Knocking on Our Door
Miami University is an idyllic bubble. The campus is simply stunning and looks straight out of a movie. I’ll never forget when I first came to campus after moving to Cincinnati for this job in 2020, my family and I took a road trip to check out the Hillel. We kept driving and driving thinking, ‘when will this end!?’ And then, out of nowhere, she appeared and she was stunning.
During my first year as Executive Director of this wonderful Hillel, I inquired with several student leaders and alumni about their experiences of antisemitism and/or anti-Israel attacks on campus. Did they experience antisemitism while students at Miami? What about Israel? Are their protests? BDS measures proposed? The answers varied in terms of antisemitism but there was certainly a consistent theme when it came to anti-Israel sentiments on campus. “We are in such a bubble of apathy, which works in our favor. There’s not too much anti-Israel behaviors on campus and little affect on Hillel.” OK, I thought. We’ll see how long that lasts.
Turns out, not too long. After the Hamas/Israel uprising during the summer of 2021, Hillel Directors around the world went into overdrive. We know what this will mean for our students, pro-Israel or not. An increase in anti-Israel sentiments equals an increase in antisemitism and our students will bear the brunt. How can we protect them and our organizations from the ever present dehumanization practices of anti-Israel advocates? It’s the dehumanizing of our Jewish community, in my opinion, that allows for seemingly thoughtful and well-intentioned people to not see the problematic and hypocritical behavior of holding the entire Jewish population responsible for the actions of the Israeli government. It’s the dehumanization that allows for these advocates to egg AEPi houses on the Rutgers campus during Yom HaShoah or spray paint the Michigan rock with vile antisemitic statements or pass resolutions defunding Hillels or to send DMs to Jewish students while on Birthright trips calling them, “Palestinian baby killers”. As my favorite social worker, Brene Brown, so wonderfully puts it,
“Humiliation and dehumanizing are not accountability or tools of social justice, they’re emotional off-loading at best, emotional self-indulgence at worst.”
And yet, Hillel Directors are not ADL or AJC employees. Most of us did not get into this work to ‘fight’ antisemitism. Most of us, myself included, got into this work because we genuinely want to create meaningful Jewish experiences for college students so they can go out and create meaningful Jewish moments for themselves and their future families/communities. But when antisemitism lands on our Hillels’ front doors, it’s the Hillel Director who takes up the call, whether we’re trained for this our not.
This week I had the immense honor of interviewing ADL CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, on behalf of Hillel International (see picture above). We discussed this very struggle. And, obviously, it is not just the Hillel Director who takes this on — it’s the Israel Fellow who is trying to celebrate their homeland with IsraelFest and is met with protests or it’s the Hillel student leadership who is called to speak out against BDS measures at student government hearings. So whether or not we got into this work to work to eradicate anti-Jewish thinking and behaviors, the work is here to do. How can I create meaningful Jewish experiences for the Jewish students at Miami if they feel that they have to withhold major parts of their identity for fear of antisemitism or anti-Zionism? Who else is going to advocate for our Jewish Miami students if not Hillel? If I am only for myself, what am I?
Shabbat Shalom,
Whitney
