On Campus: Protest or Conversation? – Aviva Stein

Episode 77.
This is the second of a two-part series with my guest is Aviva Stein. In part one, we talked about her Jewish practice at UMass Amherst, where she is now a senior. Part two covers her engagement on campus in support of Israel and the dynamic on campus last year around the Israel/Palestine issue. She describes several conversations where she gained new perspectives and understanding.

These kinds of conversations have been difficult both on and off campus, especially this past year. That said, I for one remain committed to interreligious dialogue, and learning from each other. So, if you or someone you know is a Muslim student who might be willing share their experience, please get in touch. You can reach me through my website – www.talkingwithgodproject.org.

Bio:
Aviva graduated from Gann Academy, the Jewish day school in Waltham MA, in 2021, and is now a senior at UMass Amherst, majoring in Food Science. At UMass, Aviva is involved in both the Food Science Department and in Hillel, the campus organization supporting Jewish students.

Aviva serves on various executive boards and committees related to both Food Science and Jewish life, and has earned numerous awards for her work. Most recently she received the 2023-2024 StandWithUs Movement Builder Award for Creativity and Impact, an award based on her deep understanding of the campus climate.

Highlights:
·       Aviva's campus involvement and the Israel-Palestine issue

·       Finding common ground and the importance of active listening.

·       Increasing understanding and the ability to connect amid disagreements

·       Understanding pro-Palestinian students' pain and perspective

·       Disruptions and activities led by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)

Social Media links for Aviva:
UMass Hillel website – https://www.umasshillel.org
StandWithUs website – https://www.standwithus.com
StandWithUs Instagram @StandWithUs and @StandWithUs_Campus
Newman Catholic Center on UMass Amherst - https://www.newmanumass.org
Office of Religious and Spiritual Life – https://www.umass.edu/orsl/
Students for Justice in Palestine – https://www.nationalsjp.org

Social Media links for Méli:
Talking with God Project website
LinkedIn – Meli Solomon
Facebook – Meli Solomon


Transcript:  https://www.buzzsprout.com/admin/1851013/episodes/15815911-on-campus-protest-or-conversation-aviva-stein


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The Living Our Beliefs podcast offers a place to learn about other religions and faith practices. When you hear about how observant Christians, Jews and Muslims live their faith, new ideas and questions arise:  Is your way similar or different?  Is there an idea or practice that you want to explore?  Understanding how other people live opens your mind and heart to new people you meet. 

Comments?  Questions? Email  Méli at – info@talkingwithgodproject.org
 

The Living Our Beliefs podcast is part of the Talking with God Project – https://www.talkingwithgodproject.org/

Transcript

Aviva Stein pt 2 transcript
On Campus: Protest or Conversation?

Meli  [00:00:05]:

Hello, and welcome to Living Our Beliefs, a home for open conversations with fellow Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Through personal stories and reflection, we will explore how our religious traditions show up in daily life. I am your host, Meli Solomon. So glad you could join us. This podcast is part of my Talking with God Project. To learn more about that research and sign up for the newsletter so you keep up to date, go to my website, www.talkingwithgodproject.org. Today's episode is number 77 and is the second part of a 2-part series with my guest, Aviva Stein. In part 1, we talked about her Jewish practice at UMass Amherst where she is now a senior.

Méli [00:01:03]:

Part 2 covers her engagement on campus in support of Israel and the dynamic on campus last year around the Israel Palestine issue. In this part, she describes several conversations where she gained new perspectives and understanding. These kinds of conversations have been difficult both on and off campus, especially this past year. That said, I for one remain committed to interreligious dialogue and learning from each other. So if you or someone you know is a Muslim student who might be willing to share their experience, please get in touch. You can reach me through my website, www.talkingwithgodproject.org. And now let's get back to my conversation with Aviva. 

You're heading back to campus. You are now what grade?

Aviva Stein [00:02:03]:

So I'm going into my senior year. So this is my 4th and final year of undergrad.

Méli [00:02:08]:

Woo hoo.

