A few days after October 7th, my Public Affairs professor at UCLA opened class with what he positioned as a fair and unbiased discussion of the conflict. But within minutes, it was clear he was out of his depth. He compared Hamas to the Black Panthers and implied that the most ethical stance was to weigh which side had more casualties. As a Jewish student, I felt compelled to speak up, not only to defend my identity, but because so many of my classmates accepted his words as fact, hesitant or unwilling to question them.
What concerned me even more was how this pattern repeated throughout the quarter. Teaching assistants and guest lecturers echoed similar ideas. Some even claimed that all Jews who supported Israel were white supremacists. Students rarely pushed back. Whether due to uncertainty or fear of being ostracized, dissenting views were quietly discouraged. It seemed as though we were being taught what to think, not how to think. At times, I wasn’t sure anyone would take me seriously if I spoke up.
In this same class, I met Aiden, another Jewish student who was similarly disturbed by what we were hearing. Hearing these blanket statements about white supremacy and Israel felt absurd because Aiden is Black and Jewish, and I’m Chinese and Jewish. Most Jews in Israel aren’t even white. After a few conversations, Aiden and I came to realize that modern intersectionality and education were being weaponized against Israel by people who didn’t truly understand the country, its history, or its people. Instead of trying to understand the specific details of the conflict, my peers assumed that certain binaries in American history—like segregation—could be universally applied. Through this kind of thinking, Israel and its supporters were viewed as an oppressive power, while anyone seen as the oppressed was viewed as morally right by default. We felt this wasn’t just a lack of critical thinking as students, but also a form of Western bias that ignored the complexities of the region.
One of the most disturbing aspects of that Public Affairs class was that even before October 7th, the curriculum was already biased ideologically. One of our required readings was the book Let This Radicalize You—300 pages of biased, self-righteous narrative pushed by two American authors who painted the entire world through their own simplistic lens. They drew a confusing comparison between the struggles of African Americans in 2020 and Palestinians, using the 1948 Nakba as an example (Kaba and Hayes 187–189). In this example, the authors portray the tragedy of the Nakba as an isolated event, completely missing the historical context, focusing solely on the loss of Palestinian lives and their displacement. They entirely omit any mention of the war that led to the Nakba, let alone the pogroms and massacres of Jews that fueled rising tensions. Even the scholar, Constantine Zureiq, who popularized the term Nakba (translated to catastrophe) as a term for military humiliation, was completely left out. Instead, the book introduced the Nakba through a lens one would anticipate through the Frankfurt school, not classical Islamic philosophy. It was academically enlightening, but for all the wrong reasons.
These authors, and the academic lens they used, seemed unable to recognize that multiple perspectives could exist. They saw the entire conflict through a black and white lens through their “anti-racist” analysis, completely erasing the suffering of Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews. The book said nothing about the Jews who were expelled from Arab and North African countries, who lived as second-class citizens, who faced systemic violence and had to flee—820,000 from across the Arab and North African world and eventually another 80,000 from Iran. Their stories were inconvenient to the narrative, so they were simply left out.
To push back against these narratives and highlight the diversity of Jewish identity that was being erased, Aiden proposed that we join the Jews of Color Initiative and build a chapter under one of UCLA’s major Jewish organizations, Hillel.
With support from Hillel and a grant from the Jews of Color Initiative, we co-founded the Jews of Color program—focused on promoting inclusion and representation for Jewish students from diverse backgrounds, building on the conversations we began in this classroom. This program not only centers Jewish students from diverse backgrounds, but also exists as a statement that Jewish identity is not one-dimensional.
Aiden and I were determined to elevate the voices people didn’t expect to hear from Jews. On February 27th, we hosted our first major event: a panel titled “Identity and Belonging: A Jews of Color Panel.” Our guests included David Chiu and Vanessa Bloom from the LUNAR Collective, Arya Marvazy from JoCI, and community leader Elisheva Rishon. Each speaker shared deeply personal stories about navigating Jewish life. For many in the audience, it was the first time they had ever encountered these perspectives in a Jewish setting.
What stood out most to me was the sense of trust and warmth between the panelists. Although they came from different organizations, they knew each other from past work and brought a sense of closeness into the room. It made the event feel more like a conversation among friends than a formal panel, which helped create an intimate and welcoming space. It also reminded me how meaningful it is to connect with other Jews who truly understand your experience. That tone encouraged students to engage more openly, and I was especially struck by how much the speakers genuinely cared about being there and supporting our program. All of the speakers stayed long after the event, creating a small social gathering where everyone got to know each other.
Following our panel, Aiden and I began to realize just how needed this space was. As Aiden put it, “Just realizing how many [Jews of Color] there are has opened up my eyes a lot to see that I’m not alone on this campus.” That quote stuck with me deeply because I truly felt alone in that Public Affairs class until Aiden reached out to me. I felt like I was the only person in that class willing to speak up against the narratives our professor was pushing, and I was especially worried that I was the only person who was even open to considering a different perspective. Building these connections with other Jews and elevating this representation felt important. Creating this space gave us a way to highlight voices that hadn’t been properly recognized before.
Our hope is that this program continues long after we graduate. The organization is still young and has room to grow, but I’m proud to have built it with Aiden. With the support of Hillel and the Jews of Color Initiative, I genuinely hope we’ve laid a strong foundation for future students to build on- one that reflects the multiracial reality of Jewish life and pushes back against the narrow narratives we encountered in our class.
Cover image taken by author.
The views expressed in this post reflect the views of the author(s) and not UCLA or ASUCLA Communications Board.
