Shabbos Kestenbaum navigated through the audience gathered to hear him speak recently, exchanging handshakes while concealing his natural reserve.
Wearing tortoiseshell glasses and sporting a subtle ginger beard, he appeared every bit the collegiate figure. To the crowd of over 300 attendees, predominantly Jewish, he was a figure of admiration — the young man who gained admission to Harvard, made his family proud, and then courageously brought attention to antisemitism within the university.
At a scholarship event held in Lake Success, New York, honoring high school students committed to combating injustice, Kestenbaum spoke about his experiences confronting antisemitism at Harvard alongside a survivor of the Rwandan genocide. When a rabbi asked, “You’re the Harvard guy?” Kestenbaum replied with a smile, “Don’t hold it against me.”
Now 26 and an Orthodox Jew from the Bronx, Kestenbaum has emerged as a leading voice in the Republican-led movement addressing antisemitism on America's top university campuses.
His relentless pursuit of legal action against Harvard has helped galvanize efforts within conservative circles to challenge what they describe as the ideological dominance skewing college environments toward the political left.
