On the Shabbat of October 7th, I was teaching a Lunch ‘n Learn session about Simhat Torah in Wilder Hall, the student union of Oberlin College, when one of my students said, “Rabba Amalia, I’m not sure if it is appropriate to share this information coming across my phone. There is terrible news from Israel.” I looked up at him. I had two daughters in Israel and a son-in-law. He shared the news as it was emerging: hundreds dead, the Gaza border overrun, hostages taken, sirens sounding across the country. The room became very quiet. “Should we cancel the Simhat Torah celebrations?” one of my students asked. I considered this as I continued my shiur.
“We will read Torah and have the celebration as planned tonight,” I said, “for of this day, it says that we will be ‘Akh Sameah,’ we will be happy (sameah), ‘akh’—in spite of circumstances that would take happiness away from us.”
Serving as a rabbi-in-residence on this campus, I collected names and locations of Israeli students on campus and set off—first for my host’s house and then to find those students.
It was no longer yom tov in Israel, and although my non-Jewish host had never used WhatsApp, he called my daughters, who confirmed their safety. That evening’s Simhat Torah celebration was a true coming together—with food, Torah reading, and the dancing of hakafot. Children of Israelis said that it had meant so much to them to come together in community on that night.
The Oberlin Review, the college paper, usually had a pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel letter or article weekly or biweekly. Within a week of October 7th, a pro-Palestinian march was organized on campus. As deans and staff watched the march from across the street, I walked up to them. One of the deans asked me, “But aren’t some of those students Jewish?” As an Oberlin alumna and former Hillel staff person on the campus from the 1990s, I was well aware of the phenomenon of Jewish students being among the leadership of Oberlin’s Students for Justice in Palestine group, called Students for a Free Palestine, or SFP. But I understood the dean’s confusion.
During this period, there were anti-Israel slogans chalked and posted all over campus—in dorms, on public walkways and classroom buildings, and even in bathrooms. Pro-Israel students expressed feeling harassed by being unable to get away from the messaging and by the erasure of the murders of Israelis and the hostage-taking. In those early days, we had not yet heard about the weaponizing of rape and sexual violence.
With Hillel student leadership, I organized a Vigil for Lives Lost in Israel that was co-sponsored by the campus Chabad. On a strongly anti-Zionist campus, I publicized a gathering of Students Who Care about Israel. Some students who came were silent for ten to fifteen minutes after they arrived, as if they needed to adjust to being in a space where they could express grief. Some were in disbelief that there was such anger toward Israel when the dead had not even been identified. Out of that gathering grew a group of students who wanted to form a Zionist group (Oberlin had previously had a Zionist group but it had lapsed), a group that would come to be called Obies for Israel.
When Hillel’s student email attached a flier from the Cleveland Jewish Federation about the November 14th March on Washington in support of Israel, our email was smeared. “Hillel, you hate black people! You hate people of color! You are racists! Shame on you Hillel! Shame!” In deep distress, the coordinators of our social media outreach took a break for mental health reasons, and comments were turned off on our social media account. Nonetheless, we did bring almost a dozen students from Oberlin, a campus with about 650 Jews, to the D.C. march.
On November 17th, 100 Jewish students published an “Open Letter from Oberlin’s Jewish Students” in which they wrote, “we are ashamed of Oberlin Hillel’s support of the state of Israel. We will not allow them to speak for us.” They announced that, with SFP, they would begin holding their own anti-Zionist Shabbat gatherings. They wrote that Zionism is “not an extension of Judaism—it is a racist ideology built on the displacement and destruction of Indigenous peoples. Israel was built within a framework of occupation, designed to possess lands already inhabited by indigenous Palestinians…. As we do not condone this campaign of occupation, we do not claim Israel as our Jewish state.”
They wrote that as “grandchildren of survivors of genocide … we condemn the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people and the larger white supremacist and colonial project that it exemplifies.” They also condemned the Israel education they had received growing up as “Israeli propaganda” that they encouraged Jewish students to “unlearn.”
These messages were repeated in dozens of articles, posters, and teaching events across campus. As a Hillel director, as a rabbi, and as a fellow Jew, what was my responsibility to these students? I consulted with other rabbis and Hillel directors around the country, some of whom had a similar split emerging within their communities, but there were no easy answers.
