At a University Proud of Diversity, Jewish and Muslim Students Set Aside Differences -- at Least for Now

Nearly seven days after the worst terrorist attack in American history, the campus of the University of Michigan is threading its own narrative

of the aftermath. Hundreds of miles from the terrorists’ targets, the landscape itself is telling the tale. On a Monday afternoon, a broad-shouldered bell tower faintly chimes “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Nearby, “the rock,” a boulder normally adorned with spray-painted birthday greetings or “Go Wolverines,” features the Stars and Stripes and “God Bless America.”

If the expressions of patriotism here match those of so many other places in the United States, the ethnic dynamics do not. Michigan, with an enrollment of more than 37,000, has a large proportion of Jewish students (roughly 20 percent) and one of the largest groups of Arab students, including students from abroad and from Michigan’s large Muslim population. As the conflict in the Middle East reverberates in the Midwest, members of those groups are feeling the aftershocks most acutely. Some Arab and Jewish students say the terrorism has widened the rifts between them; others say they are speaking more intimately with those they typically distrust, as if tragedy had given voice to a new, shared language.

Even if they share little else, both groups are accustomed to dealing with the anger of Americans hunting scapegoats. Some Jewish students say they feel vulnerable because of the focus recent events have put on U.S. policy toward Israel and the Palestinians. Arab students are once again looking over their shoulders in fear.

Given the size and activism of their respective groups, the relationships between many Arabs and Jews here have long been intense. Emotions generally flare based on what is going on in the Middle East. The skirmishes are academic; one group will organize a lecture on, say, Zionism, and the other group will almost immediately counter by sponsoring its own event.

“It’s usually a nonstop public-relations battle, with one side trying to figure out the other’s angle, and how to respond,” says Eric Bukstein, a junior and vice chairman of the campus Hillel’s governing board. “But now the battle has changed dramatically.”

In the hours after the attacks, Mr. Bukstein and other Jewish students worked with Arab and Muslim students to plan a midnight vigil, which was attended by an estimated 15,000 people. Jewish student leaders have pledged their support, in personal e-mail messages and letters to the campus newspaper, to Arab and Muslim students who experience discrimination. Arab students have in turn invited Jewish students to help organize a teach-in about terrorism and Islam.

“There is this air of discrimination against some members of the community right now, and we cannot hesitate to take a stand against that,” says Mr. Bukstein. “Whether I like someone or their politics is really a nonissue when people are being oppressed.”

The themes of life and death figure prominently in Rosh Hashanah, the celebration of the Jewish New Year, which began last week and starts a solemn period of introspection. This year, the holiday coincides with the nation’s own collective moment of reflection.

The afternoon before the holiday starts, several students dropping by the Hillel office discuss how the terrorist attacks have given them a new perspective on the plights of those living half a world away.

“We are always talking about how to maintain a democracy in a time of war,” says one senior from Pittsburgh. “Now we have context.”

Amid scattered piles of Hebrew texts and newspaper clippings in his office, Michael Brooks, executive director of the Hillel chapter, contemplates the costs and benefits of that context.

“A tragedy like this, where everyone knows someone who lost someone, happens all the time in Israel, and students here now have a much greater appreciation for what it’s like to have a war on their home soil,” says Mr. Brooks. “But for this generation of students, who have always thought they had a clear path to success, from college to the job, everything is now up in the air, the country is no longer in a bubble.”

Mr. Brooks, fidgeting with his spectacles in the late-afternoon light, worries that the attacks threaten not only the skyscrapers of cities but the towers of academe.

“A university is a historic wager that people of different beliefs can sustain passionate conversations,” Mr. Brooks says. “It’s easy to hold high moral positions when it’s academic. The challenge is to do it when your neighbors want you dead.”

At dusk, as Jewish students file into religious services all over the campus, Arab and Muslim students gather at a conference room inside Michigan’s student union. Their agenda: to organize a teach-in that is scheduled for later in the week. The message -- “Islam is not terrorism” -- is one that many Americans do not understand, according to the students, some of whom say they have barely eaten or slept since the attacks.

