There are times I feel like an outsider. Moments when I feel that my Jewish identity creates a sense of distinguishing detachment from my surroundings. Though separate does not necessarily have a negative connotation, I am often stuck on the fringes, as if I was staring into a fishbowl, trying to understand what is happening within, but unable to due to the obvious barriers imposed.
The Jewish outsider often feels this status in situations where we feel misunderstood for our values, or when we are amongst a small minority in a specific situation. The Jew as the outsider is a phenomena that spans throughout our history: through exiles, crusades, a holocaust, anti-Semitism, and now, anti-Zionist propaganda.
But, then, there are the times when I feel the opposite sensation: an insider who is stuck in that very fishbowl, helplessly looking out to the world around me, unable to transcend beyond my immediate confinements. I forget that in any other time in history, or even just outside my direct community, I am still that very same outsider.
In our secure communities, and here at Yeshiva University, it is easy to feel like an insider. We have formed a beautiful community where the very differences that in another place may warrant prosecution, are celebrated and glorified. We are encouraged to take this distinct value set and prosper. Here, I feel secure with my Jewish identity.
I feel safe walking to the local kosher supermarket. I walk into shul without needing to have a security check or without having to carry around an ID on Shabbat. I wear my Jewish pride with confidence.
However, sometimes, feeling like being an insider can be even more detrimental than being an outsider. There is a false sense of lulled complacency; A complacency that evokes a response of “yet another news story” when there is another anti-Semitic incident in Europe.
I am realizing that the effects of being an insider are beginning to set in closer to home.
Friday, at the University of California Los Angeles, a Jewish student, Rachel Beyda, an applicant for the Student Council’s Judicial Board, was suddenly deemed a potentially problematic candidate after being asked: “Given that you are a Jewish student and very active in the Jewish community, how do you see yourself being able to maintain an unbiased view?”
Beyda was released from the room, and for the next forty minutes the current council members debated about whether her Jewish identity and affiliation with Jewish organizations, including her sorority and Hillel, would make her biased in dealing with governance questions that often come before the board. This was an especially relevant topic as the board had recently approved several pro-BDS measures on campus. Though she was ultimately voted onto the council, it is clear that no other student would possibly be deemed suspicious based on the color of her skin, religion, gender, or sexuality.
When I was thinking about this event in regards to this article, most students I spoke to had no idea that this event transpired. There are so many wonderful aspects that our community provides, but a sense of insulation from the struggles of other Jewish, specifically Jewish secular students at other universities, is not one of them.
It is resoundingly positive that we will never sit in a writing class in a university where students are asked to write about a hero, and two students elect to write about Adolf Hitler, as was the case in one university in New York City. We will not hear, at Stern, other students speak lies about Israel. We will never have to face abrasive opposition as long as we stay within the confines of YU.
Are there certain times where we may be too protected? Do all the advantageous aspects of our community come at a price of ignorance? Let alone, an inability to reach out and lend a helping hand to someone who might be a struggling “outsider” at an otherwise “inclusive” institution?
We must ask ourselves: Do the intrinsic benefits of being an insider outweigh the price that often comes hand in hand with our level of separation?
I am doubtful whether will ever be able to form a fully united front with any Jew facing oppositional, classified “outsider,” struggles.
Perhaps I often lose sight of the fact that these privileges are just that, privileges. I know I am not alone in sometimes forgetting the value of the benefits we are afforded here in our community.
I do not have a solution, but I think there should be a dialogue surrounding what it means to be an ideal insider: An insider who thrives in an environment privileges, but is also able to understand and lend a helping hand to our counterparts going through very real struggles of opposition in other universities.
But, while thinking about how we can position ourselves to help Jews outside of our community, we must first gain a cognizance that there are critical issues facing not only Jews globally, but Jewish college students in America. It is an issue that should hit close to home, but I do not believe that we have yet to feel its magnitude.