Shavos Kestenbaum, 25, a graduate of Harvard Divinity School and an Orthodox Jew, was one of several “ordinary Americans” who spoke at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Milwaukee on July 17, 2024.
“My faith has given me comfort and solace during times of trial and tribulation. My faith has been a source of strength,” Kestenbaum said in a new interview with Fox News Digital.
“I am a proud first-generation American. I am a proud Orthodox Jew. And for the past five months, I have been a proud plaintiff in a lawsuit against Harvard University for failing to combat anti-Semitism,” Kestenbaum declared at the start of his Milwaukee speech.
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Kestenbaum said recent events have made him more aware of his Jewish faith and identity.
“I actually bought a bigger skullcap after October 7,” he said. “I’ve never been prouder to be Jewish. I’ve never been prouder to stand with my brothers and sisters in the Land of Israel. In the face of adversity, I will not shrink.”
Shabbos Kestenbaum, who is now based in New York, can be seen in both photos above, on the left at a rally in Boston and on the right raising the American flag at Harvard University. (Shabbos Kestenbaum)
He said that after the Hamas terror attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, he and many other Jewish students across the United States have witnessed and been painfully aware of the rise in anti-Semitism.
“I put up 1,200 Israeli and American flags on campus and within 24 hours they were all destroyed,” he said. “I was harassed by my classmates and received countless death threats online simply for being Jewish.”
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Kestenbaum said Harvard students and professors “openly called for new Hamas-style attacks against the United States” and “refused to immediately and unequivocally condemn the Oct. 7 killing of 45 Americans and the taking of 12 American hostages.”
Students in tents on campus were shouting anti-Semitic slogans such as “Make the intifada global” and “When people are occupied, resistance is justified,” he said.
Kestenbaum said he has “deep ties” to Israel and has many relatives, including close family members, living in the country.
In 2019, he completed a two-year program at Aish, a Jewish educational institution, graduating in Jerusalem where he studied Jewish philosophy, ethics and law.
He said the AISH program inspired him to pursue religious studies in a broader academic context at Harvard, which “ended up being a bitter disappointment” for him.
Students protesting the Gaza war and passersby walking through Harvard Yard were photographed at a Harvard University encampment in Cambridge, Massachusetts on April 25, 2024. The protesters were protesting the war between Israel and Hamas. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File)
Kestenbaum told Fox News Digital that he quickly realized that “normative Judaism, a Judaism that emphasizes attachment to the Land of Israel, was not really being embraced.”
He said that based on his experience, schools “did not focus on the Land of Israel in any other context than settler colonialism, apartheid, genocide and racism.”
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Kestenbaum was referring to the recent Jewish holiday of Tammuz 17, a fast day that commemorates the destruction of the Second Temple when Roman troops tore down the walls surrounding Jerusalem in 70 A.D.
“We will fast to commemorate that destruction in 2024, 3,000 years from now,” he said. “We are intrinsically connected to the Land of Israel. We care deeply about what happens in the Land of Israel.”
Kestenbaum attended the third day of the Republican National Convention (RNC) at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on July 17, 2024. (Reuters/Mike Seeger)
He said that in his experience, it is “almost always” taught that “anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to Harvard Divinity School for comment.
As previously reported, Harvard University filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit in April. At the time, Harvard spokesman Jason A. Newton told The Harvard Crimson that “Harvard is committed to combating anti-Semitism and ensuring that our Jewish students, faculty, staff and alumni are safe, valued and accepted in our community.”
“Sharing our destiny”
On Passover, while Jews were celebrating the Israelites’ liberation from Egyptian slavery, Harvard students gathered in tents on campus chanting anti-Semitic slogans such as “start a global intifada” and “when people are occupied, resistance is justified,” Kestenbaum said.
After his speech at the Republican National Convention, delegates came up to him and told him parishes and communities in South Dakota and Iowa were praying for the Jewish community.
Kestenbaum said the slogans “erase the connection of the Jewish people to the historical land of their ancestors” and “call for the ethnic genocide of the Jewish people, the murder of Jews on Passover itself.”
Shabboth Kestenbaum, a Harvard University graduate, was recently interviewed on “Fox & Friends.” “Jews have always been the canaries in the coal mine,” he told Fox News Digital this week. (Fox & Friends/Screenshot)
Kestenbaum recently discussed the rise in anti-Semitism since Claudine Gay stepped down as president of Harvard University on January 2, 2024. He said on Fox News that Jews are being blamed for Gay’s resignation and that she has been called a “baby killer.”
Kestenbaum told Fox News Digital: “Unfortunately, we [accustomed] Persecution, discrimination, prejudice…the Jews have always been the canary in the coal mine.”
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He added, “What begins with us will never end with us… I strongly feel that we share a common destiny.”
He suggested that people not buy into negative stereotypes and instead see for themselves what Jewish people are like.
“Talk to us. Talk to us. We would love to have you over for Shabbat dinner,” he said.
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Kerstenbaum urged others to “pray for us. Your prayers make a difference and your prayers are heard.”
He said that after his speech at the Republican National Convention, delegates came up to him and told him that parishes and communities in South Dakota and Iowa were praying for the Jewish community.
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He also suggested people contact policymakers to appeal for the release of the hostages.
Fox News Digital’s Yael Harron contributed to this report.
