Monday, May 20, 2024
At Duke, pro-Israel Jewish students go ‘on the offense’
The only tents on Duke University's campus this year had nothing to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Dozens of students camped out for weeks in February to secure basketball season tickets, predating the Gaza solidarity tent encampments that took over the quads of colleges and universities around the country two months later.
But those demonstrations never came to Duke, the rare elite university that escaped widespread rancor over Israel and concerns about antisemitism this year.
"We're not consistently defending ourselves as Jews at Duke," said Nicole Schwenk, a senior from Long Island. "We're on the offense here."
Pro-Israel Jewish students have covered a lawn at the center of campus with 1,200 Israeli flags to mark the victims of Oct. 7, placed empty Shabbat tables for the Israeli hostages outside of the student center and covered a bridge on campus with posters of the missing.
It's not that the opposition has taken a softer tone than at other schools rocked by protests over the past eight months. Some students walked out during Jerry Seinfeld's commencement address last week over the comedian's position on Israel, and the signs at Students for Justice in Palestine demonstrations — like "no peace on stolen land" — match the rhetoric some have complained about elsewhere.
But despite this, pro-Israel students feel confident at Duke during a period when many of their peers at other schools feel beleaguered. Over three days of reporting at the university, Jewish students, and the staff and clergy who work with them, explained this to me by pointing to a student body that shies away from political activism, an administration responsive to Jewish students' concerns about antisemitism, and a rapidly growing Chabad that has mobilized to support Israel.
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