The Clash of Civilizations

As a religious student at Bar Ilan university, I’m not exactly what you might call a novelty. Nicknamed “the religious university”, Bar Ilan is known for it’s high academic standards, its pricey cafeteria food and being a major hub for religious students. A better nickname might be “Clash of Civilizations”- often it’s the first hardcore interaction between religious and non religious students (except for students in social work, which are generally just religious girls). In general, it’s a great opportunity to be exposed to different lifestyles, and to make new friends, but this exposure has definitely led to some interesting situations.

Take my friend A, for example. A classic graduate of the religious Zionist school system, A went on to do his five year compulsory service- army and yeshiva. Afterwards, he came to Bar Ilan, like me, to major in political science and communications. A is exuberant, outgoing and just plain loud, so he decided to lend his talents to the student union and became our student union representative. I don’t really know what he does for them, but every once in while he will come to .class with some announcements.

Well, one such day he came to class with the exciting announcement that Bar Ilan was expanding one of the parking lots near the Wohl Center (there is absolutely no available parking near Bar Ilan after 7:45 a.m. It becomes a war zone after that.). While in the midst of his student union propaganda speech, which follows every promulgation, he was interrupted by a student sitting in the sixth row. “You mean to tell me that there will finally be parking at the f-ing Wohl building?!” she asked, incredulously. “Yes!” answered A, exuberantly, “There will finally be parking in the f-ing…Oh! I didn’t mean to say that”. He stammered as he finally registered her complete question.

Being a religious university, Bar Ilan used to enforce a dress code, which included male professors, regardless of religious background, having to wear a kippa (skullcap) during a lecture. While not really enforced anymore, many professors still abide by that standard. However, it’s pretty easy to spot which professors don’t wear them outside the lecture hall. One of my favorite professors is one such an example. Every class, without fail, Professor X would walk in, kippa on head, adjust the table, erase the board and usually readjust his kippa. However, one class, he skipped a step. He didn’t have a kippa to adjust. Well, no one really noticed that he had forgotten that particular article of clothing until he tried to readjust it and found it wasn’t there. “Oops,” he said, “forgot about that”. Then proceeded to take a crumpled kippa out of his pocket and try to straighten it out on his head. Oops, indeed.

The eclectic mix of of students from different religious backgrounds is not without its share of tension (I learn political science, you can bet the arguments in class get quite heated), but at the end of the day, we’re all in the same class, watching the same movie from the same laptop in the third row.