Your turn: American college students share how the Israel-Gaza war is affecting life on campus
Misha Shaffner-Kargman, a Jewish student at a liberal arts college, asks, “Why can’t we just mourn in peace?”
Following the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, over 400 people attended a vigil at Princeton University. Courtesy of Julie Levey
We want to hear from more university students about how the war between Israel and Hamas is affecting life on American campuses. If you would like to share, kindly send an email to editorial@forward.com. These responses have been edited for length and clarity.
I woke up to dozens of notifications on my phone Oct. 7 relating to the outbreak of war in Israel. I was shocked, devastated, confused and frightened. When I arrived at the Center for Jewish Life (Princeton Hillel) where I currently serve as student president, I watched the air in the building slowly transition from joyful to mournful as my Shabbat-observant peers were told the news one by one. That evening, like so many Jews around the world, we struggled to determine how to celebrate Simchat Torah. It felt wrong to only grieve as I cradled in my arms a beautiful Torah — the ultimate gift to the Jewish people — but it also felt wrong to sing and dance during a war. My body and mind were disconnected; I completed the actions of the holiday while struggling with the sentiment.
When Simchat Torah ended on Sunday night, the campus Jewish community gathered together to share space. One of my peers wept as he tried to process the news that his cousin had been killed while fighting earlier that day. Students shared reflections on feeling angry, scared and helpless. I saw many of my friends cry, many who I’d never seen cry before. We hugged, mourned and registered just how many of us know people who have been called up to serve. As tragic as the evening was, the days since Sunday have been difficult in an entirely different way.
Many Jewish students, including myself, spent the weekend sequestered within the campus Jewish community. But since then we’ve had to go about our daily lives and attend classes, write papers, take midterms and participate in extracurriculars. So many of my peers have spoken to me about the profound loneliness they feel in campus environments where they seem to be the only ones affected by the devastating war. I feel this loneliness, too.
On Oct. 12, the CJL and Chabad at Princeton organized a vigil on Princeton’s campus. We were grateful to be joined by over 400 members of the Princeton community — Jewish and not — as well as by Princeton locals and even some individuals from further away. Through prayers, candle lighting, speeches, tears and song, we demonstrated that we stand with Israel against Hamas’ terrorism. We prayed for those serving to protect the state of Israel, those being held hostage by Hamas and those who have lost loved ones as a result of this war. And together, we felt a little less alone.
— Julie Levey
Princeton University
I woke up on Saturday Oct. 7 to a call from my mother: “You’re not going to Israel; they just declared war.” I had no plans to go to Israel anytime soon but I honestly thought my mother was overreacting. So I changed the subject, my mother and I talked about other things, and then I hung up. I read the news, I sat with it, and I texted a number of Jewish friends, asking how they were holding up.
The answer was the same: It’s complex. It’s too complex to put into words. So instead we asked ourselves survival questions. How much space do we have to express our emotions publicly? How much should we express our emotions publicly? How much will we agree with our emotions in a week, a month, a year? But the main question was: What are our opinions? What are our opinions on Israel, Palestine, Zionism, Jewish territorialism, Jewish nationalism, diaspora nationalism, etc.? I don’t know if any of us ended up answering these questions.
It became clear that to express any emotion about the invasion would open ourselves up to discussion. Discussions that are hard to have when you’re seeing the murder of people that could’ve been you if a family member had escaped to Israel instead of America. We needed to table our emotions, try to forget the Kishinevic images, discuss among ourselves and figure out our opinions so we could meet others with clear logic, a level head, and kindness. After a lot of thinking I chose not to engage.
How can I engage? To engage would be to ignore my emotions, to forget stories of my ancestors fleeing pogroms and to ignore my fear of what might come domestically. To ignore my emotions would be to ignore the empathy I have for Israelis and Palestinians who are being driven from their homes and who are being killed as collateral damage.
“There’s nuance,” my friends and I keep saying to each other. “There’s so much nuance!” One must factor in the generational trauma of Palestinians, Israelis and diasporic Jews. But the expectation of having opinions, of having educated and level-headed opinions, does not factor in this nuance, nor does it discriminate based on our politics. No matter what your stance is on any of these issues, the options are silence or to navigate a minefield of arguments with Zionist and anti-Zionist friends and family.
I want to try to talk about it with my non-Jewish friends, about the fear and anxiety I’m having, about how this is going to affect domestic antisemitism, the political crisis in Israel, all of it. I want to express to them that, no matter your politics, to see other Jews murdered, defiled and taken hostage, and then to see people celebrate, activates generational trauma. I want to talk to my family about how I’m scared of what’s going to happen to the Palestinians post-conflict and what’s happening now in Gaza. I’m worried they will assume that I’m dismissing the plight of the Palestinians or the plight of the Israelis. I’m worried this will open up discussion. I don’t want to discuss, I just want to mourn.
When there’s nothing else we can do but wait, why can’t we just mourn in peace?
— Misha Schaffner-Kargman
Bard College
As a Jewish college student involved in Israel/Palestine peace-building work on campus, this weekend has been achingly difficult. I have close Israeli and Palestinian friends in Gaza, Haifa, Jerusalem, East Jerusalem, Modi’in and many Kibbutzim. I spent most of my weekend terrified I would hear that my friends had been shot, killed, wounded or abducted. As a Jewish American, I have been grieving for the loss of innocent civilians to this conflict for my whole life, but now more than ever, the grief is overwhelming. To learn that Oct. 7 was the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, and to see the numbers of Israelis and Palestinians dead continue to rise, has been horrifying.
On campus, this war has forced many back into their corners of fear, of hatred of the other and of antipathy. I hear Jewish and Israeli students with whom I have had dialogue and found common ground in the past insinuating that all Palestinians are Hamas and that bombing Gaza is the only way out of this war. I hear Students for Justice in Palestine glorifying the actions of Hamas, admiring their “creative approach” to taking women and children hostage. I am anti-Hamas, anti-civilian death, anti-occupation and pro-peace. Alongside other students who share these values, I feel more isolated than ever in my beliefs.
Amid growing ideological chasms, Tufts J Street U, of which I am a member, facilitated a processing space for students last night that allowed me to find others who agree with me and are struggling in similar ways. Gathering in community gives us power and strength to continue our work of peace-building in Israel/Palestine no matter what. People on the most extreme ends of the political spectrum will continue to paint me and my peers as cowards, anti-Israel or pro-terrorism. Nevertheless, I will stand up for my Israeli and Palestinian friends who have suffered and are suffering unthinkable horrors and pain every hour and every day that this war continues. I stand strong in my advocacy for empathy, my belief that terrorist violence against civilians is never justified and my optimism for a resolution to this war that allows both my Israeli and Palestinian friends to live, thrive and prosper in peace.
— Meirav Solomon
Tufts University
The first reaction, and prevailing reaction, has been one of shock, horror and, in some cases, anger. I grieve for those in Israel, including my friends and family, affected by Hamas’ terrorist attacks. I grieve for the families, children, elderly and civilians taken from us. I also grieve for the absence of peace and for the violence that is awaiting more innocent Israelis and Palestinians. In the wake of Hamas’ terror attack, all I can do is work toward a future in which Israelis and Palestinians can realize genuine security, self-determination and equality.
At Brown University, students, sometimes with the support of the administration and sometimes without, have organized to provide community support during this difficult time. On Tuesday, Oct. 10, I attended a gathering of about 40 progressive Jews where we each shared our heartbreak and grief and, for many, confusion. The next day, Brown-RISD Hillel and Brown’s Chabad hosted an official vigil with the support of the Brown administration, with University President Christina Paxson offering remarks, which many Jewish students attended as well. During the Tuesday gathering, I heard from Jewish friends, who I knew to be staunchly opposed to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and mistreatment of Palestinians, balance their anger at unjustifiable violence and pain for the victims in Gaza and Israel.
These were students who, like me, didn’t necessarily feel comfortable attending vigils that focused solely on the massacres perpetrated in Southern Israel and did not include the massive toll being inflicted on Palestinian civilians in Gaza. I also share in feeling disgust and anger at social media posts that glorified the actions of Hamas terrorists.
I want there to be an alternative — a form of advocacy that values all life and pushes for a sustainable future for all people. There’s a line that really impacted me from a J Street U statement responding to attempts to celebrate and whitewash Hamas’ terror attack: “We are guided by the belief that both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples, like all people — regardless of race, religion or national identity, — have the innate ability to live with freedom, dignity, equality and safety.” That belief will guide my campus advocacy work — I don’t believe there’s any moral alternative. As we grieve, we also ground ourselves in the need for something different than the policies that led us on the trajectory to this moment.
— Michael Farrell-Rosen
Brown University
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