Aviva Stein [00:02:08]:

Thank God. And, also, I hope to God that I get through the year. So I'm really excited. I'll be going back. I'm actually moving in today, this afternoon, and classes will start in a week.

Méli [00:02:19]:

Okay. Well, well, wish you the best of luck with that, and thank you again for fitting me in before that big transition. The other aspect that has really been front and center last year on college campus, and I'm very curious to hear how you're feeling about it heading back today is being Jewish on campus. I'm not going to make assumptions. I'm going to just ask you straight out, how was it last year, and how do you see yourself in relationship to Israel?

Aviva Stein [00:02:52]:

So I'll start by answering the second part first. So how do I see myself in relation to Israel? I'm a Zionist. I believe that the state of Israel has a right to exist. I cannot tell you what that should look like. I'm never gonna tell someone if it's gonna be a one state, a two-state solution. Kind of, I don't even think that we can really have those conversations at the moment until we get peace in the Middle East. But I do strongly believe that Israel has a right to exist as a state, as a democratic state in the Middle East. So to answer the first part of your question, kind of, what was campus like last year? So last year is my junior year, my 3rd year at UMass.

Aviva Stein [00:03:32]:

And so a little bit of background is I've gone to private and public elementary schools, non-Jewish ones, and then I went to a Jewish middle school in Framingham, Massachusetts called Metro West Jewish Day School. And then I went to Gann Academy in Waltham, Massachusetts. Both are pluralistic Jewish day schools. They welcome students from all different denominations of Judaism. So from that, I really had kind of a sense of working with Jews from different backgrounds. I've been instilled with strong Zionist qualities. I've been to Israel 4 times. I've been trained in high school and even middle school kind of knowing that antisemitism on college campuses is a real thing.

Aviva Stein [00:04:18]:

Antisemitism is alive and well. I get to college. And I'm like, I hope this doesn't happen. I picked my college very carefully. It was one of the most important things for me was that there was an active Hillel on campus so that I had a place to be supported as a Jewish student. And I think UMass Hillel does an excellent job, and I really was able to see that in my college search. 1st few years were fine. The spring of my 1st year on campus, I joined the Student Alliance for Israel board.

Aviva Stein [00:04:47]:

So I had been a member my fall semester going to events and was invited to join the board my spring semester. That's fine. My sophomore year, my second year, it's fine. Still on the board. Nothing's happening. You know? Pretty quiet on campus. The start of last year, it's quiet, but there's little things here and there. My more like microaggressions.

Aviva Stein [00:05:09]:

I was told basically to f-off by somebody. That was really just not the best experience, but I kind of just let it go because I was like, there's no point in me getting upset about this. Then October 7th happens. This is in Israel. This is not at all in the United States. Somehow, people have got it in their head that this is directly a situation that we need to deal with in the United States and on college campuses. I personally do not think that a college campus is the place to try and solve global peace issues. I think it is a place for us to go get our education, to learn to build friendships, to learn how to debate kindly, how to become critical thinkers, and learn how to, as we move on, become contributing, you know, citizens of the world, whatever that looks like for each individual.

Aviva Stein [00:06:00]:

There is a group on campus called Students for Justice in Palestine or SJP, and they really supposedly support the Palestinian cause. Since October 7th, they've been very vocal, causing a lot of disruption to campus. There have been protests, walkouts, posters yelling, harassing of Jewish students kind of every day and multiple times per day. Because of this, it's been really stressful for me as a Jewish student leader, as a Zionist, and as a Jewish student to be on campus. I really hate the thought of walking through campus stressed out. I'm already stressed enough with, you know, full course loads of full science courses. I don't need this added stress. I don't want this added stress.

Aviva Stein [00:06:44]:

No one deserves this. And also, I don't think it's appropriate. I really think that being allowed and disruptive doesn't lead to dialogue. Right? And I think that what we need more is conversations, not alienation. So I personally feel very alienated and upset and really pushed aside as a Jew because this voice is so this SJP voice is so dominant, so loud, and so just invasive. That being said, I've also because I'm part of Hillel and because I'm involved with the Student Alliance for Israel at UMASS, I've managed to find a safe space. I've managed to find other people who might align somewhat with my views even if we disagree on policies or politics. So I really think that that's kind of my experience of the last year as it was one of the hardest years.

