My question: why do Jews vote for Democrats/Socialists/Communists? Seems crazy to me, John Shoemaker.
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WASHINGTON FREE BEACON
‘Shut It Down’ Effort Accelerates at Harvard as Second Union Joins Strike
Plus, congressman-elect Chris Rabb has tight relationship with organizers of antisemitic Philly boycott he won't condemn
Eliana Johnson Nov 11, 2026
Harvard teachers and graduate students affiliated with the United Auto Workers rallied November 10, 2026 on the plaza in front of Zimmer Hall. It was the first day of the strike for some and week three for others. (Ira Stoll)
Harvard doesn’t just have President Trump on its case, it also has an additional confrontation with the president of the United Auto Workers, Shawn Fain, whose union, despite its name, represents the Harvard graduate students who are spearheading a strike against the Ivy League school. The battle entered a new phase on Tuesday, when a second UAW affiliate, the Harvard Academic Workers, joined the already striking Harvard Graduate Student Workers Union. The Free Beacon’s Ira Stoll reports on the strike from Cambridge, where he attended a rally featuring hundreds of striking student workers:
Speakers at the rally kickoff acknowledged that their absence from the classrooms would leave students with “a degraded undergraduate education,” though they blamed Harvard management intransigence, rather than their own decision to walk off the job. As one speaker put it, absolving the union of responsibility, “They pushed us to strike. Here we f—ing are.”
Aside from the profanity and the frequent threats to “shut it down“—”it” being Harvard University— speakers and sign-holders at Tuesday’s rally presented a somewhat less radical front than the one that is visible by tracing the social media, public record, and connections of some of the key players. Yet some elements poked through, whether in the keffiyeh worn by one participant or in the declaration by one speaker, referring to one of Harvard’s governing boards: “The Corporation says the system works. Does it? No.”
At least some parents are frustrated with a university whose labor relations approach French levels of dysfunction. One Harvard parent, Laura Fein, told the Washington Free Beacon, “As a parent, I’m outraged. If our daughter knew she’d be cheated out of class time—so far seven cancelled for her courses—she could have gone for a Good Will Hunting library card education and saved herself a fortune in student loans. We went through the same nonsense in 2019 with our older daughter, who struggled through a difficult course solo when her instructor cancelled class and would not even reply to emails with questions. Not sure who deserves more blame this time—the entitled, privileged Harvard grad students play-acting as oppressed blue collar workers, or the over-lawyered administration who let this dispute fester for years while their students lost out on hours and hours of promised education.”
Those seven classes were canceled even before the second union went out on strike.
READ MORE: ‘Shut It Down’ Effort Accelerates at Harvard as Second Union Joins Strike
IN A RELATED STORY…
Congressman-elect Chris Rabb is under fire for his failure to speak out against—actually, to say anything at all—about an antisemitic boycott targeting Jewish businesses in his Philadelphia district. It turns out he has a longtime relationship with the groups that organized the boycott. He cooperated with them in an effort earlier this year to free convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal, the Free Beacon‘s Chuck Ross reports.
Rabb, a socialist, signed an April letter with the Philadelphia Palestine Coalition and Philadelphia Black Alliance for Peace that urged Gov. Josh Shapiro to release Abu Jamal from prison, where he’s serving a life sentence for the 1981 murder of local police officer Daniel Faulkner. Those groups were the two sponsors of the boycott against “Zionist business owners,” which they said was aimed at showing “solidarity with the Palestinian community and oppressed folk everywhere.” Protesters had planned to ride their bicycles past Jewish-owned businesses in downtown Philly, wave Palestinian flags, and “show these Zionist business owners that we see them for the disgusting humans they are.”
The event was largely thwarted by counterprotesters who turned out to defend the businesses. It drew widespread condemnation, in part because it was held on the eve of the 88th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass,” in which Nazi enforcers attacked Jewish businesses and synagogues across Germany and Austria. Rabb has offered no such condemnation. He is one of the few local leaders, in fact, who stayed silent on the anti-Jew hate-fest as it spread in his congressional district.
Then again, this is the man who called for the death penalty for corporate CEOs and boasted during his primary campaign that he was the only candidate to accuse Israel of “genocide” in Gaza, saying, “If you can’t name the demon, you can’t kill it.” In December, he blamed a campaign staffer over a post to his official social media pages that blamed “Zionists” for the Bondi Beach massacre, which saw ISIS-inspired attackers kill 15 Australian Jews during a Hanukkah event.