Landmark Advances for Jewish Life at Harvard
Dear beloved fellow members of Harvard’s Jewish community,
I hope my message finds you, and those close to you, well.
As a people, we are living through an extraordinarily fraught time, filled with deep concern for our community’s well-being and for our shared moral compass. Within this broad span, Harvard Hillel stewards one element of the Jewish people’s existence: the welfare and flourishing of Jewish life at Harvard. In that context, I write to you today with significant good news.
This week Harvard University made a pair of landmark commitments to the ongoing presence and vibrancy of Jewish life at Harvard: funding security at Harvard Hillel and creating a pair of academic exchange programs with Israel. Over the past year, Harvard Hillel has focused our efforts on influencing upstream ‘leading indicators’ that shape campus life, out of the belief that these are the most powerful and durable ways to improve the experience of Jewish students and the university as a whole. Security funding for Hillel and the increased presence of Israelis are two of the most significant of these factors.
Funding Security at Harvard Hillel
A defining feature of this generation of American Jewish life is widespread, crescendoing danger – from Kansas City in 2007, to Pittsburgh in 2018, Poway in 2019, Colleyville in 2022, and Boulder, Harrisburg PA, and Washington already in 2025. In recognition of this reality, Harvard University has begun to fund security at Harvard Hillel. Our multi-faceted security measures will not change: security presence in the Hillel building on a daily basis, enhanced protection during High Holidays and at major events, and ongoing upgrades to the infrastructure of Rosovsky Hall – all constantly coordinated with Harvard’s Public Safety leadership and the broader Jewish community. This step by Harvard is a clear and welcome statement of the University’s commitment to the safety of Jewish students and of the Jewish community as a whole. The concrete impact of this change is that Harvard Hillel will have significantly greater capacity for our urgent and sacred work: connecting to, empowering, and inspiring every Jewish student during their formative years at Harvard.
Academic Exchanges with Israel
Harvard has previously rejected academic boycotts in general, including boycotts of Israel. This week two new academic initiatives expressed the university’s principles in concrete pro-active form. A new suite of study-abroad offerings at Ben-Gurion University will expand the academic opportunities available to Harvard students and the number of Harvard students who experience Israel first-hand. The parallel creation of a branch of the Kalaniyot program at Harvard Medical School will enhance Harvard’s life-saving research with the insights of some of Israel’s most promising scientists. Other Schools across the university are exploring their own Kalaniyot fellowship initiatives, indicating this initiative’s potential to deeply entwine Israeli universities and Harvard – to the benefit of Harvard, the campus atmosphere, Israeli researchers facing academic boycotts, and the very progress of knowledge.
We are in a moment of vast uncertainty, facing existential and ethical questions of great acuity – for Harvard, for Israel, and for the American Jewish community. These steps offer not a solution to grand problems, but a demonstration that real progress, with long-term potential to advance tolerance, safety, and the flourishing of collaboration – is not only possible, it is occurring right here, right now, at Harvard. At this moment, when much remains to be done, even here, I want to nonetheless pause and close with a note of appreciation for every member of this community whose forward-looking and diligent work has wrought these achievements.
These achievements reflect sustained advocacy by Harvard Hillel and our community, working in partnership with President Garber and other university leaders whose vision and courage have begun to make meaningful change. Through ongoing dialogue, principled advocacy, and shared commitment to Jewish flourishing at Harvard, we have together charted a path forward that does right by, and is in turn enriched by, a vibrant Jewish community. Together, may we continue to set the groundwork for the next chapters of Jewish life at Harvard, continuing the work of the generations who preceded us, and securing the place of those who will follow.
Brachot,
Rabbi Jason Rubenstein
Executive Director