Even before becoming the vice president of Occidental’s chapter of J Street U, Cady Carr (junior) said she has been thinking about what being Jewish means to her for a long time.
“My Jewish identity is a really big part of how I understand the world and has definitely imbued within me a sense of justice and a sense of tikkun olam, which means ‘repair the world,’” Carr said.
Sadie Medros (junior), the president of Occidental’s chapter of J Street U, said that for her, repairing the world starts with dialogue.
“The first thing is going into conversations with an open idea and an open mind, and that doesn’t necessarily mean saying, ‘I don’t know what my beliefs are,’” Medros said. “It’s saying, ‘I know where I stand, and I know that I don’t always need to stand here.’”
According to Medros, J Street U is the student branch of the main J Street organization, promoting education and advocacy on college campuses through engaging students in open conversation.
“J Street’s all about the nuance of the conflict. That’s our favorite word.” Medros said. “It’s not an either-or, and that’s really the crucial part. You can support both groups and support the humanity of both groups.”
Both Carr and Medros said they recognize that the conflict between Israel and Palestine is complicated. According to Carr, many people, including herself, already have ties to either side while being bombarded with opinions on what to think. She said this makes it hard to ignore, but harder still for students like her and Medros to get involved.
“It’s definitely scary to enter the space,” Carr said. “I’m still scared, but I think it’s also so important because [it’s scary], and it’s scary because it’s important.”
According to Assistant Director of J Street U Adam Deakin, J Street’s goal as an organization is to promote peace between Israel and Palestine through advocating for a two-state solution. Deakin said that J Street recognizes both an Israeli and a Palestinian right to statehood, holding that the safety of either is dependent on the security of both.
Like Deakin, Medros said that she too believes a two-state solution is the way to achieve peace.
“There are two groups of people there, and they both have claims to that land,” Medros said. “They both have historical ties. They both care about it deeply. They both live there right now currently, and so what’s going on now is not sustainable.”
According to Medros and Carr, nuance means thoughtful critique. They said that while J Street supports Israel as a nation, the organization opposes many measures taken by both the Israeli and American governments.
“One of the things that J Street kind of says is we’re pro-Israel, pro-Palestine, pro-democracy, pro-peace and anti-occupation,” Medros said.
Additionally, Carr said that one does not have to support every one of these views to engage with J Street U.
“What me and Sadie [Medros] are trying to do is create a space of dialogue,” Carr said. “[We’re] trying to be a home for discourse and disagreement and just critical thought in general — instead of turning away from each other, just turning towards each other.”
Carr said she was placed in a congressional office as a summer intern through a J Street U fellowship, a position she used to advance pro-peace ideology. The two said that they aim to use their past political experiences while leading their J Street U chapter to help students clarify for themselves how they want to get involved.
According to Medros, the chapter also plans to send students to Washington D.C. for J Street’s national convention at the end of February for a chance to engage with national leaders directly involved in these issues.
“I think it can feel really frustrating sometimes to be a college student on the other side of the country as the capital and not agree with what is going on in all realms of politics,” Medros said. “J Street is such an amazing way for students to actually make a change in politics.”
As representatives of J Street’s ideology, Medros and Carr said they will have to approach these issues with patience and sensitivity, agreeing that in today’s political climate, such change is needed. In addition, Deakin said that J Street’s position as a fundamentally “pro-democracy” organization is in opposition to current crackdowns on free speech and the rule of law.
“What the Trump administration is doing to college campuses and college students is profoundly unhelpful,” Deakin said. “They’re taking what are legitimate concerns about anti-Semitism and using them to wage a pretty broad war on higher education.”
In this fight, Deakin said that he turns to education, seeing dialogue as the way to combat extremism.
“We promote the nuance intentionally,” Deakin said. “I think it’s a lot harder to argue with political positions than it is with values.”
With that advice, Carr and Medros said they are ready to take a stand, starting with conversations here at Occidental.
“We’re committed to ensuring that we are fully representing this belief of pro-democracy [and] pro-peace for Palestinians, Israelis and for the conversation around it,” Medros said.
Contact Naisha John at njohn@oxy.edu
