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(January 30, 2023 / JNS) The economic and national security implications of the Abraham Accords have received widespread attention. A lesser-known subject is that kids — or in this case young adults — are fine.
Have check in Some of the 40 undergraduate student leaders who participated in the inauguration of the Israel Campus Alliance with JNS within the first 24 hours of their arrival in Israel Geller International Scholarship Shared their experiences with JNS after a 10-day trip to Israel and the UAE. There are several distinct objections to the typical narrative about Israel.
Orlando Valdez, an international affairs major at Kennesaw State University, is active in LGBTQ+ affairs on campus, about 25 miles northwest of Atlanta. He pointed to Israel being known as “the LGBTQ+ capital of the Middle East” and said he was envious of the “massive” pride parades in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
As an aspiring diplomat, Valdez sees the trip as “a preview of what I want to do in the future.”
Kameron Smith, a political science and prelaw student at Morehouse College, a historically black school in Atlanta, is living out his Zionism through social justice and human rights work.
In Israel, armed with a 40-pound rocket warhead, falling near a children’s playground affected him deeply. In Aida, a Palestinian refugee camp, the insecurity felt by some of his Jewish colleagues recalled his own experience.
“In America, as a black person, you feel what I feel when I walk through certain neighborhoods every day when I go home,” he said.
In preparation for the trip – which included the Old City of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Al Aida and Dubai’s skyscraper Burj Khalifa and famous shopping malls – the researchers participated in months of online education to learn about the region. This trip was the culmination of planning.
Abe Baker-Butler studies global affairs and cognitive science at Yale, is also a student senator, and was previously a member of the American Jewish Committee. He was recently accepted into the Global Health Program at Yale University.
Baker-Butler had never been to either city, or any of the West Bank settlements, before touring Bethlehem with a Palestinian guide and chatting with a resident of the West Bank settlement of Efrat during the trip. Those experiences “really opened me up to the nuances and complexities of the situation,” he told JNS.
Kamala Kenny, a Brown premed student who is part of her school’s Hillel chapter, told JNS she was moved to see smiling kids playing soccer on the streets of the West Shore.
As a black woman who often feels unsafe in America, Kenny said Hillel and the rest of the Jewish community, including her travels in Israel, felt very warm.
At the top of the Burj Khalifa, some 2,700 feet tall, in Washington, D.C., Keron Campbell, a native of Morehouse College and now a student at Morehouse College, is awed by human ingenuity. “Thank God for the human brain,” he said. “It’s surreal to be that high up.”
Maria Viramontes, Jewish Student, University of Texas at San Antonio, Student Leader in hillel, said the trip to Israel — her first trip — clarified the parallels between her Mexican and Israeli cultures. Israelis are very welcoming and family oriented, she said.
Many students said tolerance appeared to be an important part of Emirati culture. “I’ve never been to a place where I feel so safe. There’s a lot of respect for people,” Campbell said.
As a non-Jew, Cuban-born Daniel Badell of the University of Florida appreciated the closeness to his Orthodox colleagues, especially on Shabbat. At a kosher restaurant in the UAE “literally in the middle of nowhere in the desert”, he was delighted to see the place filled with Jews, mostly Israelis. “I had to understand the full extent of the Abraham Accords,” he said.
For Tessa Veksler, a UC Santa Barbara student and daughter of Ukrainian Jewish refugees, the significance of the Abraham Accords was clear even before the landing.
“Sitting on a flight from Tel Aviv to Dubai. It was revolutionary,” she said. “I never thought I’d have the opportunity to do something like this.”
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