Jewish College Students Struggle to Find Shared Home After Attacks

A Year of Division and Confusion

Since Adam Jaffe arrived in Evanston three years ago, Northwestern University Hillel has been the college senior’s home away from home.

“It’s been always the place that, when I need to get out of the house, when I need to go for a walk, when I need to be with people and find community, that I go to,” Jaffe said.

Hillel is the oldest and best-funded organization for Jewish students at Northwestern. Staff say it is a space for all Jewish students, whatever their politics, to find fellowship and guidance as they figure out who they are and who they want to be.

Those are often vexing questions for young people, but the conversations have been especially fraught, and the need for community especially pressing, in the year since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel and the beginning of Israel’s onslaught of Gaza.

Deeply Held Beliefs, Divided Opinions

The deaths of more than 1,200 Israelis, more than 40,000 Palestinians, and the escalation of the conflict in recent days, have caused pain, grief, and confusion and made providing a community for all Jewish students all the more necessary — but also far more difficult. That’s because the ceaseless death and destruction have drawn out deeply held beliefs among Jewish students that are not easily reconciled.

Jaffe is emblematic of the internal and external strife many Jewish students are experiencing.

“My beliefs that Israel has a right to exist, and yet there is vast injustice to Palestinians, [have] always remained pretty steadfast,” Jaffe said. “And I think sometimes I have felt at odds with both of those parts of myself this past year.”

Searching for Common Ground

As he’s wrestled with these complicated feelings, Jaffe has had a harder time finding where he fits in at Northwestern.

“I definitely have felt on campus in this pocket of, I don’t know if I really feel comfortable going to the [Palestinian solidarity] protests, and yet at the same time, I don’t want to go demonstrate for Israel as well,” Jaffe said. “So I’m in an isolated area.”

Jaffe wants Hillel to be a place where anyone from Northwestern’s Jewish community, no matter their views on Israel, can discuss these big questions he is working through himself: “What it means to be Jewish, what it means to question my Zionism, what it means to question my belief in the State of Israel, and to do that openly and honestly and authentically.”

A Divided Hillel

But inviting that kind of reflection and dialogue is hard. Zionism is a core value for Hillel International, the organization that oversees Northwestern Hillel and chapters at more than 800 other campuses around the world. It does not allow speakers who support boycotts and divestment from Israel over its treatment of Palestinians, for instance.

The policy makes Hillel a place where senior Sari Eisen, Northwestern Hillel’s student president, feels safe. Eisen considers calls for divestment an affront to her Jewish identity.

“For any student who feels a connection to Israel, who has been there, who has friends or family there … to encourage Northwestern to completely cut ties, feels … like they’re asking a person to put aside a part of their identity,” said Eisen, who attended a Jewish day school growing up and who has traveled to Israel many times. “[It says] ‘You’re welcome, but your family is not,’ or, ‘You are welcome, but your country is not.’ ”

A Lonely Road

But the policy that makes Eisen feel safe at Hillel makes others on campus feel the opposite.

Junior Dan Murrieta is one of the students calling for Northwestern to divest from Israel over its attacks on Gaza. They found many people who shared their political views, but they wanted to find classmates who shared their Jewish identity too.

“I had a lot of friends who … agreed with me about the illegal occupation of Palestine and about the horrible atrocities committed against Palestinians using U.S. arms, using the Israeli military and the Israeli government,” said Murrieta. “But I had only had one Jewish friend that felt like that, and as a Jewish person that felt very isolating.”

Murrieta gave Hillel a shot, but their first time there they got into an argument about Israel.

“I had a whole table of people arguing with me and telling me that I was crazy, that I didn’t know what I was talking about,” they said. “So I just didn’t want to go again.”

A New Home

Earlier this year Murrieta and other Jewish students at Northwestern started a chapter of the pro-Palestinian organization, Jewish Voice for Peace. The group has just a small fraction of Hillel’s funding, but it’s given Murrieta the sense of community they so badly wanted.

“I met all these people I didn’t know who were also Jewish and felt [like I did] and it gave us a space to work together from that perspective,” they said.

A Conclusion

For many Jewish students at Northwestern, the struggle to find a shared home has become a painful and isolating experience. The conflict in the Middle East has exposed deep divisions among Jewish students, and the inability of Hillel to provide a safe space for all Jewish students has left some feeling lost and alone. While some, like Eisen, feel a sense of belonging at Hillel, others, like Murrieta, have had to seek out alternative communities. As the conflict continues to rage, it is unclear whether these divisions can be bridged, or whether Jewish students will continue to be forced to choose between their Jewish identity and their political beliefs.

FAQs

Q: What is the significance of the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel?
A: The Oct. 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas marked the beginning of a year of intense conflict in the Middle East, leading to a significant escalation of violence and division among Jewish students on campus.

Q: What is the stance of Hillel International on Zionism?
A: Hillel International does not allow speakers who support boycotts and divestment from Israel over its treatment of Palestinians.

Q: What is Jewish Voice for Peace?
A: Jewish Voice for Peace is a pro-Palestinian organization that advocates for human rights and an end to Israeli occupation.