Jewish Students Are Not Your Enemy

By Anonymous; Image by Haverford College

If you had asked me about my political opinions on Israel-Palestine before October 7th, my reaction would have been to denounce the settlements in the West Bank, to denounce Netanyahu’s far-right government, and to call for the United States to broker a lasting peace through a two-state solution.  I would have expressed my firmly held belief that the Palestinian people deserve self-determination and to be treated as equal citizens in the land of their birth.  Then October 7th happened, resulting in the largest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust.  I did not personally know anyone killed or taken hostage on that day, nor do I hold a special connection to Israel.  My only meaningful connection to Judaism is through my friends with whom I break bread at Shabbat dinners.  And yet, I mourn for the dead.  I mourn because they are human beings who had families, who just wanted to live their lives.  I mourn for the dead because it is the decent thing to do.  It seemed obvious to me that the entire world would mourn and that all peace-loving people would denounce such a vicious attack on civilians. 

To my disbelief, that is not what I saw in the immediate aftermath of the attack.  Instead, I saw infographics on Instagram within the Haverford and Bryn Mawr College community like this (Fig. A) the very next day, that patently disregarded the innocent men, women, and children brutally murdered.  Posts like this, made by students I would consider relatively sane people, painted Hamas terrorists as heroic freedom fighters.  It also glorifies violence.  To me, this seemed utterly tone deaf, regardless of one’s politics.  The Israeli counteroffensive had not yet begun, and the only dead were civilians in Israel and terrorists. Up until October 7th, I had truly believed that at a liberal arts institution like Haverford in the 21st century, there was no place for antisemitism, but I do not know how else to label cheering the death of innocent Jews. 

Figure A:

For me, this created a filter through which I viewed every post and statement made thereafter.  I know now that there are those who truly do not care what happens to the Jewish people.  As the pro-Palestinian movement solidified their language, they settled on the term anti-Zionist, which signals to many Jews that Israel does not have the right to exist.  Let us be clear, for a people who have been beaten down and turned away from almost every country throughout history, arguing that they should not have the right to self-determination is anti-semitism.  But the anti-Zionists do not want to hear that their assertions are antisemitic, and will emphatically argue that they know the true meaning of antisemitism.  People of color get to decide what is racist.  Gay people get to decide what is homophobic.  Women get to decide what is sexist.  Every group of people who has faced oppression gets to decide what offends them, every group except Jewish people.  As one friend told me:  “In the end, Jews are alone.”

 Unfortunately, this is the reality on Haverford’s campus.  The only “good Jews” are the ones who denounce Zionism and fully support the demands made of the college administration.  Many feel that there is no room to speak up in support of any other viewpoint, even if it is only to stay neutral.  If you don’t sign onto the demands, then you are part of the problem.  The simple reality that no one at Haverford College—not President Raymond, not the students, not the Jews—is going to influence the foreign policy of the United States or Israel, seems lost in the discussion.  We are a college, not a political institution, and it is neither necessary nor proper for the College to make a political statement, especially when there is not consensus within the community.

The other reality that is important to recognize is that we are hurting as a community.  One of our fellow students, Kinnan Abdalhamid, was shot in Vermont over Thanksgiving break.  It makes no difference that there exists a divergence of political opinion, there is a universal sense of solidarity.  Many Jewish students wanted to sign a statement of support for Kinnan, and many feel that the administration has a degree of responsibility to the community.  The administration should make sure that all students feel safe on campus, and it is entirely reasonable to denounce Kinnan’s shooting as a hate crime.  That being said, the content of the statement of solidarity in the form of demands took the Jewish community on campus by surprise, amounting to a toxic document that not only Jewish students felt uncomfortable signing, but also that roughly half of campus did not sign.  The sad part about it is that the Jewish community on campus probably agrees with the majority of the pro-Palestinian cause.  We all watch the Israeli counter-attack in horror.  Of course we want peace and diplomatic solutions.  The majority of us do not support Netanyahu, nor the settlements in the West Bank.  We just cannot bring ourselves to sign a document arguing that Jews do not deserve self-determination and adopting so many antisemitic tropes.

