Posted on June 26, 2026
“Rather than jumping into the deep end with the most contentious conversations, I would first find a way to build trust, in the hope this would lay the groundwork for deeper dialogue in the future.”
I’m Yonina Levisohn, a senior at the University of Maryland, studying philosophy on a premed track. I grew up in a big Modern Orthodox community in Silver Spring, where much of my social and educational life was centered within the community. After my gap year at a midrasha in Israel, I came to college excited to interact with people who were different from me. But for the first couple of years I was still mostly hanging out with people who were exactly like me, coexisting alongside other groups but not much more than that. Then October 7 deepened the polarization on campus, with eruptions of hostility, one after the other, that felt sort of inevitable.
Then, last fall, I participated in Bronfman’s Campus Commons program, which reignited my interest in pluralism and sparked optimism that bridge building was possible. For our Campus Commons Implementation Projects, we were asked to bring what we had learned back to our own campuses. I remember looking at the ways that groups on my campus were interacting with one another and feeling: this isn’t getting us anywhere. However overly optimistic it was, I hoped I could be part of the solution.
Originally, I envisioned bringing people together for a dialogue directly focused on Israel-Palestine. My Jewish friends were open to it, I think in part because they knew me personally and trusted my intentions, but other students were harder to reach. Many said they didn’t feel educated enough on the conflict to engage in the conversation, and didn’t see themselves as having much stake in it; others, who did feel connected to the issue, expressed discomfort engaging in that kind of conversation with people they perceived as Zionist, regardless of whether the participants’ affiliations were actually made explicit. At first, I assumed they thought the conversation wouldn’t be approached in good faith, that I was just trying to give Jewish students a platform to preach their own beliefs or to “educate” them on the issue. I thought if I made more of an effort to engage with them, to show them that there are Jewish students who really want to listen to what they have to say, they might be more open to engaging and listening in return.
A few weeks into the semester, I felt I needed to step into my own discomfort in order to meet students from “the other side,” so I went to an SJP meeting (Students for Justice in Palestine). It was an uncomfortable space for me to be in, as I deeply disagree with some of what the organization preaches, but it was the most active pro-Palestine group on campus, and it felt both important and feasible to find members willing to engage. One of their events I attended had a presentation from a Palestinian activist. After the event, I introduced myself to him and had a conversation about what he wished Jewish students knew. At the end of our conversation, I asked if he would be open to speaking to Jewish students alongside someone with a different perspective, to which he replied that he would speak with someone who is Jewish, but not with a Zionist.
This tendency to paint with broad strokes and reject engagement with entire groups of people was an attitude that was pervasive across campus. Then, in April, I went to a panel featuring Ahmed Alkhatib — a Palestinian activist who is pro-Palestine, while also being anti-Hamas and in favor of a two-state solution. The panel wasn’t explicitly about Israel/ Palestine, but about dialogue and pluralism. The attendance of Ahmed Alkhatib, however, elicited a protest from SJP. That chipped away at my perception that SJP was open to creating any sort of bridge, and made me wonder if the optimism I had about dialogue was just naivety.
I said to myself: okay, we’re not ready for this.
I had to shift my thinking. Rather than jumping into the deep end with the most contentious conversations, I would first find a way to build trust, in the hope this would lay the groundwork for deeper dialogue in the future. I thought back to the first interfaith event I’d ever been to — an iftar organized by a Muslim group on campus, which had a huge impact on me. Inspired, I decided to host an interfaith Shabbat dinner.
At the Shabbat dinner, I wanted to create a space where people could get to know each other and set aside all the hostility and preconceived notions they had about one another. I drew on the idea from the maariv prayer: וּפְרוֹשׂ עָלֵינוּ סֻכַּת שְׁלוֹמֶךָ (Ufros aleinu sukkat shlomecha), where, as we welcome Shabbat, we ask God to “spread over us a shelter of peace.” Traditionally, this refers to a shelter from the chaos of work and daily life, but I used this idea to introduce the space as a shelter from the hostility and turbulence that was so pervasive outside that room.
Drawing on values of pluralism and bridge-building skills I learned from Campus Commons, I collaborated with two other student groups — an interfaith club called Bridging Paths and a dialogue club called Bridge — to help shape the discussion and ensure a welcoming atmosphere. Along the way, I learned to value my voice equally with others’, and to recognize that it’s just as important for me to contribute as it is to listen. This has shaped the way I approach conversations in general, and I felt it especially at the interfaith dinner. I found myself both asking questions and sharing my own perspective in ways I wouldn’t have a year ago.
I was a little nervous going into the dinner, afraid we wouldn’t draw many non-Jewish students, or that conversations would fizzle out quickly. I was struck by how eager participants were to engage. I had anticipated needing more structure and moderation to get conversations going, but once people sat down, they quickly delved into meaningful discussions with those around them, people they had never met before. We were a group of twenty or so, large enough for diversity, but small enough that it still felt like we were all sitting at the same table and sharing in one conversation. While we had prepared some group prompts to guide the discussion later on in the evening, ultimately, the organic conversations were the more fruitful ones. Everyone seemed to have an abundance of ideas, questions, and experiences to share. One conversation I overheard was between a Jewish student and a Muslim student, who shared with each other how their days center around prayer and how that affects the people with whom they build community. In another conversation, a Jewish student and a non-religious student were comparing and contrasting their upbringings.
As we wrapped up, several students said they wished the event could have gone longer, and one person even walked back across campus with me and a few friends, continuing the conversation from dinner.
In many ways, I felt that we were able to create the kind of “shelter of peace” I described. At the same time, however, I remain aware of the limitations of this format. The very sense of safety that made the conversation possible also placed a ceiling on the depth of our conversation and the amount of healing that was possible. The “shelter” was both comforting and constraining, as I was keenly aware that the broader tensions that remained just beyond it were being held at bay, but not dissolved.
At the beginning, I felt strongly that unless we were having the hardest conversations, we weren’t doing enough. But while I don’t think the work is complete by any means, I came to see this Shabbat dinner as meaningful progress, generating an important sense of momentum and curiosity — a small step toward reducing tension and fostering understanding. Progress may be slow, but it’s happening.
