Shabbos Kestenbaum, the Harvard University graduate suing his alma mater for its failures to address campus antisemitism in the wake of October 7, addressed a cheering audience at the Republican National Convention, where the registered Democrat decried the “illiberalism” of one of the US’s most prestigious institutions.

“I came to Harvard to study religion, the foundation of western civilisation,” Kestenbaum said. “What I found was not theology but a contempt for it. My problem with Harvard is not its liberalism, but its illiberalism; too often students at Harvard are taught not how to think, but what to think.”

Kestenbaum energetically told RNC crowds that he is a “proud first-generation American,” a “proud Orthodox Jew,” and the “proud plaintiff suing Harvard University for its failure to combat antisemitism.”

The lawsuit brought about by Kestenbaum and five other Jewish students who sued the university in January helped spur congressional hearings where incisive questions from Republican lawmakers forced the resignation of Harvard President Claudine Gay.

During his speech on Wednesday, Kestenbaum called the culture at Harvard “anti-western,” “anti-American,” and “antisemitic.”

Harvard University student Shabbos Kestenbaum speaks during the third day of the 2024 Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 17, 2024. Days after he survived an assassination attempt Donald Trump won formal nomination as the Republican presidential candidate and picked Ohio US Senator J.D. Vance for running mate. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP) (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)

“When I planted 1,200 Israeli and American flags on campus, they were all vandalised within 24 hours,” he said, the audience booing in response. “I was harassed by my peers merely for being a Jew and have received countless death threats online.”

Kestenbaum, who attended the Democratic National Convention in 2016, told the crowd: “Although I once voted for Bernie Sanders, I now recognise that the far left has not only abandoned the Jewish people, but the American people.

“The Democratic party, the party I registered to vote for the day I turned 18, has become ideologically poisoned, and it is this poison, this corruption, that is infecting far too many young American students,” Kestenbaum said.

He warned against the “rising tide” of far-left antisemitism but added emphatically: “Tonight we fight back.”

Kestenbaum said he was “proud” to support former President Donald Trump’s policy to “deport foreign students who violate our laws, harass our Jewish classmates and desecrate our freedoms.”

“Jewish values are American values and American values are Jewish values,” Kestenbaum said, ending his speech with a call for the release of the hostages in Gaza.