Reckoning with Israel

The ongoing war in Palestine has created a divide across the country. In this story, tbh producer Jeremy Strause explores his experience as a Jewish teen in these times, and re-examines what Israel means to young Jewish people.

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Story Transcript

Sounds of Strause's family

This is my family, the Strause’s. We’re from San Mateo, California. There’s 19 of us, including 3 dogs.

When we’re together, we can get loud.

Clip of family dinner: The food is being done, politics is being discussed.

Every Sunday night, we pile into my grandma’s house for a huge family dinner.

Clip of family dinner: What's for dinner? Chicken and broccoli and cauliflower and salad and rice and two kinds of bread. And blueberry cobbler. Sound good? Yeah

I love celebrating my Jewish heritage with my family. As a kid, I spent my life going to temple, celebrating Shabbat, and going to sleepaway camp.

But October 7th changed a lot.

AP NEWS CLIP: The militant Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip carried out an unprecedented multi front attack on Israel Saturday, firing thousands of rockets and infiltrating the heavily fortified border.

CLIP OF ISRAELI OFFICIALS: Citizens of Israel. We are at war not in operation or in rounds but at war this morning, Hamas launched a murderous surprise attack against the state of Israel and its citizens.

People I knew from camp, people my sisters knew, would be fighting in a war for who knows how long.

Sounds of a Shabbat service

Although Israel is far away, the war has an impact on Jewish people in the Bay Area.

I’m at Peninsula Temple Beth El’s Shabbat. After service, we have oneg, which is when we eat dessert. While people eat their challah and cookies, I ask how the war has affected them.

GAIL SOLIS: I think it’s cause there to be more controversy among Jewish people,

STEVE CLEEB: It’s definitely had an impact, it has stirred people's feelings that have been suppressed for a long time both positive and negative.

PATTI MOSKOWITZ: It has caused us to examine who we are and what we represent and what matters and it’s an enormous, enormous change.

STEVE CLEEB: All of that has been dredged up because of the impending election and the conflict in Gaza has escalated all of those feelings

PATTI MOSKOWITZ: It has divided us, it has united us, it has troubled us, it has awakened us,

Growing up, I was taught that Israel was a place in the Middle east. The birthplace and home of Jewish people. In Hebrew School, I was taught that Israel was given back to the Jewish people after World War 2.

Going on social media, I would see posts on how Israel is this terrible place. And I started to question whether I was taught the right things. If I’m on the right side of history. So, I wanted to know how it affected other Jewish people. Lev Zeiger is a Junior at Los Altos High School.

LEV ZEIGER: The devastation of October 7th, I started seeing stuff on social media, like right away and it made me really curious what was going on Because I didn't understand much about what's going on in Israel, like at all.

When Lev started to ask questions he began to understand much more

LEV ZEIGER: And then there's the Palestinian people, whether they were Jewish Palestinians, Christian Palestinians, Muslim Palestinians because they are Christian and Jewish Palestinians who are already living in what was Palestine before 1948 that were deported from their, from their land that they've been living in it for generations.

The more Lev found out, the more overwhelmed he became.

LEV ZEIGER: And I was overwhelmed by like the brutal collective punishment that Palestinians were facing for the actions of one political group.

But through it, he found his voice. And decided to organize a school walkout to protest the actions in Gaza.

Clip of walkout: Palestinians in Gaza have been living for decades under military occupation by Israel, severely limiting access to education, jobs and even food and health care. This has been happening continuously for longer than we have been alive.

LEV ZEIGER: We were chanting for the safety of Jews and Muslims. 21:40: It was a very like bipartisan, like very like everyone deserve safety and well being kind of like messaging and that was met by like really intense backlash.

Backlash from other Jewish people. Like verbal threats, violent text and even physical encounters

LEV ZEIGER: People have asked people on opposing teams to hurt me in basketball games and school basketball games because I'm a bad person, I've had cars swerved at me. So, I think that there's this wildly problematic conflation between anti-semitism and anti-Zionism and Judaism and Zionism.

And this conflation is exactly what worries other young Jewish people. When the encampments popped up some were scared.

NBC NEWS CLIP: Here at home, students at San Francisco State have set up a so-called cease fire encampment and support of the Palestinians. Here's NBC Bay area in San Francisco that it's a chant heard before its city hall protests marches and now here at San Francisco State University's campus, it's happening now in solidarity with other campus protests that are springing up across the country and almost two weeks later has encompassed dozens of universities and communities across the world.

