At the University of Michigan, many Jewish students spent the morning of Oct. 4 attending Rosh Hashanah services. That same morning, students in Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE) were getting ready to protest.
“I just saw these two huge walls,” said first-year student Juliet Wishner. She also saw signs supporting BDS.
SAFE, a group devoted to the liberation of Palestine, set up an apartheid wall that morning on U of M’s campus to represent the obstacles Palestinians often face at checkpoints in Israel.
Although the group’s protest targeted Israel rather than Judaism, members of the U of M community felt that SAFE’s timing was inappropriate
Our Mock Wall up today in Ann Arbor, MI for Palestine Awareness Month! #PAM ?? pic.twitter.com/Nm8U72kCa7
— TeamSAFE (@SAFEumich) October 4, 2016
“On a day when many Jewish students were already struggling with not being able to fully celebrate the holiday with their families, the decision to present an anti-Israel display in the center of campus felt hurtful and intentionally antagonistic,” said Hillel president and senior Eitan Katz.
“These types of events are contrary to our campus’ values to create dialogue and understanding, and Hillel will continue its efforts to focus on more constructive and productive ways to engage with Israel and our campus community.”
In a letter to the editor published in The Michigan Daily, U of M’s student newspaper, SAFE pushed back against the claim that the date was chosen with bad intent.
“Accusations have been made that we intentionally planned this event on Rosh Hashanah to target Jewish students,” SAFE wrote in the letter. “This is false. We distinguish between Judaism, a religious and ethnic identity, and Zionism, a political ideology in support of a state.”
“In addition to it being Rosh Hashanah, it was also the Muslim New Year, the day after the commemoration of the Virgin Mary, and four days prior to the celebration of St. Thomas. Four holy days sacred to three different religions in which all of these identities are represented in our membership.”
One reason for the tension between SAFE and Hillel is that SAFE has put up apartheid walls in the past.
“Last year, they did the same demonstration on the day Ezra Shwartz was killed,” said sophomore Noah Fidel.
Shwartz, an American student taking a gap year in Israel, was killed in the West Bank in 2015. However, Fidel acknowledges that this was probably a coincidence, as SAFE could not have known Shwartz would be killed that same day.
At an assembly at U of M addressing the apartheid wall, Fidel said that members of SAFE had their own complaints about the event.
“They expressed their frustration with a lot of things people said to them,” said Fidel, adding that SAFE members were called “terrorists” and “anti-Semites.”
In its letter to the editor, SAFE argued, “No student group or students in general should be faced with these kinds of accusations while organizing against their own oppression.”
New Voices could not reach SAFE for further comments.
Nicole Zelniker is a senior at Guilford College. She is an English major from New York and the rising editor in chief of her college newspaper, The Guilfordian.
