Students Stunned

The surge of anti-Israel activism on
campus has been a rude awakening for
many Jewish students.
"These students have never been
through this before," said Rabbi Bruce
Bromberg Seltzer, assistant director of
Duke's Freeman Center for Jewish
Life. "They were in junior high and
elementary school when the Intifada
and Gulf War were going on, and
they're not used to Israel being per-
ceived so negatively."
In addition, the Jewish students
tend to be more ambivalent about the
situation — and often less emotional-
ly, connected to it — than their
Muslim and Arab counterparts, many
of whom still have relatives in the
Middle East.
"There are a lot of first-generation,
very angry Palestinians here and a lot
of fourth-generation American Jews
who are not as well-versed," said Rabbi
Richard Kirschen, assistant director of
the University of Michigan Hillel.
While most American Jews have lit-
tle contact with Palestinians, for
Jewish students, "your roommate
might be Palestinian," said Richard
Joel, president and international
director of Hillel: The Foundation for
Jewish Campus Life.
Avi Fineberg, co-president of the
Concordia College Hillel, says he and
the 30 or so other Jewish students on
campus are now feeling somewhat
besieged by the anti-Israel climate
there. What is most difficult for them,
he said, is that they had been friendly
with many of their Palestinian class-
mates before.
"I speak to people on campus who

celled due to the situation, and the
streets of downtown Jerusalem were
much more somber than usual for a
holiday week.
On Monday, the Dan bus company
said it would cancel two lines that run
through Jaffa, a mixed Jewish-Arab city
adjacent to Tel Aviv, since the buses on
that route had been stoned several times.

Confusion, Despair

Even though for most Israelis the crisis
has not changed their day-to-day lives,
the constant flood of news has created
a feeling of war and an atmosphere of
confusion and despair.
Public opinion polls show some
contradictions in what the recent
events have done to Israeli opinion.
A poll taken by the Israeli daily
Mdariv before the Ramallah lynchings

say that person is in my class, I'm
friends with them and now I see them
marching," said Fineberg. "How am I
supposed to relate to these people in
class?"
Many Jewish students say they and
the Arab students are simply experi-
encing different realities. As
Concordia's Fineberg puts it, "I'm
dealinc, with a certain set of facts and
they're dealing with a certain set of
facts.
The biggest problem, said Ridberg,
is "the facts are confusing and depend-
ing on who I got information from I
could've been swayed either way."
For Kirschen, the possibility of
Jewish-Arab discussion on his campus
is hindered by the fact that the Arab
students there tend to be hard-line.
"The sad thing is I don't hear from
their side that they want peace or dia-
logue," he said.
On some campuses, relations are
smoother.
At Georgetown University in
Washington, Arab and Jewish stu-
dents co-sponsored a vigil criticizing
the violence on both sides. At the
University of Colorado, the Hillel
president received an "eloquent e-mail
from the Muslim Student Association"
requesting they put together a joint
program, said Pat Blumenthal, execu-
tive director of the Hillel Council of
Colorado.
The students there have brought in
an expert in conflict resolution to
facilitate a dialogue that will avoid
discussing the current situation but
instead focus on "why is this land so
important for people of different
faiths," Blumenthal said.

Andrew Marc Leathe
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showed that 62 percent of Israelis no
longer believe there is a Palestinian
partner to make peace. However, 63
percent of Israelis said they would still
be willing to return to the negotiating
table, apparently indicating that
Israelis are frightened of the war they
see unfolding.
"I still support making peace with
them, since they are our neighbors and
we must find a way to live together,"
says Tzahi Sharabi, 46, who owns a
real estate agency in Jerusalem, and
describes himself as a centrist. "But we
must strike back at them harder."
Outside of Sharabi's agency, by the
Pat Junction, a gateway to some of
Jerusalem's poorest Jewish neighbor-
hoods and a stronghold of the right-
wing Likud Party, many people agree

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