Within hours of the first plane crash, members of the Arab Student Association and the Muslim Student Association received threatening anonymous e-mail messages. Since then, many other Muslims and Arabs here say they have been verbally assaulted in public. One student, who asked not to be identified, says he was approached by two students who spat at him and called him a “camel jockey.”

Like many of her peers, Brenda Abdelall, a junior and head of external relations for the Arab Student Association, faults the news media for much of the backlash.

“Years of progress went down the drain in 15 minutes,” says Ms. Abdelall. “The media turned this into an us-versus-them thing. The message was, If you are not Caucasian, you are other.”

Students cite an article in the National Review in which Richard Brookhiser, a senior editor, wrote that because of the sizable Arab population in greater Detroit, “there were certainly more people in Ann Arbor who knew of the attack ahead of time than in New York.”

Many Arab students have become sadly accustomed to the routine: Attacks on Americans prompt outpourings of patriotism, the excesses of which then lead to the persecution of all Middle Easterners (or those who appear to be). It happened after the Oklahoma City bombing, in 1995, and last year’s attack on the U.S.S. Cole.

“We’re dealing with a double tragedy,” Asad Tarsin, president of the Muslim Student Association, says. “We’re feeling the loss that Americans are feeling, but also the feeling of not being able to let out our feelings in the same way, because we are associated with these crimes.”

On some campuses, the anti-Muslim bigotry has gone beyond verbal harassment. Ahmad Saad Nasim, a student at Arizona State University, was beaten and pelted with eggs in a campus parking lot while his attackers, two white men, shouted, “Die, Muslim, Die.” Muslim students at Santa Barbara City College and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and a research assistant at New Mexico State University also reported being assaulted in the wake of the terrorist attacks.

Those and other reported incidents have frightened students here, some of whom have been staying home to study, instead of going to the library. Meanwhile, some Muslim women have debated the potential benefits of removing their head scarves, which make them more visible targets.

Many here refuse to take that step.

“I’m somewhat afraid, but not afraid enough to let others take away a part of me,” says Imaan Youssef, a senior and a psychology major, who is wearing a white hijab that flows down her shoulders.

Tonight’s meeting begins with a prayer and proceeds in hushed tones under the clatter of the air conditioner. One by one, most of the 50 or so students in the room make suggestions for the teach-in.

As the night wears on, there is some disagreement, and the meeting becomes a lively dialogue about the best way to hold a dialogue. Should the teach-in have an academic feel, with a few selected speakers, or should it be more of an opportunity for large numbers of students to vent?

A man wearing a turban suggests that Sikhs be included in the event. Then, another student worries aloud about trying to please too many different groups. One woman does not want the teach-in to deal with the issue of Arab-Jewish conflict on a global scale. Another replies, “How do you avoid it?”

The next day on the Diag, the main campus green where numerous pathways intersect, students are streaming from all directions, talking on cell phones, flipping through newspapers, and waving to friends. Some stop for Kristen Balfour, a junior, who is holding a bucket of donations for the American Red Cross. Others join a group of students gathered beneath a handmade sign advertising a rally: “Stop the War! No Racist Scapegoating! Defend Civil Liberties!”

As students stop to sign a petition calling for the same, Cyril Cordor, a junior and engineering major, hands out armbands cut from long strips of green fabric, symbolizing peace and unity.

The “Green Band Arm Pledge” reads: “I oppose scapegoating -- I stand in solidarity with Arab, Muslim, and Middle Eastern people.”

Ben Royal, a junior and rally organizer, suddenly appears with several boxes of fliers, fresh from the printer. He and Mr. Cordor soon are weaving through the crowd, handing out information about the rally.

The organizers do have some competition this morning, though. A cluster of Clinique booths has just claimed space on the Diag. Beneath brightly colored umbrellas, signs promising a “free consultation & samples” of cosmetics draw a steady crowd. By noon, the square has become a mix of moods, a crossroads of commerce and causes, when a tune begins to chime from the nearby bell tower. It’s “America, the Beautiful.”

http://chronicle.com Section: A Special Report Page: A15