Why Did Harvard Drop Its ‘Semitic’ Museum?

Instead of fighting the scourge of antisemitism, it went as dark on the subject as it dared.

Letter to The WSJ. 

"My former colleague Peter Der Manuelian suggests that there’s nothing to see in a Harvard museum’s name change (Letters, May 3). Yet it’s hard to see how renaming the institution the “Museum of the Ancient Near East” reflects its mission more accurately than the adjective “Semitic” did. The timing of the change in 2020, coinciding with a rise in anti-Zionism, suggests it was done not because “few people know what that word means” but because many know it includes the Jews and their homeland.

Anti-Israel agitation at Harvard was unmistakable. The museum anticipated the question, “Why now?,” by suggesting the change wasn’t a reaction to any event but reflected “our core mission in clearer terms.” Rather, it had transformed that core mission and changed the name to make it irreversible.

According to a “Biblical Archeologist” article the museum used to give visitors, Jacob Schiff, who endowed the museum and its first biblical archeological expeditions, said a primary purpose must be to confront antisemitism in Europe and social prejudice in America. It would encourage a better knowledge of Semitic history “so that the world shall better understand and acknowledge the debt it owes to the Semitic people.” That represented the brotherhood of Ishmael and Isaac and the Judeo-Christian foundations of America and Harvard.

Schiff’s mission was never more vital than in 2020. If people didn’t understand the term, it was an ideal opportunity for education. While Harvard’s Center for Middle East Studies promoted the Islamist-Arab war against Israel, the collegial faculty associated with the museum were professionally equipped to counteract that poison with interdisciplinary teaching about the people of Israel in the Land of Israel and the biblical legacy in Christianity and Islam. Instead, it went as dark on the subject as it dared.

Few understand antisemitism but many embrace it. The Middle Eastern consortium against the Jews formed before the Nazi version was defeated. As Jews began recovering their sovereignty in Zion, anti-Zionism absorbed antisemitism. Higher education was meant to expose and vanquish the ideology that destroys every society that tolerates it. The university with the greatest resources for the job should have taken the lead in fighting the scourge.

Em. Prof. Ruth W. Wisse

Harvard University"