OPINION: Harvard should invest its endowment in a professional room reader
Amidst increased federal scrutiny of antisemitism on college campuses, Harvard University decided in all its wisdom to host an event with a transgender actor who mocks Hasidic Jews to celebrate a holiday.
Yesterday, Harvard hosted “A Purim Masquerade: Trans Hasidic Edition” with a transgender actor named Eli Rosen, who now calls himself a female, cross-dresses, and goes by the name “Lili.”
Purim is a Jewish holiday which “commemorates the (Divinely orchestrated) salvation of the Jewish people in the ancient Persian empire from Haman’s plot ‘to destroy, kill and annihilate all the Jews, young and old, infants and women, in a single day,’” in the fourth century B.C., according to Chabad.org.
According to the announcement, “Rosen is a trans actress, writer, producer and cultural consultant raised in a Yiddish-speaking home in Hasidic Brooklyn.” He (pictured) also translated a “sexuality guide” for kids into Yiddish, according to his website.
The Center for Jewish Studies sponsored the event along with the theatre department and gender studies department.
Rosen’s works include a Netflix series called “Unorthodox” where he played a rabbi (while he was still being honest about his sex).
He currently stars in his play called “The Second Circumcision of Lili Rosen,” that describes his “gender transition and coming out to [his] Hasidic family,” according to the actor’s website.
The play mocks circumcision by comparing it to Rosen’s surgery to remove his male reproductive organs in place of a synthetic female part. It includes a graphic description of post-surgical care which will not be reprinted here.
The decision to host the play raises questions about the wisdom of Harvard officials. After all, anyone who can read the room should realize that while anti-Jewish programming is always wrong, there will be far less tolerance of it under the new presidential administration.
Just days prior to the March 10 event, the Trump administration pulled $400 million in federal grants from Columbia University, alleging the school had not done enough to address antisemitism on campus.
Even worse for Harvard, the Department of Justice announced last week that its antisemitism task force would be visiting the Ivy League school and nine other campuses to assess whether they need “remedial action,” as The College Fix reported.
The president has also signed several executive orders cracking down on antisemitism.
Harvard’s endowment is above $50 billion. It should use some of its money to hire someone with commonsense and a basic understanding of politics before the federal government comes down on it any further.
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IMAGE: Temple Har Zion/YouTube; Harvard College
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