Aviva Stein [00:07:34]:

My heart goes out to people whose 1st year it was on campus and don't know what campus was like prior to this. And I really hope, as I said, I'm going back today. I don't know what I'm gonna see when I go back to campus. It could be totally calm, or it could be a complete storm of just who knows what. And my heart just goes out to students whose 1st year was last year because I know that they're also worried going back this year, and they don't have that, quote, unquote, sense of normalcy of what it was like prior to October 7th.

Méli [00:08:04]:

It's interesting to hear you say that you don't think that a college campus is the appropriate venue for solving world peace.

Aviva Stein [00:08:15]:

I think that it's the place to learn about ideas. It's the place to facilitate conversations, but I also think that we have to remember that we're not global leaders. We might become global leaders. Definitely, students have the opportunity. Right? Like, they might become senators, congressmen, even the next president, or, you know, the leader of some NGO or something like that who might be involved in peace talks. Really, I know that history disagrees with me, but in my mind right now is I don't see a way that walking through campus protesting, telling our chancellor to cut ties with different organizations and kind of divest and boycott and sanction or BDS, kind of promote the BDS movement, is going to lead to it's kind of solving the issues that we're seeing right now in Israel and in the Middle East. Right? Like, I have friends from Middle Eastern countries, and a lot of them have told me that they're just wanting to survive. Their families just need to survive.

Aviva Stein [00:09:15]:

If they go back, they would get put on, like, a government watch list. These kids just want their families to be okay, and that is so valid. But I've seen a lot of people within SJP, and this is definitely stereotyping is really it's not as much about that. It's kind of causing a disruption and trying to be, in my sense, they're bullying people to believe what they think. And again, this is a generalization. I know that each individual person might have different thoughts. But as a generalization, there's a lot it seems like bullying and not about actually wanting to solve problems. And so I think that on a college campus, there's definitely room to solve world peace.

Aviva Stein [00:09:56]:

But I think right now, and I actually think that we've talked about this, the digital age, my generation, we get so sucked into what we see on social media that we are unable to have these conversations. That it's not gonna be productive, because we just keep ending up in that same feedback loop.

Méli [00:10:14]:

Okay. So I'm hearing lots of challenges. I totally hear the stress. I don't live on a college campus. I don't go to college campuses anymore. But just hearing the news last year was super stressful just hearing about it. And I heard stress on both sides, and I heard lots of anger, and I saw violence. So since I'm all about connection, and bridging differences, and finding solutions, let's shift to that part.

Méli [00:10:48]:

Okay? So whether or not BDS, or setting up an encampment on campus or protesting loudly or quietly or whatever, whether that works or not, I'm hearing you say you don't think that works and that it's inappropriate on a college campus. What happened last year that you felt was a positive action? What were the organizations or actions or things to do or ways of connecting and talking where the learning is you say, and I think that's so appropriate that college is about learning. What did you see and what did you participate in?

Aviva Stein [00:11:32]:

I love this question. There's so many things I wanna talk about. So I'll start by talking about some of the work I did last year. I am currently a part time employee of the organization Stand With Us. This year, I'm working as a campus liaison, mentoring our 1st year leadership internship cohort, also known as FLY, which is a unique program that allows 1st year students to take their campus experience into their own hands. They'll gain hands on training from stand with us employees, myself as their mentor, things like that. So I'm really excited for this year. How I ended up in this position was through the stand with us Emerson Fellowship.

Aviva Stein [00:12:12]:

The Emerson Fellowship was founded in 2007 with a generous grant from Rita and Steve Emerson. And it's based in California, but is now, globally, we have cohorts, like, I think, almost every state in the country, the US, Canada, the UK, the Netherlands, Brazil, Africa, and Australia. And we also have a Christian outreach program that works with students to connect with their campuses and church communities to talk about Israel and antisemitism and inspire allyship. So I think, really, getting to be an Emerson Fellow last year transformed my experience. I went into the year, and I was like, cool. The second fellowship I've done, I'll learn a lot, but I'm not not expecting there'll be much. Immediately after October 7th, it happened on a Jewish holiday of, Simchat Torah, which is where we celebrate kind of the end of the Torah, and then start it over again. Day later, I end up on a phone call with the campus regional manager for New England, who was my mentor, and he was incredible.

