Celebrating Simultaneous Truths
STUDENT VOICE
Stephen Bartell
Stephen Bartell is a rising senior at Princeton University, where he is majoring in Math. He is the student president of Princeton’s Center for Jewish Life.
Credit: Kurt Hoffman and Shutterstock
When news of the October 7 terrorist attack first reached my campus, it brought with it a cloud of fear, anxiety, and grief that hung over the traditionally unbridled joy of Simchat Torah, scheduled for that night. As a leader of Koach, Princeton’s Conservative minyan, I was faced with a challenging decision: Should we push forward with our plans for a high-spirited, uplifting set of hakafot despite the tragedy that had just struck Israel? Or should we postpone our plans to instead reflect, process, and comfort one another? In the face of this horrific attack on the Jewish people, it felt like we needed to choose between celebration and joy or grief and fear.
In the end, we chose neither option. Or, more accurately, we chose both, and allowed our joy and grief to coexist. Many in the room danced with tragedy on their minds, knowing full well that Jewish communities in Israel would be too struck by mourning and pain to do the same anytime soon. Others did not yet understand what made this Simchat Torah different from any other—or simply preferred not to think about it. Nonetheless, each student who joined us for Simchat Torah brought with them the full extent of what was on their mind—be that joy, sorrow, or simply confusion—with no need to compromise on the complexity of what they were feeling.
In the weeks and months that followed, however, it became increasingly challenging to hold this complexity. As the initial attack on October 7 became a longer war—one which continues to shatter communities across both Israel and Gaza—I have felt deeply conflicted between my support for the State of Israel and my broader concerns about violence, injustice, and the loss of any human life. Worse yet, many voices around me, including close friends and family, have suggested that my values are in irresolvable contradiction. When I’ve expressed deep concern for the loss of innocent Gazan lives or pushed back against the one-to-one equation of pro-Palestinian advocacy with support for Hamas, my Jewish loved ones have remarked with condescension that I’ve been brainwashed or somehow lost touch with my Jewish values. Conversely, when I’ve argued that calls for Israel’s erasure are rooted in an unreasonable, often antisemitic double standard or explained that I cannot in good conscience support activists calling to “globalize the intifada,” my progressive-minded peers have dismissed my lack of solidarity as a sign of complicity or a faulty moral compass. My failure to fall fully in line with either side of the debate has often felt alienating and isolating.
In the spring, my inner turmoil took on physical form as both pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian student protests, frequently framed as diametrically opposed forces, emerged on my campus. Over six months into the war, the demonstrations culminated in a peaceful pro-Palestinian encampment on my campus’s central lawn. In response, pro-Israel counter-protesters set themselves up on an adjacent lawn, Israeli flags and hostage posters in hand. Each time I approached the scene, my complicated, constantly evolving thoughts about the war were flattened into a binary decision: Which side do I stand on? I can either care about Israeli lives or Gazan lives but not both. I can pray for the return of Israeli hostages or advocate for the safety and self-determination of displaced Palestinians, but these values sit on opposite patches of greenery. Although, at their core, both sets of protesters were advocating for the safety of innocent people in Gaza—one group calling for justice for Palestinians and the other demanding the return of hostages—each seemed convinced that they had nothing in common. I often walked by these demonstrations without engaging with either side, out of fear of the message it might send to the other.
Contemplating why I found myself so at odds with the “us vs. them” framework that dominates the Israel-Palestine conversation, I realized that it clashes with both identities that I hold closest to my heart: Jew and math nerd. As a Jew, I take immense pride in our religion’s tradition of passionate yet loving disagreement which I’ve been lucky enough to find at the heart of Princeton’s Jewish community. Whether it’s a late-night debate with my Jewish roommates, a whispered discussion with Jewish friends in the library, or a raucous conversation across a Shabbat dinner table, Princeton’s Jewish community embodies the phrase, “two Jews, three opinions.” My on-campus experiences have reinforced that there is something inherently Jewish about rejecting oversimplified binary choices. Likewise, my time as a math major has emphasized the importance of discourse and open-mindedness. In particular, I’ve learned that the beauty of mathematics is not in seeking out solutions but instead in falling in love with problems. When tackling an open question, one correct proof is merely the first step in the meandering process of understanding what makes the question worth studying, an invitation to explore the problem from a new angle. Similarly, the discovery that a mathematical statement is false is an opportunity to refine the statement into something deserving of further exploration. Mathematics is built on the ongoing exercise of discovery, discussion, and collaboration, which requires a flexibility to try out new approaches and a willingness to internalize the ideas of others.
The reductive “us vs. them” mentality that bubbled to the surface of Israel-Palestine activism on my campus and on others forces students to abandon their complicated, multifaceted worldviews for something one-dimensional. It strengthens echo chambers, imposes false dichotomies, and strikes down nuance. Most importantly, it is antithetical to the loving discourse that makes Jewish communities like mine so meaningful, and it runs contrary to the collaborative problem-solving at the heart of academic institutions.
