By Paeton Smith-Hiebert & Cade Fanning, Guest Writers.
[Editor’s Note: The Bi-College News’ released a separate article on this event, but agreed to edit/publish this piece in an effort to encourage journalism and the coverage on the respective campuses of the Bi-Co.]
[Reporters’ Note: In the course of reporting this article, strict adherence to event guidelines and regulations was maintained. At no point during the event were video or audio recording devices utilized. Instead, meticulous hand-written notes were taken, encompassing both the overall proceedings and verbatim quotations.]
On the evening of Wednesday, November 15, students filed into Sharpless Auditorium for the inaugural event of the “Jewish Conversations” series. The featured speakers—Amichai and Corey Shdaimah, a married couple living in Ardmore—wished to share about Amichai’s 84-year-old stepmother, Ditza Heiman, who is currently being held hostage in Gaza, “their efforts to raise awareness on the hostages … and the rise of Antisemitism, as well as their hopes for the future.”
The event, which was advertised as a joint effort between “Concerned Jewish Students at the Bi-Co” and Bi-Co Chabad, required that attendees agree and adhere to a strict set of rules, as well as provide their full name and email addresses.
Anything deemed “disruptive behavior” was expressly forbidden, such as shouting during the talk or bringing posters of any kind. Students who wished to attend this exclusive event were required to agree to these terms in the sign-up form in order to be approved. Upon arriving at the event, students had to check themselves in with organizers before entering the auditorium. A campus safety officer was stationed outside the door for the duration of the event.
Although audio and video recordings were strictly prohibited, Bi-Co Chabad had a video camera set up in the middle of the auditorium to record the event for their records. After initially denying reporters’ request to view the event recording, Bi-Co Chabad advisor Rabbi Eli Gurevitz relented and supplied the video upon learning that the reporter had been present at the event. He claimed his initial rejection was out of respect of the speakers’ wishes. However, each of the speakers had interviews with major news sources televised or published prior to the event: Amichai was interviewed by The Philadelphia Inquirer and Corey was interviewed on CNN, as was their son Elad, who spontaneously joined his parents as a speaker towards the end of the event.
While emails leading up to the event claimed that 100 people signed up, reporters recorded only 75 people in attendance at the start of the event, roughly two-thirds of whom were students. Other attendees included friends of the speakers, as well as members of Haverford’s administrative staff, Bi-Co faculty members, and President Wendy Raymond.
At the front of the room, a collage of photos of the hostages with an overlay reading “Bring them home now!” was projected on the board. Alongside the collage was a photo of Heiman, a phone number to text to submit questions for the Q&A portion of the event, and text reading “40 days, 239 hostages, youngest hostage is just 10 months old.”
The event did not begin until 8:15 pm—fifteen minutes after the planned time—in order to allow Bryn Mawr students ample time to arrive, according to one organizer. After the attendees were settled, student moderators Michelle Waksman BMC ’24, a Bi-Co Chabad board member, and Daniel Braun HC ’27 provided attendees with a brief reminder of event protocols, then introduced Ally Landau HC ’24, to provide an introduction of the event and the speakers.
Landau thanked the attendees for coming together to “form a welcoming space to engage in dialogue,” and emphasized that “Haverford values open conversation and continued relationships despite differing beliefs, and I’m hopeful that these events can embody those values and be a step in the right direction towards understanding and peace.”
Panel Discussion
While Landau provided a brief introduction of the speakers, Waksman asked the speakers to describe themselves more in-depth. Amichai, a medical engineer, described his experiences being born and raised in Israel, as well as his eventual move to the United States. Corey—an alum of Bryn Mawr’s Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research and Assistant Professor of Social Justice at the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB)—described her experiences being raised in New York within Jewish-American communities, as well as her connections to Israel.
Following the speakers’ introductions, the panelists began asking questions that they stated were based on those submitted via the required sign-up form. Braun asked the Shdaimahs to describe Heiman, adding: “She looks a lot like my grandmother, so very warm and caring.” Amichai was the first to respond, telling those in attendance that Heiman is a sixth-generation resident of Jerusalem who had a career in social work from her early fifties to her eighties.
