Professor Sanford Levinson. Photo: UT Austin.

A visiting scholar at Harvard Law School received a postcard bearing antisemitic threats this week, The Boston Globe reported.

The communique, which arrived from Britain, included the slur “Juden raus” (“Jews out” in German), among other offensive messages.

According to the report, University of Texas at Austin professor of law and government Sanford Levinson was startled not only by the number and tone of the anti-Jewish expletives in the card, but by the fact that their author addressed Levinson by his nickname, Sandy, suggesting familiarity.

“It certainly is as hostile as it could be. But I don’t know what to make of it…it’s a bit odd that it was mailed to me here at Harvard,” Levinson said, referring to the epistle, which included the threat, “We’re gonna drain the swamp at Harvard Law.”

As the phrase “drain the swamp” has been popularized recently by US president-elect Donald Trump to describe his planned efforts to combat corruption in Washington, Levinson remarked, “I see it as a very regrettable data point about the extent to which Donald Trump — intentionally or not — has liberated a kind of discourse we haven’t seen in a long, long time.”

Levinson is the latest US academic to fall prey to an antisemitic attack. As The Algemeiner reported, the home of an Oberlin College associate professor was vandalized last week, with a note reading “GAS JEWS DIE” stuck to the mezuzah — a traditional Jewish scroll — on his front door.