Talking to These Students Gave Me Hope in this Dark, Dark World of War and Hate
Interviewing a group of Zionist activist undergraduates gave me so much joy.
Click here to check out the first 30 Installments - Volume I - in this series on Antisemitism and Culture. Among the most important pieces from this first wave:
What It Means When the Leader of the Republican Party Dines With THREE Antisemites
4 Stupid Reasons People Don't Take Antisemitism as Seriously as They Should
Is Qatar the Most Terrible State in the Middle East? Or Is Iran Worse?
7 Reasons This Christian Hippie Became a Zealot Against Jew Hatred
Why This Bible Thumper Is Going to Keep Using Plenty of Profanity
How Multi-Faith Mysticism & Maimonides Can Bring Peace to Jews, Muslims, Christians, and Everyone
This is the second installment in Volume II, intended as another 30 installments exploring the many manifestations of Jew Hatred and the issues surrounding it in America and globally. See the previous installments in this collection below.
These writings are part of my ongoing effort to overcome my PTSD by forcing myself to try to write and publish something every day commenting on and analyzing current cultural affairs and their impacts on politics, faith, and, well, everything. “Politics is downstream from culture,” the late Andrew Breitbart popularized among conservative bloggers while he was alive. I’d go a step further: Everything is downstream from culture. The cultures you embrace determine who you are and who you become. You become what you worship.
As I think I’ve made more than abundantly clear in this Substack’s series of autobiographical essays - and also through this antisemitism series - I have developed an abnormally dark worldview and cynical opinion of humanity:
And elsewhere on the Substack, you can read about the series of health problems I’ve struggled with recently, which manifested the last two weeks first as a horrendous panic attack and more recently in a seizure. Sally, my fiancee and business partner, wrote about both episodes here:
These two aspects of my daily life often come together in something of a perfect storm. By occupation, I spend all of my time immersing myself in the goings-on of epithet-spewing hate groups domestically, and of the terrorism-supporting rogue regimes internationally. Every day, it’s another swastika carved onto another Jewish family’s property; another Iranian-drone destroying another Ukrainian family’s home. And if the PTSD isn’t driving up my anxiety through the roof, it’s pushing down my depression to subterranean depths. Today has been one of the latter days. Oh man, it’s hard to remember the last time I felt this low, all day long.
But thankfully, I’ve been getting some heat dosages of spiritual and mental sunshine to counter-balance this all-consuming, cold darkness. Today I’m finishing up conducting interviews with Zionist student activists around the country, who have just returned from an Israel-UAE trip. It’s the follow up to this story I wrote, published last week at Jewish News Syndicate: Student leaders’ trip to Israel and UAE taps into the magic of diversity - The inaugural Geller International Fellowship brings together students from Ivy League institutions, historically black colleges and universities, and state schools:
The Abraham Accords continue to transform the dynamics of the Middle East towards peace, prosperity and cross-cultural friendships.
On Jan. 2, 40 undergraduate student leaders took the latest step in that journey, flying out of New York’s JFK International Airport for a 10-day tour of Israel and the United Arab Emirates. They are participants in the inaugural trip of the Israel on Campus Coalition’s (ICC) Geller International Fellowship.
Fellows include Democrats, Republicans and independents who attend both public and private schools. Five of the students attend Ivy League institutions, four are at historically black colleges and universities and 20 attend state schools.
The participants are notable leaders on their campuses, with many active in student government, local politics and campus activism clubs.
Their itinerary includes meetings with numerous Israeli leaders and officials including Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Fleur Hassan-Nahoum; Kan News diplomatic correspondent Amichai Stein; Foreign Ministry spokesman Lior Haiat; and Shiri Fein Grossman, director of government partnerships at the OurCrowd venture investing platform.
After arriving in the UAE on Jan. 9, the group is to meet with local students studying in Dubai, experience a VIP tour of the world’s tallest skyscraper the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, meet with Israeli Ambassador to the UAE Amir Hayek, tour the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque (the country’s largest), visit the Dubai Mall (the world’s largest) and conclude on Jan. 12 with a talk from Chief Rabbi of the UAE Rabbi Levi Duchman.
