Harvard University told Cemal Kafadar, the director of its Center for Middle Eastern Studies, that he must step down by the end of the academic year, reported The Harvard Crimson, a student newspaper.
David Cutler, the school’s interim dean of social science, told Kafadar, a Turkish studies professor, and Rosie Bsheer, a history professor who is associate director of the center, that they had to resign in the coming months, according to a faculty member “familiar with the situation,” according to the Crimson. (JNS sought comment from Harvard.)
Kafadar has been on leave for the academic year. The Crimson reported that Salmaan Keshavjee, a global health professor who is the center’s interim director, will retain his post. Kafadar and Bsheer will remain in their faculty positions.
In an email obtained by the Crimson, Cutler asked colleagues to suggest potential candidates for center leadership by April 16.
A report from the Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance accused the academic department of demonizing Israel as the “last remaining colonial settler power embodying the world’s worst evils: racism, apartheid and genocide.”
David Wolpe, rabbi emeritus of Sinai Temple, a Conservative synagogue in Los Angeles and a former member of Harvard’s Antisemitism Advisory Group, said the change in leadership at the center was “good news.”
