded Israel, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping 250 more.
No one was physically injured that day. But the fact remained that the incident was wildly beyond the pale: a group of Harvard students surrounding another student, an Israeli named Yoav Segev, repeatedly screaming “Shame!” in his face, blocking his path, and forcing him to leave a part of campus that he was entitled to be in just as much as they were.
Video of the confrontation quickly went viral. You can watch it here.
The incident might have just disappeared from the news, like so many other videos of post-October 7 antisemitism on campus, if not for another shocking fact. The two aggressors who were the easiest to identify, because they were not wearing masks or hoodies and did not have keffiyehs around their faces, were not just Harvard students. They were also Harvard employees.
Ibrahim Bharmal was a Harvard Law School student and an editor at the Harvard Law Review. He was also a law-school teaching fellow in a civil procedure class. Elom Tettey-Tamaklo was a student at Harvard Divinity School. He was also a residential Harvard proctor, someone who advised first-year Harvard College students and lived in their dorm.
In other words, these were not random outside agitators or foolish 18-year-old college students trying to prove their radical clout. They had been chosen by Harvard—Bharmal by its faculty, Tettey-Tamaklo by its administrators—to be leaders, role models, and part of the very fabric of the institution itself.
For those who wanted to simply wave off the outbreak of harassment against Jewish students on elite American college campuses as much ado being done by outsiders, the Harvard video proved otherwise. Yet Harvard’s president at the time, Claudine Gay, said nothing publicly about it until three weeks later.