The demands start by declaring that Kinnan’s shooting was “the direct result of the proliferation of anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian rhetoric on this campus and beyond.”  The primary example of anti-Palestinian rhetoric on campus, which was later removed, was an email sent by a Jewish student to the student body on the silenced perspective of Jewish students on campus.  This email expressed concern that a few Jewish voices were being misconstrued to represent the Jewish community at Haverford College, when in fact they were only a small minority.  It called out what many view as the fundamentally antisemitic platform of Students for Justice in Palestine.  Once again, outrage on campus over this email exemplifies how every oppressed group, as a community, gets a say in what constitutes offensive language except Jewish students.  Although this was later rectified, calling out a single Jewish student is incredibly harmful and turned away many in the Jewish community.  One Jewish student feels that, “[a]side from the inherent and targeted unkindness of explicitly naming one student responsible for this grievous crime, it’s particularly insidious to single out a Jewish student.  Describing a hate crime in Vermont as the ‘direct result’ of the Jewish community at Haverford (unless they completely agree with you) is an example of the antisemitic conspiracy theory that everything horrible is the work of the Jews.”

The demands both hurt and confused the Jewish community on campus.  As another Jewish student says, “While many of the demands were well-intentioned, it’s unclear what the actual positive impact of granting them would have been. While everyone who has a heart prays for an end to the violence and injustice, the ceasefire demand amounted to having the college call on Fetterman to call on Biden to call on Netanyahu (and Hamas) to instate a ceasefire. The demand ignored the fact that a localized ceasefire already existed in Gaza for seven days and ended when Hamas failed to fulfill its end of the bargain. Given these facts, it seemed like that demand was less about actually helping innocents in Gaza and more about moral grandstanding.”  Jewish students were also taken aback by the demand to support Elom Tettey-Tamaklo, a Haverford alum who was suspended from his proctor duties at Harvard following a die-in at the University.  The video of the alleged incident shows him intimidating and harassing a student for filming.  Tettey-Tamaklo has every right to protest for what he believes in, but there is a line.  Imagine if pro-Israeli protesters followed you around, yelling “Shame!” at you for taking pictures.  Would you feel intimidated?  Would you feel that you had a place at this school?  We should strive to foster a sense of community without harassing people on our campus, and making such a demand demonstrates a fundamental departure from those values.

This is unfortunately representative of a broader trend on both Haverford’s and Bryn Mawr’s campuses, in which pro-Palestinian activists feel entitled to harass and intimidate students, especially Jewish students, for their stated or withheld political opinions and identity.  All clubs were encouraged to sign the demands in multiple email blasts, and many chose to do so.  As a club leader in which there is political consensus on the topic, this did not present an issue; however, other clubs did not necessarily reach consensus or show respect for opposing views in this process.  As one Jewish Bryn Mawr student recounts:  “In a non-political a capella group where I had previously felt safe and welcomed, I was verbally attacked for being unwilling to sign a document that contains antisemitic tropes. No one tried to have a respectful discussion with me to find out why I might be objecting to signing, instead they immediately made harmful assumptions and ostracized me. If they had asked me, they would have discovered that I would have gladly agreed to the sections of the demands regarding supporting Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students on campus. Yet, because those particular demands were grouped with others that I found to be applying double-standards or aligning with certain antisemitic tropes, I could not sign my name. This choice, I will add, is given to me by the right to free speech that many on our campus have been advocating for our colleges to uphold over the last two months; yet for someone who may think even slightly differently from the perceived majority, that same advocacy appears not to apply. It seems to me that people on campus are forgetting that antisemitism is not only someone saying that they ‘hate Jews’ or putting a swastika on a Jewish person’s door. Antisemitism is often woven into how people interpret the world and manifests itself in a variety of forms that can be hidden to those not paying attention. All I ask, is that when there are a very considerable number of Jewish people calling on you to pay attention, take them seriously.”

Many of us choose to remain silent.  We do not engage in political debate, nor express our views through Instagram infographics.  It is for a very simple reason—that we seek peace on campus.  There is hesitation within the Jewish community to put out our own statement or attempt to educate others because we know that anything we say will aggravate the situation.  I guarantee that this piece will be spread on Instagram with captions denouncing Zionism.  I also know that there are those who will say the fact that we are not speaking up or that I remain anonymous proves our nefarious intentions.  The unfortunate reality is that we fear for our safety, and if I were to publish this piece under my name, all of the outrage on campus would be directed at me.  Whether it was intentional or not, the rhetoric spread on Instagram and campus has made it risky to have an open and frank dialogue.  Despite the pain in the community, I think the words of this student shine as a beacon of hope:  “I know we all care for each other.  It is possible to listen.  I know we can rebuild the bridge of all community members as it once was and take action against injustices in this world in a meaningful and productive manner.”