The next generation
“The longer-term vision for this is to build a community of pro-Israel leaders in America for the next generation,” ICC CEO Jacob Baime told JNS regarding the new annual program.
The participating students “are going to emerge as influential business leaders, influential political leaders, influential cultural leaders….One of the things I love about working on campus is you can identify who is going to emerge as a potential leader….It’s a really awesome group,” Baime said.
Click here to read the rest.
Baime was really right about the group he managed to assemble. I talked with three students for that first story after their first day in Israel: Keron Campbell from Morehouse College, Tessa Veksler from the University of California at Santa Barbara, and Daniel Badell from the University of Florida.
And, oh man, did I ever enjoy talking with those students. All three knew so much and were so energized to learn more on their trip. They were so smart, thoughtful, and decent. I envied them the experiences they were about to have - I got a copy of their itinerary, and was dazzled by the lineup of speakers and events. They each had their own unique perspectives and passions, but shared a common moral clarity for building cultural bridges between communities which have so often been at odds.
I enjoyed talking with them so much that I pitched a follow-up article to my editor, and then asked to speak with more students, along with the original three, once they were back and rested from their travels. So that’s what I’ve been up to yesterday and today. I got to talk with Keron, Tessa, and Daniel a second time, and then also five more, who were new to me.
And one word comes to mind: WOW. All eight of these students were incredible. Each one offered an erudite understanding of the issues and a deep empathy for all the people and cultures they encountered. I’m really looking forward to reviewing my recordings of the interviews tomorrow and mining them for the best quotes. I know that I’ll bump into the same problem I had with my first piece: there will simply be an overabundance of great quotes that I’ll want to include. Last time, I practically wanted to push for a two-part article, solely on the basis of my incredible talks with three students. Now, I’ve got eight students’ accounts to figure out how to weave together into one piece. It should be fun!
But then I stop, after finishing recording my last interview - ironically concluding this second round of interviews with the first student I talked with originally - and just look up from the laptop, sitting alone in this bedroom, the overhead fan all of a sudden so noticeable, the creak of my desk chair so loud with every slight movement I make, and the waves of all-consuming depression crash down again on me like I’ve fallen back into the middle of an endless ocean with no escape.
And I start to cry again, for no real reason.
The colors of the soda can seem more vivid than I’ve ever seen. The rainbow pattern on the journal where I took notes during the interview looks so intense. The heat from the grate on my bare feet is so strong; my palms are so sweaty. I want to get up and go see my family and my fiancee, but a force just seems to pin me to the chair, not giving me the will to stand, each key stroke more a burden than the last.
And the sense of hopelessness returns - a lack of hope that I’ll ever truly get better. A lack of hope that this world can ever get better. George Carlin’s explanation for it all still rings so true: The Public Sucks, Fuck Hope.
But there is a little bit of hope. I’ve written in this series about how there are more than a billion antisemites on the planet, and how they’re especially concentrated in the Middle East, where, in many countries, it’s more than 70 or 80% of the population that hates Jews. Yet, in just the past few years, four Muslim nations - the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan - have made peace with Israel, have recognized it, and have begun both economic and cultural exchange. The students told me all about their time in Dubai, and how they were blown away by the Emirati culture of tolerance which celebrated religious differences.
And I can’t help but put that fact alongside what I reported in yesterday’s Martin Luther King, Jr.-themed installment: in 1958 only 4% of Americans approved of interracial relationships, but today it’s 94%.
So yes, the public does suck. The vast masses and mobs of people all over America and this planet can be filled with cruelty and bigotry for one another. But over time, and with the work of dedicated individuals like the students who went on this trip, “the public” can be pushed to suck less.
And I can keep trying one day at a time to get healthy and happy again. This may be a dark world of injustices, tyranny, and disease, but there are still individuals out there fighting to make it just a little better, one day at a time.