Aviva Stein [00:13:11]:

He helped me how to process what I was seeing, what was going on. He also really helped me figure out the next step because people were so emotional. They were upset. They were angry. They were scared. They were sad. There was just the full range of emotion. Working with stand with us, really getting some of the best training that I could helped me to continue fostering conversations.

Aviva Stein [00:13:36]:

Whether it was with people who were part of the Jewish community and we had similar views, or whether it was going on campus and trying to table with, like, talking to people who, you know, probably really didn't agree with me and might actually hate me. It really allowed me to take my leadership into my own hands and really be a Zionist on campus and provide a space for Jewish students and pro-Israel students who needed that safe space during the aftermath of October 7th.

Méli [00:14:05]:

Glad to hear about the leadership opportunities and the allyship. You mentioned briefly a Christian connection. I realized that we hadn't talked yet about any kind of inter religious connection. So has there been much of that?

Aviva Stein [00:14:25]:

There's 2 ways I'm gonna answer this question. The first one is post-October 7th, we've been seeing a lot of hesitancy on campus from other organizations to collaborate with the Student Alliance for Israel or even Hillel. I understand the Student Alliance for Israel, but I can see how it's political. The hesitancy to collaborate with Hillel has been disheartening because they see that, you know, being associated with a Jewish organization either is problematic, it's political, or could put them under fire from groups who are anti-Semitic. That being said, Hillel was able to do a collaboration with the Newman Center, which is, I believe, a, like, a church on campus or, like, a group for Christian students. We've been able to do some other events. We did something called Spread Cream Cheese Not Hate. That was originally started on the University of Florida's Hillel, on their campus, where you go out on campus, you bring bagels and cream cheese.

Aviva Stein [00:15:21]:

We have people that sign, like, a pledge that basically just says, I will stand up to hate in any form. Right? It's not just anti Semitism. It's Islamophobia. It's racism. It's gender discrimination. It's, like, sexism. It's, you know, ableism. It's, like, all these different isms.

Aviva Stein [00:15:36]:

And then people kind of sign this pledge. We don't do anything with that. It's just to kind of foster, you know, community engagement. And then they get a bagel and cream cheese if they'd like. We even had gluten-free bagels, dairy free cream cheese. You know, we wanted to be as inclusive as possible. So that was an amazing event that we did on campus and really got to talk to some people who we might have not talked to otherwise. The university has really been trying to combat a lot of the tensions on campus, bringing in various groups.

Aviva Stein [00:16:05]:

This has been done through the office of religious and spiritual life. I've gone to some of the sessions with some of the organizations that visited, but in one of the debrief sessions after, there were about 10 students in the room. I knew a few of them because there were other Jewish students I knew from Hillel. But included, I think, was a Christian student, a student who was, like, non-denominational. She grew up, I think, Christian, but called herself, like, an atheist and non-denominational at the moment. We had a Persian couple, so from Iran. I think we had 1 or 2 other people representative, and the conversation we had was amazing. Everyone was just there, had similar sentiments.

Aviva Stein [00:16:44]:

They felt that there was no space to talk on campus, and we're so grateful to have that smaller space that we could find commonality with each other. And I walked away from that feeling a lot calmer, a lot at ease. I felt hopeful about the future. And I really, really am hoping that this year, there's gonna be more opportunities to have conversations like that because they're so important. We can be loud. We can be public. We can be private. We can be quiet.

Aviva Stein [00:17:09]:

But if we don't get together and find similarities and also find the differences that are okay to be different, like, we don't have that conversation, I think all hope is lost. And so it really just gave me a lot of hope that that was such a successful conversation.

Méli [00:17:25]:

How did that conversation come about?

