Musing About Israel on Campus

In my political naivete, I considered the Boston University Hillel Student Board’s decision last December to accept the BU Chapter of J Street U as a Hillel affiliate a rather innocuous affair.  In transactional terms, the decision meant very little: The BU Chapter of J Street U would now be able to hold programs in the Hillel building at no cost and could place our logo on their publicity material.  However, as is the case for any BU Hillel affiliate, any program that the J Street U Chapter holds in our building and any publicity material where our logo appears must be vetted by Hillel’s student board and professional staff.  Additionally, we insisted that the student leaders of the Boston University J Street U chapter agree to Hillel International’s Israel guidelines as part of their affiliation agreement.

Thus, I was totally unprepared for the tidal wave of fury that engulfed us: Calls from furious parents – some of who didn’t even have students attending BU (one parent in particular who repeatedly called me a “son of a bitch”). Letters from donors asking their names be taken off our mailing list; vicious – perhaps libelous attacks in social media. 

We are past the raging, but disquieting aftershocks remain: One student continues to seek every available opportunity to lash out at Hillel and me on social media.  I learned recently that there is a cohort of students who will no longer come to Hillel and have taken to having Shabbat dinner on their own.   Our fund development efforts have taken a significant hit. 

It has been painful and difficult for me.  How dare others challenge my commitment to the land and people of Israel?

A revelatory moment occurred several weeks ago when I sat with Avital, a wonderful, thoughtful student and AIPAC activist.  She spoke of how J Street presence at Hillel is difficult, painful for her.  Not because she doesn’t like the students involved in J Street U; but J Street’s stance on Israel is an anathema to what she believes – and what she believes with such passion.  For her, and for many, J Street U is a foreign body in the Jewish community politic. I say this with no value judgement.  Liberal leaning Jews can scoff at this but they are mistaken not to recognize the hurt and betrayal many of our students and parents feel at J Street U's presence on campus.  One student I spoke with called it “a cancer”.  And while, some may scoff at this as harsh and hyperbolic, many members of our Jewish communities view J Street’s politics as profoundly, perhaps existentially destructive to Israel and the Jewish people. Equally, there are those who view the building of Israeli settlements in the West Bank as existentially destructive to Israel.  While we have the right to disagree with others; we cannot tell them they don’t have the right to feel that way. 

Later that week, I sat with Holly, a senior who is about to graduate with both an undergraduate and master’s degree in economics.  I had known of Holly since I began my efforts at BU and had seen her a number of times at Hillel Shabbat dinners.  Holly was the alleged firebrand activists who, as the founder of and first president of the chapter of J Street U at Boston University, had a reputation among Hillel activists as being far to the left on Israel politics.  My conversation with her revealed a remarkably thoughtful and insightful young woman.

She spoke of her upbringing in Michigan in a home that was politically centralist-left. She came to BU and got involved with BUSI – Boston University Students for Israel, BU’s mainstream Zionist group, eventually becoming the organization’s president.  As a sophomore she became aware of J Street U and brought a chapter to campus.  At this point, she became the focus of verbal abuse and bullying in social media.  She was, essentially excommunicated and driven from the Jewish community.

Holly’s ostracization drove her from the Jewish community, led her to abandon her more centralist views on Israel and pushed her into positions and student groups that were more stridently opposed to Israel’s policies.  And, within in those groups, peer pressure drove her to engage in with a cohort of students who were even more radically anti-Israel. However, she soon became disenchanted with these groups and, in a recently published article, she wrote about how she came to question the Open Hillel moment: “While demanding that the pro-Israel community tolerate pro-BDS groups that they find offensive, many Open Hillel leaders are intolerant of pro-Israel voices that they dislike.” Holly’s feeling towards Israel have now swung back to what she describes as “center-right”.  She is reconnecting with Hillel and the Jewish community. 

Like Avital, Holly is remarkably thoughtful and bright.  She is a thinker who engages with ideas and issues with curiosity and fervor.  We spoke of her intellectual and political journey; a journey that is ongoing.  Holly’s experience is profoundly instructive; this is a university; a place for intellectual journeys.  Collectively we are figuring things out; testing out ideas, trying on identities, exploring new ways to frame and think about the world we live in.

Based on Hillel International’s Israel guidelines, Boston University Hillel “will not partner with, house, or host organizations, groups, or speakers that as a matter of policy or practice:

• Deny the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish and democratic state with secure and recognized borders;
• Delegitimize, demonize, or apply a double standard to Israel;
• Support boycott of, divestment from, or sanctions against the State of Israel”

While adhering to these guidelines, Hillel must also remain a space where students can explore and discuss ideas openly and thoughtfully.  Students who are exploring ideas that may challenge our politics and policies must be welcome around our Shabbat dinner tables and our lounges.  They must be welcomed into our offices for discussions of meaning and passion.

