The campus feels like the morning after a tornado: the overt violence is gone, but the wreckage remains. I stay because here, Israelis and Arabs can have conversations that acknowledge one another’s suffering. I am confident these dialogues will have a far greater impact on the road to peace than any protest or slogan.
As an Israeli Jew who served three years in a special forces combat unit and as a reservist throughout the October 7 War, I have been asked by family, friends and cab drivers, “Why are you still enrolled at Columbia University?” From outside the campus, the news from the last two years about the reality for Columbia’s Jewish students has been daunting. They were afraid to walk around campus with Jewish identifiers, violence-inciting rhetoric was yelled with no shame and anyone remotely connected to Israel who came to campus, even advocates for peace, was greeted by massive protests.