The public face of Oberlin’s students remained staunchly anti-Israel. Posters put up by SFP were allowed to stay up. Oberlin has two boulders that are frequently repainted. When someone painted “Free the Hostages” messages on one boulder, it was immediately defaced with bloody hands. The college sent grounds staff to paint over that
The administrative leadership of the college met with Obies for Israel, and the college organized some journalists with a variety of perspectives to teach online. They said that faculty did not want to speak publicly on campus about the Israel-Gaza war for fear of being canceled and facing hostility on campus (and, with the reach of social media, possibly beyond).
Student Reactions
Some Jewish students sought me out to share their feelings and experiences. One sophomore had been cornered by two friends who told her that they had defended her against another student who had been saying on social media that she was a Zionist. “You wouldn’t do anything as terrible as that, would you?” She described the pain of having this conflict dig into her personal relationships.
Another student told me that post-October 7th she had not been able to bring herself to go into a Jewish space—even for Shabbat services and a meal. “I’m utterly terrified. I know it’s not rational, but I can’t help myself.”
Some brave students raised their voices in the Oberlin Review. For example, a senior wrote on April 26, 2024: “Making divisive claims that spread misinformation while silencing Zionist—Jewish—perspectives isolates Jews on campus…. Despite Oberlin’s spirit of dialogue and the large Jewish presence on campus, however, I do not feel safe being outwardly Zionist. The events of Oct. 7 were a massive shock to the Jewish community, especially to those—such as myself—with family in Israel, yet Oberlin’s Jewish students are not allowed to grieve our losses unless we renounce our homeland.”
Several students who published pro-Israel pieces were targeted and threatened on YikYak, an anonymous social media platform. I brought these cases to Oberlin security, and they were elevated to the dean’s office. In some cases, students were told that they could be escorted on campus by campus security.
As the year progressed, Obies for Israel continued to meet and collect anti-Israel images from across campus, some of which were antisemitic. Our charter as a campus group was moving through the bureaucracy of the college, and, finally, shortly before Passover the group was chartered. We held a Seder table for the hostages outside the student union, and the educational table nearby had an Israeli flag on it. “I understand wanting to support the hostages, but why do you have that settler colonialist flag here?” asked one student. The sight of the hostage tables on Oberlin’s campus was so extraordinary that nearly 500 people took photos of it.
Toward the end of the school year, the center of campus was taken over by an encampment and then by the teaching of classes by students for the “People’s College for the Liberation of Palestine.” Among these classes was “The Myth of Jewish Oppression” and “The Weaponization of Antisemitism.” During a year in which programming and publications were aimed at drawing connections between the Palestinian struggle for liberation and liberation for people of color and LGBTQIA, Jews who were pro-Israel were made to feel isolated on campus.
Reflections on the Year
In reflecting on this year on campus, there is so much work that needs to be done. On the level of the administration and college programming, I met with staff who are responsible for DEI education and orientation to discuss inclusion of antisemitism in the framework of mandatory college programs.
But there is work to be done before students arrive on campus. I am struck by the need for Jews to learn at a young age about how antisemitism manifests over time, not only about the Holocaust. I agree with Dara Horn (Atlantic, May 2023) that “… in the total absence of any education about Jews alive today, teaching about the Holocaust might even be making antisemitism worse.” From a very early age, Jewish (and non-Jewish) children need to begin to learn that antisemitism consists of conspiracy theories that morph and evolve over time. Young Jews need to learn basic antisemitic tropes and how they are being repackaged in anti-Zionism.
As a Hillel director, as a rabbi, and as a fellow Jew, what was my responsibility to these students?
They need to be given a perspective on Israel that is not only through rosy-eyed glasses, so that when they arrive on campus they don’t feel that the Jewish community has simply sold them a bill of goods. They should learn that one can disagree with Israeli government policies and still support Israel’s right to exist. They should learn that there is only one country whose right to exist is called into question and learn to frame that within exceptionalist rhetoric that is used about Jewish people. These are not easy educational projects, but from what I have seen on campus during the 2023-24 academic year, they are crucial ones.