Posted on April 25, 2025
“The key question is: how much grace do you grant that person, and how much trust do you place in them?”
I’m Eli Buchdahl, Bronfman Fellow 2019. I’m a senior in college, studying Humanities, which some might consider a “fake” major. It’s for people who haven’t quite made up their minds and want to explore a lot of different things, which, for better or worse, is often how I approach things. I grew up in New York City, learned at Heschel and went to Central Synagogue, where my mom is the Senior Rabbi. I would say those are the formative Jewish environments I grew up in.
I spent the summer of 2023 in Korea, studying Korean language at Yonsei University. It’s a place where I felt, in a million different ways, very prominently like an outsider. As a mostly white person in an extremely homogeneous place, every interaction I had was necessarily moderated by being an other, by being foreign. An interesting element of that otherness is the fact that I am a quarter Korean. I’d be at a market, for instance, and strike up a conversation with someone. Usually—often in response to the inevitable “What are you doing here?” or “Why do you speak Korean?”—the fact that I was a quarter Korean would come up. And the tenor of the conversation would immediately shift.
In some ways, that mirrors my experience as a Jew in public—an identity that’s not immediately evident to a stranger, one I can choose to share if and when I want to. But it was also extremely different because of the majority dynamics: in Korea, the default assumption was so clearly that I was outside the fold, whereas in any majority Jewish space, the assumption is usually that I belong.
It raised questions about presentation and what it means to hold identities that are broadcast versus those I’m able to share on command.
Thinking about this in broader terms, I think people want to define their own identities—and people can also sense those of others. Once you determine the camp another person falls into, it becomes pretty easy to let that be the lens through which you interpret anything and everything they say.
There have been people on both ends of the political spectrum I’ve found difficult to deal with in the past couple of years. Some people from my Jewish high school are extremely aligned with Trump and have made comments like, “If you don’t support Trump, you’re a traitor to the Jewish people.” While this might be an unfair characterization, I think a lot of this is just provocative rhetoric designed to get a reaction, so I usually don’t engage.
If I choose not to have a conversation, I feel like I’m essentially stepping back from that relationship. That’s a choice I’ve made a few times in the last couple of years, especially with people I’m less close with and less confident that they would be open or respectful toward my beliefs. At Yale, I’ve had close friends with whom I disagree on these issues. No friendships have ended because of it, but there was one friend in particular I had known since my freshman year, with whom I lived for a summer in Korea. Last year, he stopped talking to me for a couple of months. I had a hunch, but I later figured out that it was because of a few things related to the war in Israel. Navigating that was really hard, but over the summer and into this year, we’ve been able to have a dialogue, even doing a sort of reading exchange where we suggest reading material to each other, like a book club of sorts.
I think the only reason that has worked is because we had a real relationship beforehand. A lot of vitriol comes from situations where there’s no common ground, making it easy to assume the worst about someone.
Some of the words that have been thrown around over the past year and a half have become highly charged, and the danger is that many are either overly broad or mean different things to different people. As a result, there’s real confusion about how to engage with them. One school of thought holds that any interpretation a listener gives a word is valid, while another centers the speaker’s intent and whether it was said in good faith. Essentially, you can either center the speaker or the listener—and right now, there’s no clear consensus on which approach to take.
That ambiguity gets people into trouble, especially with words like “Zionist.” People use the word to mean very different things, and others bring their own associations to it. This is where relationships become important. You might hear someone describe themselves as a Zionist and immediately make assumptions about their beliefs—assumptions that may or may not be true. The key question is: how much grace do you grant that person, and how much trust do you place in them?
If your baseline level of trust is low, you’re more likely to assume the worst about their intentions. Over the past couple of years, I’ve even heard people compare reactions to the word “Zionist” with reactions to the word “intifada”—an analogy that’s understandably upsetting to many and can be deeply offensive. But it speaks to how emotionally loaded language has become, and how much hinges on context and trust. Right now, I think trust is generally low, and people are quick to assume bad intentions. This creates a cycle where fear and distrust just keep building on themselves.
I have certain core principles that I hold onto in any discussion—like my belief in the necessity of a Jewish state—but broadly, I tend to err on the side of questioning everything. That’s my approach, probably to a fault. Especially when people I care about hold a wide range of views, I’m more inclined to try to understand where they’re coming from and to sit with conflicting ideas rather than be dogmatic. I know there are pros and cons to this position, with no hill to die on. I also see how strong convictions can lead to righteous action and change. Still, I think there are already plenty of people firmly planted on that end of the spectrum, and if the goal is balance, maybe this is where I’m meant to be for now.
Last year, I participated in a summer program at Yeshivat Hadar on the Upper West Side, a halachic egalitarian yeshiva. I don’t come from a particularly frum background, but over the summer, I was observant, and there have been a few pieces of that experience that have stayed with me in the year or so since. For example, it was affecting to mention Jerusalem three times a day in prayer—feeling that rhythm of constantly thinking about and invoking Israel and seeing its magnetic pull. Personally, I sometimes feel very distant from Israel, for better or for worse. So, just remembering the religious connection, tapping into it more, and feeling it present while I was (briefly) there—was so interesting to me.
In this sense, my experience at Central—a Reform synagogue—has always been a bit of a mix. Liberal Jews, on the one hand, want to define Judaism more as a religion than a people or ethnicity, for the sake of openness and inclusivity; but on the other hand, they still clearly retain a strong sense of peoplehood.
I think it’s that latter sense that explains why my mom’s synagogue has been packed every single Friday since October 2023. It was always busy before, but I think it’s even more so now. What’s really remarkable to me is that across the denominational spectrum, there is consistency in Jewish connection to Israel, even though people arrive at it in different ways.
I’m a pretty positive person, and what keeps me hopeful is that I know and trust people—maybe more than I should. I’m thinking of friends involved in pro-Palestinian protests at Yale, as well as those in counter-protests. I truly believe, at my core, that these people have good intentions. They care about everyone’s welfare and are driven by a desire for peace, even if they disagree on how to achieve it. Of course, there are people I don’t trust—but knowing good people whom I do trust helps me extend the benefit of the doubt, even when it’s not always deserved.
I’ve found that broad-based organizations often make statements more extreme than most of their members would support—and that’s a problem in itself. For example, after October 7, the Yalies for Palestine account posted something that came across as celebratory—frankly, something indefensible. That was disturbing. But I know people in that group, including some of the more radical members, and the reality is more nuanced. Of the 25 students arrested during protests, I know several personally. Every single one of them unequivocally condemned the attacks of October 7. This disconnect extends to chants like “Globalize the Intifada.” A friend of mine who helps organize some of the protests was very aware of how that phrase might resonate with many Jews. She made a point of ensuring it wouldn’t be an officially sanctioned chant at the rallies she was involved in. In both cases—whether it’s chants or broader messaging—there are often individuals who hold more extreme views. And within these organizations, internal pressures can make it hard to speak up, especially when someone’s identity is directly implicated.
From what I’ve seen, the climate at Yale isn’t as extreme as at some other schools—Columbia, perhaps. And despite some difficult moments over the past year and a half, I’ve found that staying open to those who aren’t always open to me has, more often than not, paid off.
So, I remain broadly optimistic.
