World
FOUR Faces
Sue Fishkoff
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Berkeley, Calif
I
t's March, which means the days get
longer and the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict heats up on campuses across
North America with the annual staging of
Jacob Lewis
While 100 people
chatted noisily in
the crowded room
at Berkeley where
Arab affairs expert
Mordechai Kedar of
Bar-Ilan University
Jacob Lewis
was about to start
his lecture, Jacob Lewis was off in the
hallway quietly unfolding more chairs
for latecomers.
That's his style. The 20-year-old
sophomore isn't the firebrand one
might expect of the president of Tikvah,
an avowedly Zionist student group that
broke away from Hillel three years ago
because its founders thought the estab-
lished Jewish student organization on
campus wasn't pro-Israel enough.
"We're the Zionist voice at UC
Berkeley," Lewis says firmly. "We advo-
cate for Zionism as the national move-
ment for self-determination of the
Jewish people in their homeland, Israel.
We were founded because no one else
on campus was making that argument.
No one was standing up to the rhetoric."
Tikvah brings pro-Israel speakers to
campus. Its activists distribute leaflets
next to Israel Apartheid Week events
and spearhead letter-writing campaigns
to protest anti-Semitism. But they also
present the diversity of Israeli culture
and society by hosting events like a
recent demonstration of Krav Maga, a
form of self-defense developed in Israel.
The point, Lewis explains, isn't that
Israel is all good, but that it's not all bad
either.
That's his main beef, not only with
Israel's detractors on campus, like the
Apartheid Week activists, but also with
Hillel-affiliated groups, like the one
that brought to campus speakers from
Breaking the Silence, a group of Israeli
army veterans who oppose Israel's
occupation of Gaza and the West Bank.
Israel Apartheid Week.
Last year, pro-Israel activists countered
Apartheid Week events — ranging from
anti-Israel speeches to the staging of mock
Israeli army checkpoints — with pro-Israel
events on 28 campuses highlighting Israel's
diversity and progressive character. This
year, more campuses are expected to join in.
One of the most politically active cam-
Lewis said they "nitpicked details" of
a very complex situation, and thereby
generated anti-Israel and anti-Jewish
hostility instead of thoughtful conversa-
tion.
"They make the delegitimization of
Israel on campus much more legitimate
because they're seen as a mainstream
group, part of Hillel," Lewis charges.
On the other hand, Lewis is wary of
right-wing Jewish community members
who spew anti-Islamic hatred at meet-
ings attended by Tikvah students. He
doesn't want them controlling the Israel
dialogue on campus either. "We don't
believe Islam is the cause of our prob-
lems," he says.
Referring to the adults from the
larger community, Lewis adds, "When
people come and talk about 'what all the
Arabs want' or 'this is what Islam says,
that's difficult for us to deal with.
"We walk a very fine line he says.
"Different elements from the commu-
nity want us to do different things. But
we're 100 percent a student organiza-
tion. We don't really care what other
people think we should do. We know
what we need to do."
Tikvah exists only at Berkeley, Lewis
says. "Berkeley is an absolutely crazy
place. The rhetoric is much more ven-
omous. The campus is much more
sympathetic to a leftist worldview. And
we don't get the same support from the
Jewish community that you might get
on other campuses."
Yet Lewis chose to attend Berkeley
after 12 years of Modern Orthodox day
school in Chicago precisely because of
the Bay Area's diversity.
"In high school, I was surrounded
by people who believed like I did,
but I was usually to the left of my
friends," he says. "Then I got to
Berkeley and I got involved with Tikvah
right away. I feel like I'm wrong no mat-
ter where I am." 11
puses in the nation has been the University
of California-Berkeley. Last year, it was the
scene of a protracted debate over an anti-
Israeli divestment bill that tore apart an
already fractured campus community and
left many students shaken, others angry and
still others too exhausted to care anymore.
Recently, JTA spoke to four Jewish
student activists at Berkeley about what
motivates them on Israel-related issues.
The students span the political and reli-
gious spectrum, from an ardent Zionist
to a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment
and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, from
Orthodox to secular. They all have strong
Jewish backgrounds — three are day
school graduates, and the fourth is an
Israeli army veteran.
Noah Stern has many
demands on his time.
The 21-year-old
senior is an active
member of Hillel, a
fraternity brother at
Delta Chi and presi-
Noah Stern
dent of the student
body. Plus he tries to squeeze in a little
skiing.
Stern is the third Hillel activist in 10
years to be elected student president.
"We're all Jewish guys from Los Angeles,
and all in the same frat," he says.
As president, Stern must navigate
between his responsibilities to the
entire student body and his personal
Jewish convictions. It was easier last
year, he says, when as a student senator
he could represent his own constituents
during the acrimonious debate over an
Israel divestment bill.
Stern voted against the bill and went
on to co-author a substitute resolution
that did not single out Israel. The first
bill passed but was vetoed by his prede-
cessor; the second was voted down.
Now as president, Stern is happy the
issue hasn't resurfaced. "My feeling is
there's acknowledgment that perhaps
the [student assembly] is not the most
appropriate venue for international
politics," he says.
Stern has a fine pedigree for a stu-
'. dent activist: His father is a Reform
rabbi, his mother works for the Jewish
Federations of North America, and
he attended Jewish day schools and
Jewish summer camp throughout his
childhood. He spent a year after high
school in Israel with Kivunim, a Jewish
program that encourages multicultural
literacy and understanding.
In the same vein, last year he and a
Muslim student co-founded Breaking
Bread, an organization that sponsors
coexistence dinner discussions on
campus. The Jewish-Muslim dinner
last December focused on cultural and
religious similarities rather than the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"I won't pretend it solved the conflict,
but this is how I prefer to engage with
the issue Stern says. "In general, I'm not
a protester. It presents a black-and-white
position on issues that are very gray."
As student president, even if he liked
holding signs on Sproul Plaza, the arena
of choice for Berkeley protesters since
the early 1960s, he would be enjoined
from lending his voice to a particular
cause.
Israel Apartheid Week doesn't stress
him out, and he's equally sanguine
about Jewish students who protest
Apartheid Week events.
"These are students that believe ada-
mantly in their causes and are visible
about it," Stern says. "That's how we do
it here. Israel Apartheid Week, Israeli
Peace and Diversity Week — it's the
Berkeley way"
For his own part, he is way too savvy
to speak, or act, off the cuff.
Asked about Peter Beinart's New York
Review of Books essay, which raised
establishment hackles by suggesting
that young Jews don't have the same
attachment to Israel and the Jewish
community as their elders, Stern says
Beinart was right on.
"I don't think the adult Jewish com-
munity is as in tune with Jewish college
students as they sometimes think:' he
says. "Strategies that might have worked
in the past don't necessarily meet the
needs of today's students."
Not all Jewish students care about
Israel, Stern says, nor should they be
forced to. Those who do care don't
always agree, and that's fine, too.
"The fact that different Jewish
groups with different stances on Israel
exist on campus shows there's a need:'
he says. 1-1
Four Faces
16 March 24 2011
on page
18