The college campus is so often referred to as a “battleground” by some organizations – and this certainly makes for good fund-raising copy.  Without question, Hillel does have a responsibility as the campus representative of the Jewish community to assertively advance a pro-Israel agenda: to push back, with all available resources, against students, faculty and outside groups that seek to advance an anti-Israel agenda. Israel activism, awareness and providing students an array of opportunities to build personal connections to the land and people of Israel must be central to our mission and practices. But Boston University is not a battleground, it is an educational institution and our young men and women aren’t soldiers but students involved in a critical period of intellectual and emotional growth.  Perhaps the gravest danger we face is that students will not feel comfortable exploring ideas and seeking to make sense of complex issues within Hillel’s literal and figurative walls.

Avital and Holly teach us that, within Hillel, there must be ample space for students to pursue intellectual and political journeys.  For our Jewish communities to turn them aside when they are exploring with thoughts and ideas simply risks alienating the Jewish community’s most precious resource. It is counter-productive to our efforts to secure a Jewish future.                                                                                                                                                        

The campus is, in fact, a microcosm of the fissures that are growing among both Israelis and Jews around the world.  Perhaps the difficulty lies in the word “microcosm”.  As a scaled down entity we do not have the luxury cloistering ourselves in denominational or political communities.  On campus, we all eat in the same kosher dining room and daven together on Shabbat and Hagim. 

Open discourse and disagreement about Israel and the politics of Israel and the Middle East is so highly charged because so much is at stake.  This discourse has the capacity to bring out the worst in us.  Nevertheless is it essential; and essential within Hillel’s walls.  Avital teaches us that passions about Israel will be strong and raw and we should not be afraid of strong words and emotions.   Holly teaches us that we must allow our students the space to explore new ideas and pursue intellectual journeys.  Her experience warns us of the dangers of ostracizing or alienating those who are asking challenging questions.  Let’s agree to disagree with each other with vigor and passion.

Finally, I would submit that our attention to the politics of Israel on campus and to the threat of anti-Israel activism should not obfuscate a far more serious challenge: The vast majority of our students have very little or no personal connection to the land and people of Israel and the vast majority of them are frighteningly uninformed about Israel, its history and culture.  They have very little understanding or grounding on the politics of the Middle East or of the history that framed current political realities. Why is it that on a campus of approximately 5,000 Jewish students I cannot fill 80 slots on our semi-annual Taglit Birthright trips (a frustrating reality that is fairly consistent with the experiences of other Hillel professionals)?  Finally, in as much as we have inexorably linked Israel with Judaism, students’ weakening personal ties to Israel and weakened capacity to weather anti-Israel rhetoric risks further eroding their tenuous Jewish identities.

This spring I took a small group of Jewish and non-Jewish students to Israel on a 10 day Volunteer for Israel Spring Break Trip.  We arose early on our first day in Jerusalem and walked to Machane Yehuda the, sprawling outdoor market that, on the eve of Shabbat, bustles with activity.  All of us were delightfully overwhelmed by the blending of cultures, the cacophony of sounds and aromas and the rich array of fruits, vegetables, spices, baked goods and other edible delights.  We walked down Yaffa Road, enchanted by the public displays of joy, frivolity and, at times, raucous celebration of Purim in Israel.  We made our way through the Jaffa Gate into the Old City joining thousands of Jews around the world at the Kotel, Western Wall.  The next days we marveled at the Dead Sea Scrolls and the richness of Judaica and Jewish life on display at the Israel Museum. 

Travelling into the Negev we were billeted on an army base where we spent four days cleaning automatic weapons, sheathing tanks in protective rubber covers and restocking warehouses.   

We learned many things on the army base, for instance we witnessed firsthand the hard work and daily grind of maintaining a defensive readiness.   But perhaps the greatest lesson was the humanness of Israel soldiers; most are young adults just like our students who listen to rap music, hang out in groups and flirt almost endlessly.  The older officers were avuncular and warm and treated our students with kindness and thoughtfulness. Our students will no longer see Israelis and the Israel army as faceless soldiers who can be subject to broad and inaccurate generalizations.  They will always see them as Yosef, Eli, Yonatan and Yael.

Our students saw and experienced an Israel and a Judaism that is vibrant, rich, diverse and alive; rich, intertwined cultures, wonderful food, the joy of holidays and Shabbat; deep spiritual connections and a religion that is powerfully relevant.  They met and came to love Israelis who are warm, funny, funky and, most of all, profoundly human.  Whatever side of the Israel debate these student choose their thinking and their discourse will be grounded in a personal connection, a personal appreciation and, perhaps, a personal love or Israel.    And, in the context of our Israel debate, this is the true victory.