The next question, asked by Waksman, inquired about the couple’s memories of their time in Israel across both their time spent living there and their annual familial visits. Amichai described in glowing detail the visits to his stepmother’s kibbutz (a communal Israeli settlement), describing it as a delightfully peaceful, close-knit community.
Amichai also acknowledged the kibbutz’s proximity to Gaza. “Behind Ditza’s house, there is a fence,” he said, over which one can see Gaza. He outlined the precautionary measures that every house in the area took in the event of an attack, such as the construction of a shelter under each home. “When we came to visit, we were sleeping in the shelter,” Amichai remarked.
Braun then asked them to walk the audience through the events of the October 7th attack from their perspective. As Corey was in Australia at the time of the attacks, initial communications that aimed to ensure the safety of their family between her, Amichai, and their family and friends in Israel, were highly complicated.
They began calling Heiman’s house at around 10:00 a.m. (Israel Time), but received no answer until around 4:00 in the afternoon, when they were met with a disheartening response: “someone answered the phone. It was in Arabic. They said ‘This is Hamas.’”
A neighbor, who had hidden in his house for the duration of the attack, filled the family in on what had happened to Heiman. “He heard her call for help. He went outside, and he saw she was surrounded by terrorists,” said Amichai.
Despite the emotional hardship of the situation, they are still able to find support. Corey explained that “The families [of hostages], a lot of them are in contact with each other, and they’re helping each other, so there’s a lot of mutual support.”
Braun shifted focus, asking Amichai to explain how individuals can understand the support that some Palestinians have for Hamas without engaging in antisemitism. “We’re not asking for you to share your personal political philosophy,” Braun assured.
Amichai explained that many residents of his stepmother’s kibbutz were humanitarians, and often lent aid to the neighboring Gazan communities, such as taking materials across the border to give to hospitals. “We believe that all people are born equal, and they have the right … to freedom and to determination, and we believe that Palestinians have the same rights as Jews and Israelis.”
Amichai then shifted to discuss Hamas and—from his point of view—their intentions. “Their charter is to destroy Israel. When you hear ‘From the river to the sea’ they mean that they want to throw all of the Israelis out of Israel,” he said. “This kind of action cannot be justified … This is not freedom fighters [sic], these are killers … It’s not in the name of peace, it’s not in the name of the Palestinian people.”
Waksman redirected the focus to Corey, requesting her perspective as a Jewish individual, as well as an academic; she claimed that posters on the Bryn Mawr campus with photos of the hostages, as well as posters advertising the “Jewish Conversations” series had been ripped down. “How would you respond to this?” asked Waksman.
At this point in our review of the event footage, there is a noticeable cut during Waksman’s question that jumps straight into Corey’s answer, already in progress. The preceding quote appears to have been cut out of the video that Rabbi Gurevitz provided. The portion of the event covered in the following two paragraphs was also edited out of the footage.
Corey explained that it has been incredibly difficult for her to channel her pain, while also being responsive to students or colleagues that came to her looking for assistance. “I’m trying to be the person that people come to as the ‘out Jew,’ while also being in pain myself,” said Corey. “I don’t always have the emotional bandwidth to be there for my students and be there for my colleagues.” She voiced her appreciation for the Associate Dean at UMB, who worked to provide dedicated support spaces and resources for all students, including Jewish students.
In addition to providing the perspective of a Jewish academic, Corey also addressed her perspective as a mother to Jewish children in higher education. She remarked that her youngest son, a sophomore at New York University, was worried about some of the demonstrations on campus. She stated that one day during a demonstration, she voiced her concerns to her son regarding the rising antisemitism on campus. “He said to me, ‘No, it’s okay … I look German,’” said Corey. “‘I can pass, so it’s okay.’ That was really painful for me to hear. We’re worried. Parents are worried.”
The footage resumes here.
