Respectful Coexistence at ECU

Jack, ECU ‘24, has been at the forefront of our kehillah efforts on ECU’s campus. In the past month, the Charlotte native and ECU Hillel student board member organized a 40-strong vigil to honor the victims of the October 7 attack and sat on a university-sponsored panel to talk about how the Israel-Palestine conflict affects students at ECU. Jack and his friends have shown that our advocacy for Israel and for respectful coexistence matters on all of our campuses.

Jack explains in his own words his background with Israel and why this advocacy work is important to him:

I grew up in Charlotte, NC, and was active in the Jewish youth group BBYO until I graduated high school. Before college, I did Young Judaea Year Course which is one semester in Tel Aviv where I had an internship with an English news podcast and one semester in Jerusalem where I took classes on Judaism, Israel’s history and more.

At East Carolina, we have a very small Jewish community with only about 8 active Hillel members but I remained connected to my Jewish peers through programming and regional events. In August 2023, I was selected to represent ECU as a Hillel International Israel Insight Fellow on a week-long trip to Israel where we heard from numerous professionals on the Israel/Palestine conflict and went into the West Bank to hear the perspectives of Palestinians and Jewish Settlers.

There were numerous ideas that I took away from this fellowship but what remains on the forefront of my mind is that Palestinians and Israelis are essentially the same people. However, throughout history both people have been divided by corrupt politicians with the aim of making us enemies. This tactic encourages hate and bloodshed which deepens the pockets of dishonorable public figures. Peace is against their agenda which continuously endangers civilian lives. The majority of Palestinian and Israeli civilians are not at war, only their governments are.

Snippet of ECU Hillel’s vigil on Oct 11. To watch the full video please see ECU Hillel’s Instagram post.

Back at ECU, I felt a strong urge to represent the Jewish community in the aftermath of the October 7th attacks. I organized a vigil on October 11th to honor the lives lost that reached beyond our Jewish community with over 40 people there. Additionally, I helped organize a university civil discourse event called Cupola Conversations: Israel/Palestine Building Bridges where I represented our community alongside the president of the Muslim Student Association in front of a majority Muslim audience. We held a panel focused on the lived experiences of our student body and communities rather than politics.

Sitting alongside the president of the Muslim Student Association, we found that our peoples had more in common than not. Through extensive discourse, we were able to identify a common enemy in Hamas and a common goal: the self determination and freedom of both Palestinians and Jews in a shared ancestral homeland. Whether that be a one-state or two-state solution is irrelevant to the overall goal of coexistence in the region.

Our event has since been used as an example for higher education institutions looking to address this topic on campus in a civil manner that addresses students concerns without violence or suppressing a viewpoint.