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Anti-Zionist rabbi who downplayed Oct. 7th hired by Harvard University

Harvard is facing backlash for hiring an anti-Zionist rabbi to new role, meant to combat antisemitism.

By World Israel News Staff

Harvard Divinity School (HDS) announced last week that it hired an anti-Zionist rabbi who downplayed the October 7th Hamas massacres and denied that antisemitism is rampant at the school.

Rabbi Shaul Magid will begin serving as the school’s Professor of Modern Jewish Studies in Residence, starting on July 1st, HDS said in a media statement.

Magid is an avowed “counter-Zionist,” who has repeatedly and publicly expressed his opposition to Zionism and the existence of Israel as a Jewish State.

In an essay written less than two weeks after the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel, Magid wrote that while he “will not justify a massacre,” he stressed that he “will not justify” viewing the attack, which included numerous atrocities, “as if it happened in a vacuum.”

Referring to the invasion which saw Hamas rape, butcher, and mutilate civilians including the elderly and children, Magid wrote that “all human endeavors have context, and to deny that is itself an act of dehumanization.”

He also wrote that he stands with “his people,” presumably meaning Jews, but that he will “not condemn the Palestinian people.”

Notably, Magid was appointed to an academic position newly created by Harvard, which the school claimed will help counter antisemitism within the institution.

Rabbi David Wolpe said he disagreed with Harvard’s selection of Magid, arguing it would further promote anti-Zionist views at the university – which are not reflective or inclusive of most American Jews.

Wolpe was briefly part of a taskforce aimed at combating antisemitism at Harvard before he resigned, citing concerns over the school’s commitment to creating a safe atmosphere for Jews on campus.

Magid is “not an answer to the problem that Harvard has with their Jewish students or with the exclusion of mainstream views,” Wolpe told the Washington Free Beacon.

Wolpe emphasized that Magid’s stances on Israel and antisemitism are “very fringe” and do not “represent anything like the mainstream view of the American Jewish community.”

Born in New York to a secular Jewish family, Magid became interested in Orthodox Judaism in his 20s.

He studied at a yeshiva in Jerusalem for several years, and received rabbinical ordination from several prominent Religious Zionist rabbis in 1984.