WBZ NEWS CLIP: Protesters have now camped out in Harvard yard. As you see here, tents, groups of people gathering despite the fact that the school is restricting access to that area. This is now the fourth student encampment in the Boston area, Skye over Harvard yard this afternoon.

FOX 32 NEWS CLIP: Students and faculty are demanding the university cut ties with Israel and, and study abroad programs with Israel. They say they've made their demands known for a year but don't believe the message was received. That's why they joined universities across the country in staging an encampment.

Maddux Eckerling is a Junior at San Francisco State. Where he’s experienced anti semitism first hand.

MADDUX ECKERLING: There was the most recent incident which happened like three days before I left campus, someone but graffiti, a very anti Semitic in viewpoint.

The graffiti said “Death 2 Zionist, All Jews are Zionist.” But even before October 7th, Maddux saw disturbing things.

MADDUX ECKERLING: There was someone on campus who dressed up in a Nazi paraphernalia like attire and this was before, well, was it, it was actually, no, it was because it was in September.

Maddux called the Hillel Staff for help.

The Hillel is an organization that helps College Kids stay connected to Judaism.

MADDUX ECKERLING: And we were on the phone for a bit and I sort of like broke down and then when I sort of calmed down and got off the phone with them, I packed a bag, I got in my car and I drove home

For Maddux, he didn’t want to say anything about the conflict in Gaza but his peers made assumptions.

MADDUX ECKERLING: I originally joined one of the political organizations that was working against the tuition hikes at the beginning of the semester.

After October 7th, the organization became a Pro-Palestinian group.

MADDUX ECKERLING: And all of them started sort of accusing me of, you know, being this ugly Zionist and, you know, wanting to ignore me and not talk to me and whatever because of it.

While Maddux has been accused of being a zionist. Alice Rothchild, a Health Council member for Jewish Voice 4 Peace has been accused of being anti-semitic.

She was going to give a lecture on the Health and Human Rights consequences of the war on Gaza.

ALICE ROTHCHILD: You know, I mean, I was a couple of months ago on a speaking tour in the north east.

She was supposed to speak at Dartmouth at the medical school. About health and human rights in Gaza.

ALICE ROTHCHILD: I was postponed indefinitely and then I was supposed to speak at Harvard Medical School and I was canceled at two different locations.

These big name institutions didn’t let her talk about the Health and Human Rights of Gaza.

Because it was seen as controversial.

ALICE ROTHCHILD: I was accused of being an anti-semite. And I was told that they couldn't guarantee my safety.

Danielle Courtney is a sophomore at the University of Sussex. But like me, she’s from San Mateo.

And, this topic has been controversial at home. She’s close to her family. And usually, they agree on politics.

DANIELLE COURTNEY: This is like the one place where we don't agree but like, it's, but it's not like, I think this and you think that it's just kind of like we have like the same core morals, we just kind of differ in like, how we think is like the best approach.

It all started while she was at a Jewish summer camp during her Senior year of high school. Her perspective on Israel began to change when she started talking with a fellow Counselor in Training.

DANIELLE COURTNEY: I just had never met a Jewish person before who, like, didn't necessarily like, support or like, agree with or like, believe in, like Israel as like a political entity. He just would talk about like, the injustices that the state has committed. And like, like, he was one of the first people I knew who actually, like, made a case for Palestinians,

Danielle says that social media also played a big factor because she’s able to see different views.

DANIELLE COURTNEY: Like, I think that our generation has just been given like unbridled access to so much information.

But social media can also make things worse.

DANIELLE COURTNEY: I think that's kind of like a common issue with social media is like, people will have good intentions but like, it's just so easy to like misconstrue things

Social media plays a significant role in shaping public view, but leads to misunderstandings. And it was really confusing for me.

But talking with other Jewish people has made me feel more comfortable with this topic. Now, I see things that I never saw before.

There’s a lot of history fueling the conflict.

Clip of The Twilight Zone: The Eye Of The Beholder

In 7th grade, I had an English teacher who showed us an episode of The Twilight Zone every Friday. “Eye of the Beholder” is one that I remember vividly.

The episode was pretty gory and mind bending, but the message behind it is what I remember most. By the end of the episode the audience learns something that changes the entire plotline.

I think it’s important to look at all sides of the story.

Looking at every perspective will give you the most complete picture. Much like in the “Eye of the Beholder.”