Returning to an anti-Zionist campus

Welcome Back, Bulls! As we kick off the new semester, it is undeniable that our campus seems to continue on the putrid vein of not only being unsupportive of Jewish, Israeli, and Zionist students, but the attacks just keep coming. 

I do not live in a Jewish area, by any means, but having had three months of simply me and my Jewish mother, I had gotten used to the quiet silence. The Challah bakes, the chicken noodle soup, and the knowledge that if any developments happened in Israel, we would mourn them together, rather than spend hours picking apart the ‘context’ and misinformation. This feeling continued as I moved into my dorm. This time around, I felt totally supported and cared for by the people I live with- hanging a ‘shalom’ glass ornament that had belonged to my great grandparents, as well as an Israeli flag alongside my Union Jack. I took them to our first Hillel Ice Cream Parlor of the year and watched with flushed cheeks and a warm feeling as they talked to my Jewish friends and laughed together. 

It was on my way to a class that I was taken aback, given the Jewish normalcy I had had for four months, unbroken, when I saw an aggressive flier advertising for the Student Intifada. To an untrained eye, this may seem to incentivize some social justice movement, led by students to ‘restore the free world’, but for anyone in the Jewish world, and especially in the Israeli community, the word “intifada” refers back to the extremist waves of violence, suicide bombings and hatred in Israel. A few steps later, and I am confronted with yet another flier insisting that we say no to the “apartheid” in Israel. For anyone who has access to the internet, a quick Google will quickly dispel any horrible myths of Israeli apartheid, but just seeing these things so suddenly, broke my rose-colored delusion. 

As Jewish students at USF, we are undeniably going to be facing a semester that is just as tough as the last one was for us. We will not be wanted. We will not be cared for by our peers or by the university administrators.

And yet, in this darkness there is a small hazy glow.

Our community. USF Hillel, Chabad and Yehudi are all working to create safe spaces for us. Your Jewish student leaders and friends are here for you. We welcome all of you with open arms into our buildings, we will provide a listening ear for anything you need, and most importantly, we will shout the loudest so you don’t have to. It is true that my Jewish bubble burst quickly once I returned to school, but that is not to say that we cannot create a new safe space for ourselves.

Good luck this semester, dear reader, and just know that I am right here beside you through it all.