Hillel Damron recalls strolling into the main quad at U.C. Davis and finding it littered with cardboard tombstones symbolizing the Palestinian dead in the ongoing intifada. The executive director of the Davis-Sacramento Hillel predicts more of the same this fall.
Shoebox-size coffins draped with Palestinian flags, mock security checkpoints and ubiquitous cries of “no justice, no peace” were all part of campus life this past year. And as the situation grows more violent in the Middle East, Jewish students on campus may be facing more strident criticism from pro-Palestinians.
“This is going to be a very challenging year for Jewish students. And since the goal of Hillel is to support Jewish students, when they’re challenged, we’re challenged,” said Adam Weisberg, executive director of Berkeley Hillel.
“More and more Jewish students have someone who sits next to them in biology or economics and says, ‘Josh, I know you’re Jewish; what do you think about what Israel is doing?’ People don’t feel equipped, or even if they do, they don’t necessarily want to be pigeonholed as a source of answers for particularly vexing and challenging questions.
“Some students pass on being out Jewishly on campus, so they don’t have to be bombarded with questions they don’t want to get.”
Weisberg worries that the Israeli-Palestinian situation may seep into Berkeley classrooms, with professors using Israel as an “example.” Jewish students could become “flak-catchers.”
“The notion is, if you’re Jewish, you must support Israel and if you support Israel, you’re a bad person. This is incredibly unfair,” he said. “It’s important to remember all the talk a few years ago about sexually laden language creating an uncomfortable learning environment. I think it’s very much the same for Jewish students. It’s very easy to create an uncomfortable learning environment for Jewish students when Israel becomes a ubiquitous example in classrooms.”
Jewish campus organizations across the nation were caught off-guard last year by pro-Palestinian demonstrations. With classes at most Bay Area schools just beginning or about to start next month, local Jewish student organizations have yet to plan pro-Israel campus activities. Some Jewish students said they would wait and see what campus pro-Palestinian groups were planning.
“We don’t want to escalate matters. We don’t want to get into a big argument with differing groups on campus,” said Leah Dansker, a senior at U.C. Davis. “If the Palestinians are going to be demonstrating, I think we’d rather wait and see what the nature of it is before we plan anything. Give us a few weeks and we’ll see.”
Many campus observers believe Arab and Muslim student groups seem willing to champion the Palestinian cause unquestioningly, but Jewish students appear far more ambivalent.
Brian Jaffee, director of Hamagshimim, the university movement sponsored by Hadassah, said most American Jewish students lack the education and emotional connections to Israel “to be that passionate about it.”
Adding to the challenge, Jaffee said, is that “they want to be good universal humanists and first and foremost care about human rights. It’s tough for them to appear that they’re taking sides on any issue.”
David Goodman, an SJSU senior, helped to plan the itinerary for this month’s Schusterman Hillel International Student Leaders Assembly, a five-day retreat for 388 students in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains. An “Israel Day” that he originally conceived as an opportunity for dialogue was instead heavily weighted toward Israel advocacy.
“It confused people,” said Goodman, who is the president of SJSU’s Jewish Student Association. He said that the glut of pro-Israeli speakers — who led such sessions as “Why Are They Saying Those Terrible Things About Israel?” –presented messages that may have been offputting to some Hillel leaders.
Zachary Gerson, one of seven students and two staffers from Stanford University at the retreat, said he has “really mixed views.” While he supports Israel, “that doesn’t mean I support everything about it…I’ve been disappointed with the uncompromising attitudes both sides are taking.”
Although several Hillel leaders acknowledged that it is easier to pony up attendance for an event labeled “pro-peace” rather than “pro-Israel,” they stressed that the terms are not mutually exclusive.
Getting people to come to pro-Israel events isn’t “hard at all. I think San Francisco State has a lot of Jewish students who are interested in Zionism, interested in Israel and understand that Israel is the lifeblood of their religion and culture,” said Adam Sall, a San Francisco State senior and executive director of the Israel Coalition, a student advocacy group. “We’ve had rallies at Stanford, Berkeley and San Francisco State and I’d say our biggest rally had upwards of 300 people.
“You can be pro-Israel and pro-peace.”