Harvard yearbook erases Oct 7 massacre but includes pic of John Harvard statue in Palestinian keffiyeh: ‘Whitewashing terrorism'

New York Post

02-06-2025

Harvard needs a history lesson, according to students outraged over its 2025 yearbook ignoring the October 7, 2023 Hamas terror attack on Israel.
The book instead depicts only Israel's aggression in Gaza, with its October 2023 entry including a photo of the famous John Harvard statue draped in a keffiyeh with a caption reading 'War breaks out in Gaza.'
The official Harvard yearbook, the 520–page book aimed to capture the 'Harvard experience' and described as 'Harvard. Immortalized,' shocked graduating seniors when they flipped through the pages recapping every month since their freshman year.
10 The incendiary page in the Harvard 2025 yearbook which states '2023 October war breaks out in Gaza' in front of a picture of university founder John Harvard's statue with a keffiyeh around his shoulders and a sign reading Eyes on Gaza in front. The next page marks the end of the Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine (HOOP) encampment after 20 days.
Harvard Chabad/ X
10 A student protester in a Palestinian keffiyeh stands in front of the statue of John Harvard which has been draped in the Palestinian flag in April 2024.
AP
'It's deeply offensive,' newly minted graduate Alex Bernat, who has seen the page firsthand, told The Post.
He added he was 'shocked' by the complete whitewashing of the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust that left 1,200 murdered, thousands injured and saw 251 abducted into Gaza and held hostage – 58 of whom have yet to be returned.
'They totally mischaracterized in a very irresponsible way the beginnings of everything on October 7, the actual thing that prompted the war on Gaza.'
The treasured yearbook that's meant to 'reflect on your time in college' turned into a 'completely biased representation of the events of October 2023,' blasted the Jewish grad, adding there is no excuse for yearbook editors – a group of 20 students listed on the site – to gloss over the atrocities that precipitated the war.
'They know exactly how the events of October 7 transpired … It's such an easy thing to get right – and the fact that they didn't is really concerning,' the 23-year-old Chicago native said.
Although school is out for summer at the embattled Ivy League institution, it's still under fire for being a hotbed of hate.
10 Palestine supporters, many from Harvard, rallying in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in October 2023.
AFP via Getty Images
10 Jewish students and supporters gathered at a Menorah lighting ceremony on Harvard's campus after the Israel-Hamas war had started. Then-president Claudine Gay was in attendance (pictured center left).
David McGlynn
10 Harvard President Claudine Gay resigned from the University in January 2024 amid plagiarism accusations and a weak response to antisemitism on campus.
AP
President Donald Trump has pulled over $3bn in funding from the University, and the White House has instructed federal agencies to review approximately $100m in contracts the government has with Harvard and find alternatives where possible.
Last week Trump said: 'Harvard is treating our country with great disrespect, and all they're doing is getting in deeper and deeper and deeper.'
The state department has also stopped issuing new student visas nationwide, while a new vetting process is put in place.
Harvard's handling of Hamas' terror attack and massacre has caused problems from the start. Hours after the atrocities, a now-infamous screed signed by 31 Harvard student groups blamed the Jewish state, holding 'the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence' – prompting outraged Harvard alums like hedge fund honcho Bill Ackman to call for the entire board of Harvard University to resign.
10 Harvard Divinity School gradujate Shabbos Kestenbaum has slammed the college's yearbook editors for 'not being able to comprehend' that Hamas started the war in Gaza.
Getty Images
10 One of the buildings at Harvard University with three red banners displaying the university's crest.
MG – stock.adobe.com
10 The offensive yearbook, branded 'not only factually dishonest — it's historical revisionism,' by Brooke Goldstein, Founder and Executive Director of The Lawfare Project.
Harvard Chabad/ X
Watchdog groups have also ripped the poisoned Ivy, which saw former president Claudine Gay wither on the vine after her gutless congressional testimony, for letting willful hate fester.
'Harvard's official yearbook description of the October 7 massacre as merely 'war breaking out in Gaza' is not only factually dishonest — it's historical revisionism. By erasing the brutal, premeditated slaughter of over 1,200 Israelis, Harvard is whitewashing terrorism and contributing to the narratives that justify the ongoing genocide against the Jewish people,' Brooke Goldstein, Founder and Executive Director of The Lawfare Project, told The Post.
'This isn't just a failure of language — it's a moral failure. Harvard has become a symbol of elite radicalization. This is an American problem, not just a Jewish one.'
The galling omission is tantamount to 'Holocaust-like denial,' railed Harvard Chabad, the Jewish movement that supports students on campus.
10 A protester at Harvard with a sign reading 'END THE OCCUPATION NOW!'
REUTERS
10 A sign reading Harvard at the university's campus in Boston, Massachusetts
AFP via Getty Images
Francesca Albanese, the controversial UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, who's been accused of spewing antisemitism, appeared at Harvard last year in an event described as 'exploring how certain concepts from international law, such as 'occupation,' 'apartheid,' and 'genocide,' applied to the situation in and around Gaza.'
'This is what they're being taught,' Harvard Chabad Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi claimed of the one-sided exposure to students. 'They're being told to be skeptical about what Israel says happened on October 7 and to believe everything from Hamas.
'It's an absolute disgrace.'
Harvard Divinity School grad, Shabbos Kestenbaum, who settled an antisemitism lawsuit last month against his alma mater, attacked his former school.
'The murder of 45 American citizens as well as the abduction of 12 Americans on October 7th was a horrific terrorist attack,' the 2024 grad told The Post. 'Harvard students not being able to comprehend that basic fact is deeply disturbing.'