Dr. Alan Garber, then the interim president at Harvard University, at the May 2024 commencement.

By Benyamin Cohen April 15, 2025

When Alan Garber, the Jewish physician and economist who now leads Harvard, wrote a letter to the community about why the country’s oldest university would not agree to the Trump administration’s demands, he spoke not just about academic freedom, but about moral boundaries and identity.

“Although some of the demands outlined by the government are aimed at combating antisemitism, the majority represent direct governmental regulation of the ‘intellectual conditions’ at Harvard,” he wrote. The Trump administration antisemitism task force immediately announced it would freeze $2.6 billion in funding to Harvard over its refusal to adopt the sweeping set of federal requirements.

The move escalated a tense standoff between the administration and elite universities over their handling of campus protests related to the Israel-Hamas war. But it also cast a new spotlight on Garber, 69, who only nine months ago became Harvard’s 31st president.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

Until recently, Garber’s Jewishness wasn’t central to his public identity. But in this fraught moment — when antisemitism, free speech and higher education are colliding — it’s become inescapable. Last spring, student protesters at Harvard’s pro-Palestinian encampment depicted Garber as a devil, a portrayal many condemned as antisemitic. When he presided over commencement a few weeks later, he was booed by some students for denying degrees to those who had taken part in unauthorized protests. (Most of them eventually received their diplomas.) And now, he’s the Jewish face of a university under siege.

“He is smart, capable, honestly determined to make Harvard better, and facing enormous challenges given the entrenched culture,” said Rabbi David Wolpe, the former visiting scholar at Harvard who publicly resigned from a university antisemitism advisory group in December 2023. “I had a really nice lunch with him where we spoke candidly about the challenges facing Harvard.”

A ‘moral compass’ who wraps tefillin daily

Garber’s resume hardly suggests a man seeking a political spotlight. Born in Rock Island, Illinois, in 1955 to Jean and Harry Garber, he grew up attending services at the Tri-City Jewish Center and going to a Jewish summer camp. His father owned a liquor store and played viola in the Quad Cities Symphony. Garber’s twin sister, Deborah, is an artist; his older brother, David, made aliyah and lives in Jerusalem.

After graduating from Rock Island High School in 1973, Garber took a path that wound through Harvard and Stanford, eventually earning both a Ph.D. in economics and an M.D. He met his wife, oncologist Anne Yahanda, when they were both working at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. The couple have four children.

He’s long been a fixture in Harvard’s leadership. As provost for over a decade, he was known for his deep institutional knowledge and “extraordinary breadth of experience in research across disciplines,” as described by then-President Drew Faust.

When Claudine Gay resigned in early 2024 amid controversy over her handling of campus antisemitism, Garber was named interim president. Some expected him to play the part of a placeholder. Instead, he helped negotiate a peaceful resolution to a student encampment, steadied the university during congressional scrutiny, and by August was appointed permanently to the job.

“He’s a man of great integrity and high moral character,” Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi, founder of Harvard Chabad, posted to Facebook after Garber stepped into the role. “At this critical moment in history, we look forward to working with President Garber to ensure that Harvard can be a beacon of light to our students and world hungry for wisdom and moral clarity.”

“He’s a very proud and committed Jew,” Zarchi said on Tuesday, adding that Garber wraps tefillin daily. “On every occasion that he joins us at Harvard Chabad — which is often — he shares profound ideas and lessons from the Torah.”

Robert Kraft, a Jewish philanthropist and owner of the New England Patriots, feels similarly that Garber is right for the task at hand. “I know how strong Alan’s moral compass is,” Kraft said last month at a Shabbat dinner hosted by the Harvard Chabad at the Harvard Business School, where he is an alum.

In rejecting the Trump administration’s proposed mandates — which would have compelled the university to, among other things, adopt a controversial definition of antisemitism and restructure disciplinary procedures for protest — Garber drew a line in the sand.

Garber’s stance aligns him with other Jewish university presidents now navigating a volatile political landscape. Christopher Eisgruber of Princeton, who discovered his Jewish heritage later in life, recently pushed back on the administration’s efforts to monitor campus discourse. MIT’s Sally Kornbluth and Wesleyan’s Michael Roth have also issued statements warning that free expression and academic independence are at risk.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’re in the middle of our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we have a very ambitious goal of $127,000 by April 21.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Make a Passover Gift Today!

$90 $180

$360

Other amount