Aviva Stein [00:17:28]:

It was after the university had brought in an organization related to, Israel and some programming, there's an opportunity for students if they wanted to join the people who were from the organization, but to also go and just talk and get to work with other students. And this was done the office of religious and spiritual life at UMass.

Méli [00:17:49]:

Okay. Well, I'm I'm glad that happened, and I hope that that office does more things because you're right. These conversations don't generally just spontaneously happen, especially when you have the range of cultural and religious identities that you described in the group you were in. That it has to be created and managed and a department or an office at a university or any organization is the appropriate venue. So that was a college organization, but it sounds like something also came in from off campus.

Aviva Stein [00:18:31]:

The university brought in this organization to kinda come and share and then do, like, this facilitating of this smaller conversation. And I think that was just so important. Hillel's also brought in an organization or 2. Unfortunately, I can't remember the name, but they were fantastic. Something about a table.

Méli [00:18:49]:

Setting the Table.

Aviva Stein [00:18:50]:

Thank you. They brought setting the table in, and that was an amazing experience for me to participate in because it was really geared towards Jewish students who are already part of a Hillel community or who wanted to come and be a part of the conversation. So we didn't get as much, you know, non-Jewish students, but we did manage to get within the Jewish community people with very differing political backgrounds and national identities, and just different dynamics, religious identities as well. And I walked away from that conversation so inspired. I felt more connected to the people in my group, and I also felt hopeful because I saw that we could have these conversations. It then inspired me to do a few things with the Student Alliance for Israel. We called it, quote, unquote, like, Zionist group therapy. There was a way for people to come and discuss what they were seeing on campus.

Aviva Stein [00:19:43]:

We did it after our 2nd encampment. Then again, we did it a few weeks later right before the end of the semester. Allowing spaces for people to respectfully disagree, but also share what they are feeling is so important. You have this pent-up energy and no outlet for it. It's gonna come out on another person. But if we can provide a constructive and really safe place that stays respectful, no hatred, no bullying, no attacking of one another. If we can maintain respectful and kindness and empathy, I think that that's so important. And I was really glad that I was able to, after resetting the table, to facilitate to different conversations.

Aviva Stein [00:20:25]:

I was really inspired by the work they did and saw the need for a space for people to share what was on their minds.

Méli [00:20:32]:

At the risk of not ending on a positive note, I do really need to ask, given these conversations you've been in and given the tension that was very evident on campus, can you describe an opinion or point of view that was different than yours, but that changed your understanding or point of view?

Aviva Stein [00:20:55]:

I think that's such a great question, and there's so many stories I can think of. One of them is within the food science department, we have a large international population. And I have a very close friend who's from Lebanon, and she would check-in and ask me. She's like, is your family okay? Is are your friends? And I'd be like, thank you for asking. Vice versa, I would ask her how her family was doing. I think luckily they were in North Lebanon, so they weren't in the south. But she talked about the complicated relationship that her family has with Hezbollah, which is an internationally recognized terror organization. She said she sees that they are a terror organization, but they've also provided her family with food and shelter and water during really tough times.

Aviva Stein [00:21:39]:

And so there's just this such this tension in within her own family. She also spoke about going to Lebanon every summer as a kid, and she also said that she'd love to visit Jerusalem because she heard beautiful things about it. We found that the biggest commonality we had were the foods that we grew up eating. The foods that she ate every summer in Lebanon were similar to foods that I've had here or that I ate when I visited Israel. So that was just a beautiful experience for us. Even though we do not agree on a lot of things, we are very close friends. Another woman, in our department spoke to me. She's from Iran.

Aviva Stein [00:22:13]:

I could tell she was a little bit scared at first, but she asked me if my family was okay and friends and wanted to understand what was going on. She then told me that if the government, like, knew that she was talking to a Jew, she would be executed, and that was mind boggling to me. So I started asking her about her family, and she shared with me that she no longer wears a hijab, and she wears pants. And so if she goes back to Iran, she's gonna get a lot of trouble, either executed or thrown in jail. She wants to go visit her family, but she can't. And she misses her childhood home and the town she grew up in, her siblings, her parents. But she can't go back because of the Iranian government and the regime there. That was super eye opening for me.

