Sazi Bongwe, a Harvard University student who won a Rhodes scholarship to study at the University of Oxford, penned an op-ed in the Nation in which he appeared to refer to Palestinians “daring to resist” on Oct. 7.
“Israel has made it clear that with every bomb it is teaching a lesson: Resistance is futile; resist at the risk of annihilation,” the Johannesburg native wrote on Sept. 18, 2024. “The Palestinian’s suffering, Israel declares to the world, is all the fault of the Palestinians for daring to resist.”
In the same piece, he referred to Israel launching a “brazen campaign of genocidal bombing and starvation” and using “starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza.”
An official Harvard University publication confirmed his Rhodes scholarship. (JNS sought comment from Harvard and Oxford.)
The Rhodes Trust states that the 2026 winners are 32 “outstanding” students, selected from 965 candidates nominated by their schools.
Other winners include Yael Goldstein, of Barrington, R.I., who is a Harvard student and a musician, and Noah Tirschwell, of Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., who is a Yale University student and, per his LinkedIn profile, co-president of the Hillel student board at the school’s Slifka Center for Jewish Life. He is also listed as a former co-president of J Street at Yale.
Bongwe isn’t listed on the trust’s list of scholars, but appears elsewhere on the site on a page about South Africa.
Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi, founder and president of Harvard Chabad, told JNS that it is “sad and shameful” that Bongwe received the scholarship.
“When Hamas sympathizers and supporters are honored and celebrated by Harvard and Oxford faculty with the Rhodes Scholarship, the continued rise of Jew-hate shouldn’t surprise anyone,” he said. “It appears that the Rhodes Scholarship has gone the way of the Nobel Prize, which honored the terrorist Yasser Arafat.”
