Israel needs to do more to help the Jewish students who have become today’s leaders in the fight against antisemitism, Harvard alum and activist Shabbos Kestenbaum said Thursday.

The Democrat Party abandoned the needs of Jewish Americans because it took their support for granted, he said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post before attending the International Conference on Combating Antisemitism later in the day in Jerusalem.

The Diaspora Ministry's conference was an opportunity to urge Israeli leaders to commit more support to the students who were standing their ground against antisemitism on campus, Kestenbaum said.

Students were “wearing these Star of David necklaces in hostile environments and are waving Israeli flags at campuses where they’ve been burned – literally burned, set on fire before – and we need to support those students,” he said.

“They are not tomorrow’s leaders; they are today’s leaders,” he added.

Many young American Jews had woken up to the reality facing them after the October 7 massacre, Kestenbaum said. They sought to engage more with the Jewish community, but the Jewish establishment was not prepared to meet their needs, he said.

Shabbos Kestenbaum, center, on stage at the Republican Jewish Coalition's annual convention in Las Vegas, September 5, 2024. (credit: LUKE TRESS)
Shabbos Kestenbaum, center, on stage at the Republican Jewish Coalition's annual convention in Las Vegas, September 5, 2024. (credit: LUKE TRESS)
Kestenbaum has been at the forefront of addressing antisemitism and radical anti-Israel animus at Harvard. Students at his alma mater who had physically assaulted their Jewish peers and professors who had participated in the protest encampments had not been disciplined, he said. On the contrary, those professors were rewarded with the offering of a new class called “Palestine, a 1,000-year history,” he added.

Campus antisemitism

Kestenbaum had filed a civil-rights lawsuit against Harvard in January, together with other students, many of whom had since settled with the university. But he had continued with the lawsuit in an effort to implement more sweeping structural change on the campus, he said.
The task forces created by Harvard to review and address antisemitism on campus were useless, because they were not designed to implement change but to provide cover for the institution, Kestenbaum said. Two leaders of the board had resigned, recognizing the true nature of the body, he said. The board is now said to be led by someone who claimed that antisemitism at Harvard had been exaggerated, he added.
“The Jewish experience, not just at Harvard, but across so many college campuses in the United States” was one “of a double standard,” Kestenbaum said.
“Jews are not asking for special treatment under the law; we are asking for equal treatment under the law,” he said.Kestenbaum has been working with the Task Force to Combat Antisemitism. President Donald Trump’s administration has made significant inroads against campus antisemitism, he said.
Kestenbaum spoke about the issue at the 2024 Republican National Convention.

Voting for Trump

“I supported President Trump so strongly because he was the only candidate who told us, who told me to my face, that we are going to enforce the law once again; that if you’re on a foreign visa as a student, and you are arrested or support terrorist organizations like Hamas, or you are following Jews on their way to class, we will send you back to your host countries,” he said.
Kestenbaum said he had not always been a supporter of Republican politicians – he is a registered Democrat and campaigned on behalf of their candidates in the past – and attempted to engage the Democratic Party about rising antisemitism.
Kestenbaum said he and others had invited then-presidential candidate vice president Kamala Harris to join Trump last at the Ohel – the resting place of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, in New York City – to commemorate the October 7 massacre, alongside hostage families, but she declined. Her camp reportedly declined a second invitation on a different day, he said.
Kestenbaum said he had encouraged the Democratic Party to have speakers at the Democratic National Convention who were progressive Jewish students and victims of antisemitism, but his proposal was rejected.
“At a certain point, there needs to be some recognition in the American Jewish community that politics are exclusively transactional, and if a certain party does not want to support us, that is their prerogative, but we are not going to support you,” he said. “I believe one of the reasons the Democratic Party was increasingly hostile to the State of Israel is because they kind of figured, well, we have 75% to 85% of the American Jewish vote locked up anyways, so why do we have to start making concessions to a group that’s going to support us regardless of what we do.”
Kestenbaum said he hoped voices such as Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-New York) and Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pennsylvania) would be elevated and amplified. But he was not optimistic that the Democratic Party would shift course in the near future.