At a recent event at Harvard Law School, an extraordinary exchange took place. This letter in the Harvard Law Record explains:

Anti-Semitism is still very real today, and it just showed itself in our community at Harvard Law School.

At the Q&A section of an event last Thursday, an HLS student asked Jewish, Israeli dignitary [former Israeli Foreign Minister and current Israeli Parliament Member] Tzipi Livni: “How is it that you are so smelly? . . . A question about the odor of Ms. Tzipi Livni, she’s very smelly, and I was just wondering.”

The letter goes on to say why this is so offensive, other than being unusally rude in a personal sense:

The stereotype of “the Jew” as “smelly” or “dirty” has been around since at least the 1800s. The Nazis promoted the idea that Jews “smell” to propagandize Jews as an inferior people. The idea that Jews can be identified by a malodor is patently offensive and stereotypes Jews as an “other” which incites further acts of discrimination. The fact that such a hate-filled and outdated stereotype reemerged at Harvard Law School is nothing short of revolting.

At this point we might expect an abject apology from the student concerned. There was a sort of non-apology apology, however, in which people were invited to “reach out” to him/her:

Many members of the Jewish community—some of whom hold strong differences of opinion with me—have reached out to me on their own to let me know that they did not interpret my words as anti-Semitic, because they know me well enough to know that that is not at all consistent with who I am as a person. I want to thank them and any others who have given me the benefit of the doubt, and I am writing this note in the hopes that more of you will do the same.

But there was no apology for calling Tzipi Livni “smelly” – three times, it seems – and no explanation of where this suggestion came from. Speculation has circulated about the organization which the student represents (as its president). So far attention has focused on Students for Justice in Palestine and the Muslim Students Association.