I Want to Protest Too!

I attended a rare Saturday conference in the Hudson Valley called Idea Fest with about 50 really smart and diverse people—perhaps focused a bit on AI.   I was one of a handful of gray-haired members; I would guess the medium age of the speakers and audience was 35 years old, pretty diverse, black, white, Asian.  Everyone had written a book it seemed, including me, but I wasn’t speaking, I was simply intrigued and taking a lot in.   I brought home 5 hard copies of signed books and a further list from the speakers of another 10 books I need to buy to stack next to the piles of other books accumulating on subjects that require digesting someday when I have more time.   

There were clearly brilliant minds speaking from presidential candidates to social commentators from the New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, to professors from Bard, Columbia, NYU, economists, scientists, and some nerds like me.  No press or recording was allowed, and the meals were delicious.  The conversations between speakers at the pee breaks was diverse, but many of the informal dialogues seemed to gravitate to the protests.  Who are these kids, what is the psychology, social context, cultural moment, effect of technology, social media, post-pandemic pent up needs, misinformation, among other lens trying to understand the movement. 

Perhaps it’s my beard, my 99% Ashkenazi DNA, or just me, but my opinion on the “Gaza situation” kept coming up at the snack table and even the urinal.  “How do I feel about the protests?” was the refrain even though the last fireside chat was “Maintaining Independence in the Age of Conformity” or “A.I. Storytelling”.  The arrests of 20-year-old Jewish college students who have conflated anti-Zionism with antisemitism was a discussion as a small group of us walked to lunch led by a just graduated college students who are now working on A.I policy. 

The situation in Israel is very serious and the long-term war on Palestinians is horrible. There is so much to be depressed about and no clear solutions.  Even Thomas Friedman and the greatest foreign policy experts are shrugging their shoulders not clear on what the best next move is, except for we all want the violence to end, killing to stop, hostages to come home, and ultimately remove hate from all the tribes and bring peace to the region.  Duh.     But why are our kids (not my kids of course), interested in putting up a nice 3-person North Face tent up on campus, throw around single-use plastic water bottles on the grass and share KFC with new friends late at night while banging drums? 

While there are many who spit venom of anti-everything, some with very intellectual arguments, and some with historical vengeance, there are also many attending just to get high and party.   Where do you want to go tonight, the frat party or the protests.  The later has some cool people and I’ve been isolated on my phone for three years; I want to meet someone in a bandanna and get laid.  That is also prevalent right now as well.  This is not a homogeneous group of protestors, but a generation frustrated at a lot of things and place du jour for some is an encampment on campus. 

I’m a bit torn on this.  Protests are important in a democracy.  I wish I had been with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rabbi Heschel, and John Lewis to march in Selma, or the chance to hold up signs at Kent State or Tiananmen Square, or done more around George Floyd.   I certainly would have marched with the 100,000 New Yorkers in 1932 down Fifth Avenue objecting to the 18^th amendment with signs stating “We prefer Brewers of Beer to Brewers of Bigotry” with then Mayor James Walker.  These were all focused issues with the intent of peaceful change of policy.  A Mahatma Gandhi act of civil disobedience is done as a nonviolent form of expression--bringing awareness to important causes with clarity of communication.   I just don’t see that with what is happening today and the issues around Israel/Gaza are just too complicated. 

I wish I had better answers to give the questions that kept coming to me yesterday.  I wish I could respond to others today and tomorrow with an articulate opinion about how I feel as an American Jew and my relationship to Israel.  I have more questions and more history to better understand.    I want to protest a lot of things, but I simply have too many books to read right now,  a garden that needs a lot of weeding, and a business to run.