Growing up, I attended Jewish day school where I interacted with Jewish wisdom, community, and culture on a daily basis. Since coming to UCLA I have felt more distant from the Jewish community and have had to define what Judaism means to me and how it fits into my life. This past quarter when I studied abroad in Italy, however, I found feeling a connection to the Jewish community to be especially important to feeling secure while abroad.
I often find myself having to explain my Judaism to people in new environments, so this wasn’t a novel experience to me, though being asked if I “speak Jewish” will always leave me momentarily speechless. The skill of having conversations about what Judaism looks like in my life, what it looks like for others, and my incredibly nuanced view on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are things I’ve mastered over time. I think I am incredibly capable of expressing the importance of the nuance of the conflict especially, allowing me to have conversations about it with people of varying opinions. Frankly, I rarely leave these conversations bothered. In Italy, however, I encountered something new.
My roommates in Italy quickly got tired of Italian cuisine. While I could never imagine such a thing, I ultimately understand – it’s a lot of pizza and pasta without much variety. To counter this culinary repetition, my roommates turned to “the place.”
“The place” is what my roommates called McDonald’s. At first when they’d talk about going to “the place,” I didn’t know what they were talking about and had to ask multiple times before someone reluctantly told me. They called it “the place” because McDonald’s is being boycotted as part of the BDS movement and they didn’t want people to know they were eating there. They didn’t actually care about the war or the boycott – they only cared about what the optics of not supporting the boycott would be.
Honestly, I couldn’t believe it. I was shocked by how shallow this was and was especially thrown off by their hesitance to engage in a conversation about this with me. I am much more accustomed to engaging with people who hold passionate opinions about Israel/Palestine. I quickly realized that I would’ve even preferred this passionate view and deliberate avoidance of McDonald’s at all costs. Even though supporting the boycott would often be perceived as ‘anti-Israel,’ a view I don’t personally identify with (though my opinion is incredibly nuanced and not otherwise relevant to this article), I was honestly more upset by the focus on optics over the issues themselves. Upon reflection, I’ve found that I would prefer if individuals cared deeply about the conflict, even if their perspective differs from mine. I ultimately was bothered by the lack of care about the people affected and the strict care for the optics of eating at McDonald’s. I was experiencing a new level of performative activism, and realized first-hand how damaging it was.
This experience has ultimately reaffirmed the harm of performative activism and the importance of education and open communication. I deeply regret not having a conversation with my roommates about this, but I feared making my living situation hostile and uncomfortable amidst an already otherwise-isolating situation (being across the world from everything familiar to me). Further than that, though, it empowered me to stand fully behind what I believe in in practice more than just in theory and for optics. After reflecting that I wasn’t bothered by my roommates’ difference in opinion but by their misdirected care, I have taken this frustration as a lesson to hold fast to my values and beliefs despite what others’ perceptions may be.
The views expressed in this post reflect the views of the author(s) and not UCLA or the ASUCLA Communications Board.
Cover image taken by author
