This article was produced by University of Massachusetts Amherst students in journalism professor Steve Fox’s “Introduction to Multimedia” class in collaboration with MassLive.
Freshman Elliot Tick, a University of Massachusetts Amherst political science major from Charleston, S.C., recalls conversations she had while preparing to make the move up to Massachusetts as a freshman last fall.
To celebrate her acceptance, Tick wanted to buy a new necklace with a Star of David, the six-pointed star that symbolizes Judaism and the country of Israel.
Despite what should be a happy time, a family friend “begged me not to wear it.”
“She told me that it was OK if no one knew I was Jewish. She said, ‘I know you, you don’t need to tell people. You don’t need to be proud — just be safe.’”
Across the nation, Jewish students, faculty and staff on college campuses struggled with how to make their voices heard after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and abducting 240. Israel retaliated that day by killing more than 13,000 people.
Since then, a ceasefire has taken effect between the two groups, with three Israeli hostages and about 90 Palestinian prisoners being released earlier this month, according to the New York Times, signifying the start of the truce that was set to last 42 days. More similar swaps involving hostages and prisoners were to occur in that time.
During last year’s spring semester, UMass students were filled with emotions and conflicting views following the attacks. Student protests started to increase. At pro-Palestine protests, there was often one solitary pro-Israeli counter-protester carrying a flag. In November 2023, one Israeli supporter was assaulted at a campus protest, MassLive previously reported.
Members of one organization who remained quiet throughout the protests last year are now speaking out.
A few UMass Amherst Hillel students observed how their silence and neutrality during the events from last year were better than choosing sides, according to Sam Kinches, a senior sport management and marketing major from White Plains, N.Y.
“I have friends that have come up to school here and just friends that have experienced a lot of things and I know that it is a risk wherever I go,” UMass Amherst feshman Elliot Tick said while at the UMass Amherst library. “What I do is a risk. I am of the firm belief that pride dispels ignorance, and I think that if I can take the hit rather than another Jew, I will do that.”Kalina Kornacki / Katie Seda
“I’ve been on … one of the student groups for Hillel. We naturally were trying to craft how we want to respond,” Kinches said.
Hillel is home to students who hold different opinions, so students realized that any single decision would not satisfy everyone.
“We have a diverse community, so a lot of people’s connections to Israel vary in a lot of varying ways, so we want to make sure that we were doing it in a way that everybody felt safe and everybody felt satisfied. But we also realized that you can’t make everyone happy with these kinds of things,” Kinches said.
Rabbi Aaron Fine, the executive director of UMass Amherst Hillel, said Hillel as a whole still believes in that perspective and chooses to stay as neutral as possible.
However, Hillel students, such as Kinches, decided to speak out now in an effort to explain their perspectives so others in the community might understand. These students cautioned they do not speak for the entirety of their community; they can only speak on their individual experiences.
Safety concerns
Kinches recalled that the uncertainty and unrest began on Oct. 7, 2023 when Hillel was hosting a celebration for the end of a holiday.
During that celebration, different pieces of news of the Hamas attacks were “kind of trickling in, but we kind of had a very vague understanding of what was happening, but we did not know nearly the scope of what happened.”
From then, according to Kinches, Oct. 7 became “a day of communal mourning” which has been emphasized by a memorial Hillel hosted in the UMass Student Union Ballroom on Oct. 7, 2024.
Like many campuses around the nation, Jewish students have sought safe spaces. The Hillel building is considered one of those places. However, this feeling of safety was threatened when less than a month after the Oct. 7 attack, Hillel hosted a Shabbat dinner with UMass Chancellor Javier Reyes, planned about a year in advance, to formally introduce him to the community.
During the event, members of other groups on campus “hijacked” the dinner, according to Kinches. Those who informally crashed began arguing about Israel and the genocide, looking for Reyes and other people’s reactions.
“In the one place that we objectively do feel safe, we felt that we weren’t,” said Kinches.
Feeling politically isolated
As tensions began to build last spring with one protest after another, including encampments, sit-ins and rallies, leading students such as Kinches and sustainable community development junior Levy Koenig were uncertain as to whether they could voice their own opinions.
“As protests came along again … especially the weeks after Oct. 7, there were times where I felt that I couldn’t freely speak my mind on my own campus,” Kinches said.
“This was a time of extreme emotion and [the protests] will actually invite maybe violence or criticism or whatever … for me, this was this purely emotional response and it was this time of grief,” Koenig said.
Koenig said the protests made him feel “politically isolated.” He said because of his identity, he believes that “you don’t really get the privilege of just representing yourself,” which led him to keep many of his ideas and beliefs to himself because he didn’t want to be “viewed as a spokesperson for my entire group or people.”
As the new semester began, discussions between political, religious and personal beliefs became more difficult to talk about. Between classes and social events, Koenig struggles to find a balance as to where he belongs on campus.
“I sometimes have a hard time where maybe I don’t show up so much to Shabbat because I don’t want to be around conversations that are really, really hard for me that I think are upsetting for me politically. But I actually love my Jewish community at UMass, which is really important to me and it’s not fair to do it, but it’s sometimes exhausting.”
Reflecting, moving forward
Although Tick was not yet on campus during the protests, she sympathizes with those who were. She said she came to accept that she is at “risk wherever I go.”
Despite this, Tick said she’s always tried to be “very holistic” and well-rounded in the information she gets by trying to understand those who hold opposing opinions to her own.
She acknowledges that she “can’t have an educated conversation” with others if they “don’t know what [they’re] talking about.”
Tick felt compelled to share her feelings with other students and wrote a poem that was originally published anonymously and posted around campus. It described her experience with the differing ideologies that became the center of the Palestine-Israel war and the challenge of being on campus in the midst of the conflicting viewpoints.
“So please, be curious, not judgmental,” the poem concluded. “We are all we have, and we need to be kind. – your fellow student”
Katie Seda can be reached at kseda@umass.edu. Kalina Kornacki can be reached at kkornacki@umass.edu.