Aviva Stein [00:22:54]:

Let's just be able for both of us to share our pain and also what we've learned and views. Because to me, I'd never had someone talk that openly and honestly about a government they had grown up under that might not have been the best government. And I think the other experience was tabling. Part of the Student Alliance for Israel, we do some tabling here and there to kind of be a pro-Israel presence on campus and to really answer questions, because we know that there's a lot of misinformation. We know it's very confusing, and we know there's often, like, a one-sided narrative because of how local certain voices are. At a specific tabling, a guy came up to me and was like, the Israeli Defense Force, the IDF is a terrorist organization. So I looked at my like, what makes you say that? He's like, they're killing innocent Palestinians. I go, okay.

Aviva Stein [00:23:42]:

What about Hamas? He goes, Hamas is fine. I'm like, okay. So you're telling me that a national government military is a terror group, but the internationally recognized terror group of Hamas is not. We had about a half hour conversation. It was really hard. It was so hard, and I know it was hard for him as well. We did not agree on pretty much anything. But I noticed for me, it pushed me to really be at the top of my game in the sense of being engaged, being present, listening to what he was saying, not thinking of a rebuttal, really hearing what he was saying as a person, as his views.

Aviva Stein [00:24:21]:

At the end of the conversation, we agreed on 4 things. I can't remember all of them, but we definitely agreed that we were both students and our education came first. We were both at UMass to be students and that we needed to really related to that prioritize our education and that at the end of the day, we're classmates. Even though we might not be in the same classes, we're still there together to learn. And I managed to convince him that Hamas was a terrorist organization. Unfortunately, he still thought the IDF was as well, but I took that as a win because he would then understood why Hamas was targeting innocent lives of both Israelis and Palestinians. And he was able to be like, oh, wait. I didn't realize that.

Aviva Stein [00:25:02]:

I was also able to then come out of that and say, first of all, I was proud of myself. That was the first time I had really had such a heated conversation about that where I was honestly, the guy was, like, 6 something, much taller than I am, pretty big bill. And I was like, if this goes south quickly, like, I could be in a lot of trouble. Granted, he didn't seem violent at all, but I just you always be careful, especially as a a young woman. Really being at the top of my game, making sure I didn't think of my rebuttal, and that I actually listened. And I think going back to that comment I made about colleges being not the best place for world peace solving right now is because we're thinking of the rebuttal instead of listening. And so I felt really proud of myself that I was able to do that because that's what I say. But in the heat of the moment, it's really hard to do.

Aviva Stein [00:25:51]:

So I was really able to come out with just a sense of shifting and to also understand some of the thoughts and viewpoints and opinions that people who completely disagreed with me had. So I felt a lot stronger, a lot more educated, and I felt even connected to this student. And I also am hoping that he have left it with also an open mind. And I just felt very really positive about that interaction.

Méli [00:26:15]:

Yep. That's great. I do need to, though I need to press you on the learning part. I'm hearing lots of learning about isn't it great, I got my point across. Given the situation and the encampments and all of that, what point of view of the the pro-Palestinian students and activists that you now understand and hear their pain. Because there's a lot of pain, there's a lot of anger, and frankly, there's a lot of, I think, a lot of legitimacy in that. So especially as we're both Jews and you are a Jew on campus, I wanna hear from you. What have you learned that you now understand about their pain?

Aviva Stein [00:27:08]:

Of course. First, I wanna clarify the thought of really getting my point across. To me, it's not being right. To me, it's being heard and understood even if someone doesn't agree with me. So I I just feel like that's super important for listeners to understand is I don't need to be right. I just wanna be listened to and respected. Now to talk about the pro-Palestinian movement, there's so much legitimacy there. There's a lot of pain and suffering.

