Emotions are high in the wake of the Oct. 7th anniversary. But will this create a chilling effect on young Jews looking to engage?

Marisa Kabas October 11, 2024

A poster created by Halachic Left

Monday marked the one year anniversary of the October 7th massacre in Israel, and at sundown Friday, the Jewish day of atonement—Yom Kippur—begins. It’s the holiest day of the Hebrew calendar, saddled with even more gravity given the past year of intra and inter-community turmoil. It’s meant to be observed with deep self-reflection. 

Rabbi Jason Rubenstein, Executive Director of Harvard University’s Hillel (an international Jewish student organization) endeavored to do just that with a searching letter posted to his chapter’s website Thursday evening. The nearly 2,600 word missive was published in response to a fairly confusing fracas on campus earlier this week. The details are important, so I’ll break it down for you:

• On Monday, October 7, 2024, a student affiliated with JStreet U, the university arm of the liberal pro-Israel Jewish nonprofit JStreet, allegedly used the printing resources of the campus Hillel to produce copies of posters without permission. The student was later identified in a self-published statement as Meredith W. B. Zielonka.
• The printable posters were produced by Halachic Left, a grassroots Jewish organization. They featured a variety of images depicting death and suffering in Gaza over the past year juxtaposed with Hebrew and English translations of the “Al Chet,” a list and confession of sins recited throughout Yom Kippur services.
• These posters were hung outside the campus Hillel center and discovered by staffers early Tuesday morning. The staffers then called the Cambridge Police Department because, according to a statement, “the flyers contained graphic content they felt was meant to be intimidating.”
• The Crimson, Harvard’s student newspaper, reported Tuesday that Harvard Hillel “temporarily suspended” JStreet U because of their actions, though it remains unclear from what they were suspended and what authority Hillel has over JStreet U.
• I reached out to JStreet’s national organization Wednesday, who informed me the following day that they no longer have an official chapter at Harvard and that a student—now identified as Zielonka—who had been affiliated with them in the past was the one who printed the posters. They said she “engaged in activity that was in violation of both Hillel’s affiliate agreement and J Street U’s own standards for our campus chapters.” I asked JStreet for specifics as to how Zielonka violated their standards, but they declined to comment further.
• JStreet also shared with me a letter their president and directors sent to Rabbi Rubenstein profusely apologizing for Zielonka’s actions. “We are committed to developing genuine J Street U leadership on campus that represents our values and mission, specifically providing a safe space for students to hold nuanced views without compromising their pro-Israel values,” they wrote.
• Thursday evening Rubenstein published his letter in response to the situation. He likened the posters to antisemitic propaganda—both historic and recent—that depicts Jews as dangerous vermin who should be met with violence. In his view, the posters “stigmatize” a type of Jew (IDF soldiers enacting violence in Gaza) and even if they’re not necessarily an attack, create “the potential to engender conflict between different elements of our community”. He wrote: “The saturation of public spaces, and the minds of an increasing number of Americans, with images of Jews as heinous, is real, and dangerous, and requires – just like testing and masking during COVID – that we curtail some public freedoms to protect one another.”
• Shortly after, Zielonka published a statement. She wrote that she put up the posters to “protest Israel’s conduct in Gaza and underscore my genuine moral and religious concerns for Palestinian lives,” and added, “While I stand by my beliefs, I regret the misunderstandings that overshadowed our message.”
• Zileonka explained: “I received permission to spend funds to print the posters as a Hillel affiliated group, but I should have preemptively shown Hillel the content given their rules precluding the use of their funds for controversial matters. Out of respect for Hillel and their mission, I have already donated the $41 back to the organization.”

Another poster from Halachic Left

I’d like to share some additional language from Rubenstein’s letter so that my criticism makes sense. He writes that the poster images from Gaza, “depict, in ways that are painful to confront, effects of the IDF’s campaign against Hamas there on Palestinian civilians. It is vital that we, as Jews, not evade the effects of the Jewish state’s army’s actions on others.”

The framing in that first sentence feels especially important. It’s a reminder that from a Zionist perspective, Israel’s government and army have killed tens of thousands of people in Gaza for a reason: to eradicate Hamas. The Palestinian civilians are simply bystanders caught up in war, and while their pain should cause us pain, it doesn’t mean that all Jews should have to repent for it. 

I as much as anyone have consistently made it clear that the conflation of Zionism with Judaism is dangerous and harmful. The trouble is, however, that from the perspective of the world, the atrocities being committed against Palestinians are being done in our name–therefore, we’ve become part of the story, whether we agree with the premise or not. And so from my perspective, the posters are not trying to say that every Jew should atone this Yom Kippur for the sins of the IDF, but that we should atone for what is seen as violence carried out to protect our religion. After all, “not in our name” is a phrase that has been used by Jews long before, but especially since, October 7, 2023. 

But what’s perhaps even more troubling on a micro level is the involvement of law enforcement and the idea that certain freedoms be curtailed in the name of safety. 

“Jewish institutions have a tremendous amount of power, and it hurts my heart that they so often use it to gate-keep and exclude rather than enfranchise,” Rabbi and author Danya Ruttenberg, who publishes the newsletter Life is a Sacred Text, told me. “That Harvard Hillel decided to engage law enforcement on a matter of…postering (never mind that they were posters with…our sacred liturgy? Inviting us to collective moral reflection?) speaks to just how profoundly some corners of our institutional life have lost the thread here.”

A Jewish Harvard student I spoke with Friday morning, whose name I’m not sharing to protect their privacy, pointed out that the situation could have turned out even worse had the JStreet U-affiliated student been a person of color. They felt that involving the cops rapidly escalated the situation, when it could have easily been an opportunity for community building handled privately between groups. 

And, as Ruttenberg pointed out, there was no actual crime was committed.

The impact of Hillel’s rush to suspend and punish JStreet U, another Jewish student organization—never mind the fact that they didn’t have an active chapter on campus or that Hillel doesn’t have any apparent authority over other student organizations—goes beyond this one incident. The student told me how they feel this represents something larger about how Hillel views left of center Israel activism, and that even the actions of an organization as close to the center as JStreet is unacceptable.

Harvard has been no stranger to controversy (legitimate and manufactured) since last October, which is why this seemingly niche story captured my interest. While one elite university campus is not representative of the country or world at large, much like Judaism and Zionism, the school’s experience and reality have been conflated. And so even a relatively small event looms large. 

“How ready are our institutions to criminalize young people who simply seek to engage about horrific moral questions with the community, and with those in power?” Ruttenberg wondered. “This was a moment for communal conversation, for drawing in and speaking to. Is this who we want to be?”

If you’re observing Yom Kippur, I hope that however you choose to observe is meaningful to you. I will be attending a Yizkor service tomorrow organized by Rabbis for Ceasefire. And, in keeping with Jewish tradition, I want to apologize to anyone I may have hurt by my words or actions this past year. I hope you can accept my sincere forgiveness.

https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/harvard-student-posters-yom-kippur-hillel-cops