24 | APRIL 11 • 2024 

CREATING SAFE SPACES 
Hillel Director Rabbi Davey Rosen said 
together with Chabad and the Jewish 
Resources Center, Jewish campus organi-
zations are working in unison 
to create spaces of support for 
Jewish students on campus, 
especially in highly trafficked 
areas such as the Diag. What is 
most important is that Jewish 
students should continue to 
feel at home on their campus 
even among the rising tide of 
antisemitism and anti-Israel rhetoric. 
“We are here to create safe spaces for 
Jewish students to gather, express them-
selves and to connect to the community,
” 
Rosen said. “We are going to help students 
to get through this time because I am 
determined to get through it. We are here 
as a Jewish community to celebrate, to 
learn and to face our problems. Our staff 
is trained and equipped to be accessible to 
our students. We are here to listen to their 
concerns and allow them to process what 
(anti-Israel rhetoric) they are seeing all 
around them.
” 
Rosen said participation at Hillel’s weekly 
Shabbat dinners this semester is extremely 
high. And, as a pure coincidence, Hillel, 
together with Chabad and the JRC, in 
the last week planned its Israel week with 
dynamic, positive programming on the 
Diag, the same week the campus held 

CSG elections and the Board of 
Regents held a contested meeting. 
As the Jewish groups tabled about 
Jewish and Israel culture, sold 
dog tags in support of the Israeli 
hostages and offered Israeli food 
to sample, students passing by 
expressed their appreciation of 
having a visible Jewish presence, 
and some even stopped to ask 
questions about the war or have 
some challenging conversations. 
“That’s why we have programs like this 
out on campus,
” Rosen said. “We do hope 
that there can be moments where people 
can learn something. When we are out on 
the Diag, I or a student sitting at a table can 
help others understand what it means to be 
a Zionist.
” 

Josh Brown, an LSA junior, is perhaps the 
most visible and vocal pro-Israel student on 
campus, often observing and documenting 
pro-Palestinian protests. He is active in 
Wolverines for Israel and was featured in 
the New York Times, where the newspaper 
attempted to open dialogue between him 
and Hamamy for the record. This semester 
he penned an opinion piece in the Michigan 

Review decrying the university’s decision to 
award Hamamy and SAFE with the Spirit of 
the MLK Award. 

An active member of Wolverines for 
Israel and a strong proponent of free 
speech, he can often be found tabling on 
the Diag and willing to have conversations 
with the general student body on why he 
is a Zionist. Brown said there have been 
numerous attempts to have a dialogue with 
Palestinian sympathizers. 
In unrelated developments, J-Street, a 
left-leaning Israel group, put out a podcast 
of varying viewpoints on the war featur-
ing Brown. Facts on the Ground, another 
grassroots Jewish student organization, will 
host on April 14 a speaker panel discus-
sion of prominent Israeli Jews, Arabs and 

ABOVE: Josh Brown, center, 
advocates for Israel on U-M’s 
Ann Arbor campus. 
RIGHT: Leaders from Michigan 
Hillel, the Jewish Resource 
Center and Chabad at 
Michigan are doing all they 
can to help Jewish students. 

OUR COMMUNITY

Rabbi 
Davey 
Rosen 

continued on page 27

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