Corey then addressed Waksman’s statement regarding the posters at Bryn Mawr. “Why would someone tear down a poster inviting you to hear about my personal story about my mother-in-law?” she asked. “It’s not a political poster, so I don’t understand why someone would not be open to hearing a story that is about me and my pain.” She continued, stating that there were two possibilities behind why the posters were removed: “Either someone doesn’t believe this is happening … I don’t really imagine how that is possible … That, to me, is painful, because I think that’s scary … another then another one is that they don’t care … for someone to actively take it down, as if my mother-in-law doesn’t count or I don’t count.” Corey said that she did not believe individuals who acted in such a way cared about her pain. “I feel for everybody who is harmed, and I also shouldn’t have to say as a preface that I’m a person who believes in peace … in order for somebody to not say, or for someone to say it’s not okay to kidnap somebody.”
Waksman asked the Shdaimahs to describe how students who don’t wish to conceal their Jewish identity should navigate the current climate. “I think what a lot of people also get confused about what is antisemitism [sic] … To blame somebody … or to shun somebody because they are Jewish, or because they are Israeli, that’s antisemitism,” Corey responded, stating that it is antisemitic because others do not shun Sudanese people, Russian people, or other individuals who belong to identities embroiled in conflict.
Waksman then asked the panelists what they could do to help Heiman and the other hostages. Amichai smiled and told him to “Do what you are doing now. Talk about it.” Amichai stated that while not everyone has the same connections to the war as the Shdaimahs, they “ask for people to not decline it, to say that it did not happen.”
Braun closed out the panel segment of the event by asking the Shdaimahs to share their hopes for the future, specifically relating to Israel. “I see some really dear friends in the audience, and that gives me hope,” said Corey. She expressed some uneasiness with her campus’s overall reaction to the war, but mentioned that she is receiving much-needed extra support from those around her. Outlining his hopes for a peaceful solution, Amichai added that he wishes the governments of both Israel and Palestine will take steps towards peace and escape the cycle of violence.
Question & Answer
The student moderators then introduced Haverford Professor of Music Richard Freedman to facilitate the Q&A section of the talk. Professor Freedman read the questions submitted by attendees off of a tablet and paraphrased them to the speakers.
The first question dealt with a recent interview in the Wall Street Journal with Amichai’s step-sister, a peace activist with the organization Women Wage Peace, who discussed possible solutions to the conflict. The speakers were asked to elaborate on the ideas expressed in the interview relating to a peaceful solution. In response, Amichai outlined his step-sister’s viewpoint of prioritizing the safe return of hostages over the destruction of Hamas. Corey responded by simply saying that Amichai’s step-sister would not want anyone speaking for her and invited listeners to read her written works.
The second question posed by Professor Freedman was a paraphrasing of two similar questions that had been anonymously submitted. The first of these was from a self-proclaimed “non-Jew,” who denounced the usage of terms such as “genocide” and “racist” to describe the actions of Israel, asking the speakers for guidance regarding these terms; the second asked if the speakers had any message for pro-Palestine student protestors.
It was at this point that Elad Shdaimah, Amichai and Corey’s 24-year-old son who had been sitting in the audience throughout the event, joined his parents on the panel in the recently-vacated seats of the student moderators, receiving cheers and applause from the audience. He asked Professor Freedman to restate the question, who obliged.
In response to the second part of the question, Amichai dictated that “the message that I would like to leave with the Palestinian people is that if they really want a solution to the Palestinian problem,” they needed to acknowledge that violence was too far.
Corey stated that while she did not wish to advise on the best way to approach response to the war, she stated that “I would want [pro-Palestinian protestors] to know how I, as a Jewish person, can experience certain things.” She expanded on this point, asserting that individuals may use slogans that others view as antisemitic due to their usage by Hamas, such as the highly contentious “from the river, to the sea.” She urged, “If that’s not your intent, then say something else.”
In contrast to the relatively modest and discreet tone of Corey and Amichai, Elad displayed more external passion in his responses, taking a significantly more critical stance. He referred to the accusations of human rights abuses levied against the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) as “inflammatory,” arguing that “while you can condemn the actions of the IDF and the Israeli government to the ends of the earth, their goal is not genocide,” and “throwing around terms like ‘genocide’ … devalues the word itself.” He elaborated on this point, arguing that “the word hasn’t been defined in this situation, people are just using it … it’s inflammatory.”
“No one knows what Zionism means anymore,” lamented a visibly frustrated Elad, referencing the ideology advocating for the establishment and safeguarding of Israel as the designated homeland for the Jewish people; his statement drew laughter from those in attendance. “That is one of the saddest things to me.” Elad mentioned that when he was growing up, he was proud to be considered a Zionist.