Aviva Stein [00:27:34]:

I see that. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to have as many conversations as I'd like to because I recognize that there's so much anger. And just like I've seen my Israeli friends suffering, and they've stopped speaking Hebrew on the phone to their parents, or been really careful about what they say walking through campus. And I know I've done some similar things as well, like, just very careful with what I say and where I say it. I know that Palestinian students are facing the exact same issues. I really think that there should be no tolerance for hate, and that means that Palestinian students shouldn't be bullying Israeli students, and Israeli students should not be bullying Palestinian students. That is not okay. And I will call it out if I see that from within the Jewish community.

Aviva Stein [00:28:16]:

I will say that because there's so much pain and suffering, everyone's on the defense. We're not able to have a conversation because everyone's so worried about their own survival. And in my mind, it's so hard because we are not in the Middle East. We are not getting bombarded with rockets and missiles and all the horrible things that come with war. We're actually in a space that we could try and have a productive conversation or at least just listen to one another. We don't need to get somewhere. We just need to listen. To me, it's so disheartening.

Aviva Stein [00:28:47]:

Hillel welcomed the chancellor of the university to come for a Shabbat dinner and then do, like, q and a since we had a new chancellor this year. And this was planned, like, a year ago, and members of some of the pro-Palestinian groups came, crashed the event, were super disrespectful, really pressured the chancellor. Honestly, kudos to him for not giving in to their demands. And they're like, do you promote a ceasefire? Telling the Israeli government that they're doing the wrong thing? And he goes, I promote peace. And I asked him, like, 7 times, and he just kept saying, like, this is awful for everyone, and I really promote peace in the Middle East. So because of that, I've gone in a bit more hesitant. We even have tried to reach out to the students who came that Shabbat and said, hey. It looks like you wanted to have a conversation or might be open to it.

Aviva Stein [00:29:32]:

Let's do it. And they just were unable to, for whatever reason, were unable to meet us there. And it hurt, honestly, because I was ready, and I know that a lot of Jewish students wanted to have those conversations. They wanted to learn. We want to understand what Palestinian Arab Muslim students are going through, and yet it's harder to make that space. Granted, sometimes it's successful, such as the story I shared with the organization the university brought in, but that was 10 students. And it wasn't a large representation of a lot of the students we see who are hurting right now. I have to say, as always, Islamophobia and antisemitism are not welcome anywhere.

Aviva Stein [00:30:11]:

That's not okay. I want to learn more, and I see that as a place of, hopefully, this year going into the year, being able to learn more from people who we might not agree on paper, but maybe we can have a shared meal. Few years ago, Halal managed to work with our Muslim student association and do called Share Our Table. The kosher kitchen at UMass made food from the Middle East. Everyone submitted dishes and created this beautiful dinner where we came. And at the end of the dinner, this was 2 years ago, so much more before October 7th. The best thing about it was at the end of the night, it was about 7 PM. It was the spring.

Aviva Stein [00:30:49]:

The sun was going down, and the Muslim students said it was time for the evening prayer service. And the Jewish students go, oh, it's time for Ma'ariv, the evening prayer service. So everyone turns and faces east. We're a little bit separate. We're not praying together, but on, like, two sides of this dining room are Muslim students and Jewish students praying at the same time, and that was just beautiful. Oh my gosh. That showed that it's possible to come together, and I wanna see more of that. I really wanna see more of that because I think that is where we can make a difference.

Méli [00:31:21]:

And that is a positive note to end on. Thank you so much, Aviva, for coming on my Living Our Beliefs podcast. I really appreciate the time and the attention and the passion you bring, and I wish you peaceful and positive environment for learning this year at UMass Amherst.

Aviva Stein [00:31:44]:

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really grateful to get to share my story and to talk more about the struggles that, Jewish college students are facing on university campuses right now.

Méli [00:31:56]:

Thank you. And this is also an open invitation for Palestinian or Muslim or whatever students to reach out to me if you'd like to have this conversation. I'd love to hear your perspective and learn from you. We are all here to learn from each other. 

Thank you for listening. This podcast is an outgrowth of my Talking with God Project. If you'd like to keep learning together and keep up to date on the project, sign up for the newsletter at www.talkingwithgodproject.org. A link is in the show notes. Thanks so much for tuning in. Till next time. Bye bye.