Love Jewish Ideas?
Subscribe to the print edition of Sources today.
It is also exactly in this mindset and its incompatibility with my Jewish and academic experiences at Princeton that I see a meaningful path forward. In the face of a war that threatens to erect unnecessary binary choices, Jewish students on college campuses should be empowered to do what they do best: introduce a third opinion. We need to celebrate simultaneous non-contradictory truths, even when some may frame them as mutually exclusive. We need to do so loudly and proudly.
Over the past months, I found power in my ability to uphold simultaneous truths. Unknowingly, I did so for the first time on Simchat Torah by acknowledging that we do not need to choose between living joyous Jewish lives and creating space to process Jewish tragedy. Likewise, I’ve learned that my connection to Israel, my prayers for its security and longevity, and my appreciation of its culture and history do not contradict my criticism of its government and military’s actions, my concern for innocent Gazan lives, and my hope for a lasting peace for Israelis and Palestinians alike. My liberal Zionist convictions and commitments are not undermined by my calls for Israel to act morally as it defends itself. My assertion that all human lives should be protected is not contradicted by my hope that the hostages held in Gaza are returned home immediately. As a college student, as a math nerd, and most importantly, as a Jew, I find my power in refusing to be boxed in by oversimplified, combative ways of thinking.
In my experience, celebrating and protecting simultaneous truths means I must be especially intentional about my language, often in ways I haven’t considered in the past. What does it mean to me that I am pro-Israel? Pro-Palestinian? Zionist? At times, it feels like identifying with any one of these labels does an injustice to my wide range of opinions on Israel, its government, and the current war in Gaza. Rather than abandoning these labels altogether, though, when I talk with my friends about the ongoing war and when I find myself faced with pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian advocacy efforts that feel irreconcilable, I have the responsibility of defining in detail what those labels mean to me. In doing so, I help to create spaces that highlight the many ways that people can support Israel and help other Jewish students avoid feeling forced into reductive and isolating binary choices.
Importantly, the recognition of simultaneous truths also requires that I approach the ways that other people define their identities with generosity, empathy, and open-mindedness. I say this as someone who’s been on the receiving end of the alternative. One day this spring, while I was walking past my campus’s pro-Palestinian encampment, I stopped to wave to a close friend who was involved in the protest. Almost immediately, I was approached by a Jewish community member standing amid the pro-Israel counter-protest, who snapped at me and asked why I would bother engaging with “such an unemployable jihadist.” As I started to explain that I was Jewish and a Zionist, she interrupted and called me “a traitor and a pawn of a Jew.” She asked aggressively, “Do you not care about the hostages?” to which I responded by telling her about my friend Omer Neutra, who was taken hostage in October and who I think about often. She proclaimed that I should “be ashamed of myself for turning my back on him” before I wished her a good day and continued on my way to the library. In that interaction, this community member, as well-intentioned as she might have been, imposed her understanding of being a Jew and a Zionist on me and, in doing so, hindered my ability to hold complexity. Instead, I know that when I disagree with someone’s words or actions, I have a responsibility to ask what their identity means to them before I make my own conclusions. By acknowledging that people interpret and engage with pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian advocacy differently, we open the door to meaningful dialogue that can be rooted in a desire for mutual understanding rather than a competition to persuade others or pigeonhole their perspective.
Another challenging yet essential truth we should acknowledge is that the breakdown of empathy is often not one person or group’s intention or fault. I’ve heard Jewish students accuse their peers of antisemitism by saying, “Some of my classmates won’t talk to me anymore because they know that I’m Jewish.” I believe that this outlook, though understandable, often misrepresents how walls are built between people who find themselves on opposite sides of advocacy. Just a few weeks ago, I was sitting in a coffee shop when a classmate from my freshman dorm who is involved in Princeton’s pro-Palestinian protests walked through the front door. We hadn’t spoken in quite some time—mostly, I thought, because we no longer live near one another. We exchanged glances and instinctively, I smiled and waved at her. She seemed caught off guard and confused. She waved back, walked towards me, and we chatted briefly. As she turned to get in line for coffee, she said, “I’m so glad we can talk again. I didn’t know if you would want me to say hi to you anymore.” I was glad, too. In celebrating my own simultaneous truths and those of others, I need to push myself to extend empathy and compassion even when I fear it may not be reciprocated, lest we all become convinced that ideological misalignments should keep us from maintaining compassionate, humanizing avenues of communication.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is endlessly complicated, and there are undeniably complex disagreements at its core. That said, we don’t stand a chance of identifying those divisions or advocating for what we believe in if we get caught up with false dichotomies. Instead, college campuses serve as the perfect environment to recognize and celebrate simultaneous truths, to unite around ideas that bridge ideological divides, and to maintain open-minded lines of communication even when we passionately disagree. In doing so, we each gain a great power: the power to define what we believe on our own terms, to build communities around mutual understanding and empathy, and to create thoughtful dialogue that challenges us in the spirit of a Jewish tradition we can all be proud of.
