JEWISH WORLD

JEWISH WORLD • JUNE 14-20, 2024 5 By ZEV STUB S tudent unrest over the Gaza war has turned U.S. college campuses into what some de- scribe as war zones. Students are taking over build- ings, protesters are disrupting com- mencement ceremonies, and police have been summoned to employ force to dismantle protest encamp- ments or, in some cases, quell vio- lence between different factions. Yet in Israel, where the actual war is unfolding, college campuses filled with Jews and Arabs have managed to stay relatively calm. This, despite the fact that many Jew- ish students are army reservists who took part in the combat in Gaza and many of the Arab students are Mus- lims with family in Gaza and the West Bank. The quiet at Israeli universities isn’t just happenstance or good for- tune, insiders say, but the result of painstaking work over months to minimize possible conflict between Israeli Arabs and Jews on campus. Sounds Of Silence Though lled with Arabs and Jews, Israeli colleges are calm continued on page 30 The quiet at Israeli universities is the result of painstaking work to minimize possible conÅict between (rab and 1ewish students. For example, at Tel Aviv Univer- sity — Israel’s largest institution of higher learning, with nearly 30,000 students, 14% of whom are Arab — a team of administrators implement- ed a broad action plan after Oct. 7 that touched on virtually all aspects of university life, including strength- ening coexistence leadership pro- gramming, increasing Arabic-lan- guage signage on campus and developing a system for fielding complaints about students’ com- ments on social media. “We did everything to provide our students with a sense of normalcy,” said Prof. Neta Ziv, Tel Aviv Uni- versity’s vice president for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). “Many students told us they just wanted to leave everything outside the univer- sity gates.” Much of the coexistence work on Israeli campuses has been funded and supported by American Jews, with UJA-Federation of New York playing a key role. Working in part- nership with Gisha, a joint program by some 30 Israeli colleges and uni- versities to advance DEI work in Is- raeli academia and developed by the Edmond de Rothschild Partnerships, UJA-Federation provided grants worth more than $400,000 since the outbreak of war to help dozens of universities develop programs to minimize Jewish-Arab student con- flict. These funds are part of the more than $94 million in Israel emergency funding UJA-Federation has allocated to date. “Immediately after Oct. 7, there was a great fear that college cam- puses in Israel, where Jews and Academic and administrative staff at Tel Aviv University greeted stu- dents at the opening of the school year as part of an effort by the Jewish-Arab Staff Forum to promote good will during the war. REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK