Jewish students deserve more than conditional empathy - opinion

When I invited former Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov to campus to share his experiences in Hamas captivity, I expected backlash, hard questions, angry social media comments, and disapproval from some students. Since October 7, 2023, I have been conditioned to expect these things when Jewish trauma is discussed. But what I did not expect was for my own student government council members to pass a letter condemning my event when I was not there to defend it.

Despite being starved, beaten, enslaved, and confined to a small cell 120 feet underground in complete darkness and solitude, Omer survived 505 days in Hamas captivity and now shares his message of hope and resilience. On the evening of our event, over 300 Jewish students, faculty, parents, and community members gathered to hear from Omer, a human being whose suffering, survival, and testimony deserve to be heard.

When my co-president of Students Supporting Israel, Hillel, and I partnered to bring Omer Shem Tov to UCLA, our motives were grounded in dialogue. Omer’s testimony was not meant to rewire perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It was an invitation to listen to his lived experience in an incredibly complex and painful reality. Students could choose to engage with his story or not.

Over the past few years, people have grown increasingly comfortable recasting Jewish trauma as harmful when it does not align with their politics. On April 14, the evening of Yom HaShoah, ten members of UCLA’s student government did just that by voting on and condemning what they refused to hear and understand. They failed to internalize an objective truth: Omer’s testimony does not invalidate Palestinian trauma. It coexists with equal legitimacy.

Following that unfortunate vote, our UCLA Jewish community refused to stay passive. We mobilized to deliver powerful, honest public comments to UCLA’s Undergraduate Student Council, calling it out for what it was: a document riddled with double standards that turned a survivor’s testimony into a political controversy.

When we reached the discussion item I had added to the agenda, I provided the facts that had been disregarded in the drafting of the letter. I made it clear that the event was conceived, organized, and led by students—an exercise of freedom of speech to which every student on campus is entitled. I emphasized that the letter was not simply misdirected and inaccurate. It sent a clear message to UCLA’s Jewish students: that their lived experiences are invalid when they become politically inconvenient.

What happened at UCLA is not just about one letter, event, or vote. It reflects a broader issue by which empathy for the Jewish community’s pain has grown increasingly conditional. But Jewish trauma is not only legitimate when it is quiet, convenient, or refined to fit an accepted political narrative.

There is room for both Palestinians and Israelis to take up space. The overarching narrative would be incomplete without either one. If universities are to serve as institutions that stimulate authentic dialogue, there must be a tolerance for discourse that challenges our assumptions rather than simply confirms them.

As Jews and as people committed to humanity, we should feel obligated to listen genuinely, seek authentic dialogue, and make space for stories that challenge us. But we also need to demand that our own experiences and truths be respected and heard as well.