However, Corey did admit that there has been inflammatory language on both sides. Elad quickly agreed, citing in particular the usage of the word “animals” to describe Palestinians, referring to it as a dehumanizing characterization.
The next question asked the speakers what they thought was Hamas’s goal in taking hostages. Corey responded by saying simply that she had no idea, as Hamas has yet to share their intentions with the public. This again sparked laughter throughout the auditorium.
The speakers’ feelings on the controversial Israeli rejection of a deal with Hamas that would have seen the hostages returned in exchange for a five-day ceasefire formed the basis of another question. Amichai ambiguously addressed the question, stating that he believes the government is doing what it can, while saying others believe placing more pressure on Hamas to release the hostages would help the situation reach a favorable conclusion. In the time since this event, Israel and Hamas agreed to a four-day ceasefire and the release of 150 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for 50 of the hostages. Amichai’s step-mother was one of the hostages released. He then pivoted to an abrupt critique of Hamas’s management of Gaza, claiming “they have enough energy to throw missiles at Israel, but they don’t have enough fuel to fuel their hospitals.” Amichai delineated his unwillingness to criticize Israel’s management of this war, saying that “it’s hard for us to judge the government of Israel.”
Professor Freedman then introduced the final question, one that had been submitted to the live Q&A text line during the talk. This question expressed displeasure with the one-sidedness of the speakers’ responses, asking why they had focused almost exclusively on the war’s effects on Israeli—and not Palestinian—civilians.
Amichai immediately expressed his disagreement with the question. He argued that there was a fundamental disparity in the motives of the belligerents in the conflict, asserting that Hamas’s goal was to eliminate Israeli civilians while claiming that “the goal of the IDF is to save civilian lives as much as they can.”
Elad first addressed the complaint of the speakers’ one-sidedness, explaining that his family’s objective in participating in this talk was to share their story and feelings; as an Israeli family, they would naturally speak more from an Israeli perspective. He then continued his father’s line of thought regarding the IDF, arguing that “it’s hard to tell the IDF to stop when you don’t know what they should do.” He then seemingly justified the 11,000+ Palestinian civilian casualties by asserting that “There’s never been a war in an urban environment without serious civilian casualties. And I’m upset about the civilian casualties, but to put Israel under such immense pressure … is extremely unfair. And it’s hard.”
Closing Remarks
After the final question, Professor Freedman thanked the speakers for their courage and requested that all in attendance participate in a moment of silence. Following the moment of silence, Rabbi Gurevitz took to the podium to provide additional closing remarks. He thanked all of the attendees for coming and acknowledged the “full spectrum of opinions” in the auditorium.
Rabbi Gurevitz then went on to recount his personal experiences with antisemitism, describing instances in which bigoted comments and slurs were said at him on public transportation or the street. “It’s real. There’s really hate out there,” he said, “I’m not saying it’s everywhere, I’m not saying it’s always … we feel like we’re in this prolonged period of harassment.” Rabbi Gurevitz also mentioned his dislike of social media, outlining his frustration with individuals who post anonymously, as well as those who share information without sources. “It’s an absolute cesspool,” he claimed. “I don’t care who you are, what you think, that’s not the place to have this discussion.”
“When you say ‘stop the genocide,’ you’re assuming that if I support Israel, I support genocide, and you know what? I don’t accept that,” said a visibly agitated Rabbi Gurevitz. He emphatically justified this point, declaring “It’s not acceptable to use words that have no backing, no basis, and that are offensive. They hurt. That is antisemitism. For those who asked in the comments, ‘What’s to antisemitism?’ Jews committing genocide, that is outright antisemitism. Israel committing genocide, I’m sorry, I will not accept it. The Jewish community does not accept it.”
Rabbi Gurevitz proceeded to call for all Jewish people, and those who considered themselves allies of the Jewish community, to “stand up for yourself.” He went on to emphasize the importance of open, honest discussion with the intent of building bridges, citing this event as one such example of dialogue. Rabbi Gurevitz then thanked the speakers once more for their time and officially closed the event.
