J Street supports peace in Israel, Palestine

As a freshman, Josh Friedman said he noticed a lack of conversation on IU’s campus about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Friedman founded the J Street chapter of IU as a sophomore to resolve this problem.

J Street is an American advocacy group founded in 2008 that fights for the future of Israel as the democratic homeland of the Jewish people, according to its website.
IU’s chapter was  founded in December 2013.

“As someone who is really engaged with what is going on in the Middle East, I wanted that space, but I didn’t feel like that space existed,” Friedman said. “I felt like creating a J Street here would be a way to create that space.”

The organization will have its first call-out meeting at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in Ballantine 148.

Since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, the country has experienced a series of violent hostilities and failed land boundary agreements with neighboring Palestine.
Friedman said he experienced some trouble getting J Street started.

Not everyone was immediately receptive to the idea, he said.

“It’s fine now, but our relationship with Hillel wasn’t always clear,” Friedman said, referring to the Helene G. Simon Hillel Center at IU.

Friedman first brought his idea for a J Street chapter at IU to the Hillel Center during spring 2013.

“They weren’t necessarily super receptive about it,” Friedman said. “I think the politics behind J Street or the stigma behind J Street, it sometimes doesn’t vibe well with the politics of a lot of people.”

On the IU campus, there are many pro-Israel organizations, he said. But when they hear about J Street, their first impression can leave them thinking that the organization is not pro-Israel.

“Through conversations with them they understand now it’s not that J Street isn’t pro-Israel — it’s that it’s pro-Israel and pro-Palestine,” Friedman said.

After high school, Friedman lived in Acre, Israel.

For six months, he participated in the Habonim Dror Workshop, an Israeli program that promotes peace through community volunteerism.

Overlooking the Mediterranean Sea on Israel’s northern coast, Acre is where Friedman first experienced the social injustice, he said.

“There’s a lot of racism,” Friedman said. “Basically, in Israel the laws that apply to Jews don’t necessarily apply to Arabs. As a result, the way those two groups treat each other is pretty hostile.”

Before living in Acre, Friedman lived on a kibbutz, a Jewish farming community.

He worked there for three months in a spool factory.

He worked with Jewish factory workers who shared Friedman’s dream of peace, but lacked his youthful enthusiasm and hope, he said.

“It’s ironic because the kibbutz movement was the most ideological part of Israeli society when it first started,” Friedman said. “But now when you go to a kibbutz and you talk to the kibbutzniks about how they want to see the world work and how they see themselves in Israeli society, they’re just like, ‘you should just stay in America.’”

The conflict has had a negative affect on Israeli views which is really “disempowering,” Friedman said.

“The goal of the organization here is to create a space where all the people who are engaged with this issue can talk and speak freely,” Friedman said.

“Not only are we creating a space for conversation and dialogue on campus, but I think also we’re trying to provide an answer for questions about the conflict.”