#activism

Talk of the Quad: Birthright, Bowdoin and Me

My bucket list got a little lighter over winter break when I embarked on a long-awaited journey to Israel through Taglit-Birthright. The program gives young Jews the opportunity to go on a free 10-day, organized trip to connect with our faith. It was one of the best experiences of my life. I’ve never felt such a profound and instantaneous love for something—I was overcome by emotion and feelings of patriotism every day. I walked through Jerusalem’s Old City in astonishment and celebrated New Year’s Eve dancing in The Shuk. I climbed Masada to watch the sunrise and floated in the Dead Sea. I reflected in Tel Aviv’s Independence Hall where David Ben-Gurion proclaimed Israel’s statehood nearly 70 years ago. I grieved at Yad Vashem, shook to my core by the Children’s Memorial. I laughed with newfound friends hiking in the Golan Heights, dabbled in Krav Maga and ate such delicious hummus it was as if I were tasting it for the first time. I can’t wait to return one day!
Upon my return from Israel, I’ve given a lot of thought to the nature of my upbringing and my connection to Judaism during college. Jews are perennial outsiders, representing 2.2 percent of America’s population. But I had a sheltered childhood identifying with the community of my heritage, growing up and going to school on New York City’s Upper West Side, one of the most concentrated areas of Tribe members outside Israel. I was raised in a strong Jewish family, exposed to the rich cultural and social history of the American Jewry. I attend synagogue on the High Holidays and my parents would like it if I married a nice Jewish girl. I grew up to the music of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. I cherish Philip Roth’s writing and the Coen brothers’ films. A Jewish upbringing has had a fundamental impact on my personality, perspective of the world and the people to whom I’m drawn.
When I made the decision to leave New York City for the boonies of New England, I gave little thought as to how it would affect my relationship with Judaism. So this is what it’s like to be an outsider! You call that a bagel? I’ve made friends with peers who have met maybe a handful of Jews in their entire lives before they landed here. “Jewish” rolls off their tongues like an exotic word, which I am not offended by. On the other hand, there are those who find nothing exotic about Judaism. I suppose that’s what you can expect from any college drawing from a large, diverse national applicant pool. I’m not trying to assign blame, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I’ve never fully come to terms with it. And there have been painful moments. Bowdoin’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, a human rights organization possessing what I would characterize as a flawed one-sided narrative, attempted to make the College endorse a cultural and academic boycott of Israel per the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign. I am a proud, open-minded supporter of Israel and believe in a two-state solution, but engaging in a conversation about this emotional, complex conflict on a liberal campus is like hitting your head against a wall. The petition divided the campus and felt like an attack on my very being. Let’s at least talk directly to each other and look for common ground. As my grandmother used to say, “It couldn’t hurt!”
Even during my wonderful study-abroad year in Paris, I faced the same issues of being a stranger in a foreign, non-Jewish land. Sure, it wasn’t exactly a hardship to give up bagels for baguettes, and the broad, varied demographics of the City of Light felt much like New York City. But the facts speak for themselves: France’s Jews are fleeing the nation at record levels as surging anti-Semitism and Islamic extremism haunt the nation.
I fear the surge in American anti-Semitic acts during Trump’s presidency becoming the new normal. Trump’s alt-right chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, is a noted anti-Semite. Bernard Henri-Lévy recently wrote of the president, “He seems to see Jews as the caricature of the New York establishment that, for decades, took him for an agreeable but vulgar showman.” These are dark days and I’m searching for glimmers of hope. As I navigate my place in the world I want to believe we’re not as divided as it appears. I’m not going to give up pushing for change and I hope you’ll join me. I believe in the resilient American character which President Obama underscored last year, declaring, “We are all Jews.” It’s a lovely thought and I wish it were so. Maybe good Chinese food could then be found outside New York City. But I happily settle for seeing Bowdoin Hillel friends who joined me on Birthright, smiling as we recall memories and inside jokes from an unforgettable ten days.
Gabriel Frankel is a member of the Class of 2017.

Talk of the Quad: Bowdoin Bachelors and Bachelorettes

I have recently found a new solace for my brain in Bowdoin’s constant parade of raucous academia: “The Bachelor.” This is not my first interaction with ABC’s reality dating show where one person simultaneously dates 25 roommates in a month long scramble to find love. I attempted to get on the bandwagon last year, but found myself unable to stomach the premise. For me, it represented a total abandoning of healthy relationships and finding real love. One year later, I decided to give it a shot, recognizing that despite the tag as “reality television,” this is not how life works. However, as I watch more and more episodes, I have begun to notice ways in which the scripted Bachelor/Bachelorette culture of romance has seeped into reality, even here at Bowdoin.
Upon reviewing candidates on seasons of both the Bachelor and the Bachelorette, there is only one true constant: they are all wickedly good-looking people. While this makes for more profitable TV, it reinforces the narrative that the most important factor in any sort of romantic relationship, from making out to marriage, is physical attraction. I think that it is safe to say that there is not a ton of emotional discovery on the shows. By the time contestants are proposing, they have spent maybe five hours of one-on-one time together.
While I don’t believe that the Bachelor/Bachelorette are the social artifacts that drive the core of our romantic culture here at Bowdoin, the framework of these shows provides an extreme that can make our own behaviors a little more apparent. While most of the people here aren’t planning on going from meeting to matrimony in five short weeks, there is a culture of romance that relies disproportionately on the physical, and sidelines any sort of emotional connection as an added bonus.
The first time I became aware of this at Bowdoin was a Friday night out last year. Personally, I really value weekend nights and going out as an opportunity to meet new people and maybe to spend more time getting to know my smile-n-wavers: people that I’ve been introduced to and say hello to, but have never actually talked to. I was in a basement and saw someone spill their drink all over one of my smile-n-wavers. I went up to ask if she was alright, and she cut me off in the middle of my inquiry to give me the once over before informing me that she was “not interested in hooking up with me.” At the time I was largely thrown off and walked away, because this person apparently had a very goal-driven night.
Except perhaps the brusqueness, I don’t think that this is a wholly uncommon interaction here. I think that people view their nights out as a condensed version of the Bachelor, where the goal is to find love through physical attraction. The fact that the first thing this person thought was happening when someone approached her was that they were swooping in for some undisclosed physical mouth assault is troubling. Dating and romance were things that had never crossed my mind with regards to this person. Her once-over scan deemed me not a physically apt enough candidate to engage in any sort of romance.
What is troubling here is that I believe that there are huge parts of attraction that originate in people’s personalities, their humor and whether you enjoy being around them. I don’t want to deny that being physically attracted to someone is important in physical intimacy and that there are plenty of physically intimate situations that don’t necessitate a deep emotional connection. But I think that approaching your romantic life based solely on a lustful desire of pure physical attraction is really damaging. Many people go into spaces that have potential for finding some iteration of romance, filter out potential partners based on the presence, or lack thereof, of immediate attraction, and hope that perhaps over a conversation at breakfast the following morning they might find some emotional overlap.
Additionally, although my experiences as a straight male have been with women here at Bowdoin, this is absolutely a phenomenon that goes in all directions. I honestly don’t think that any group is necessarily guiltier than another, and that everyone could benefit from thinking about this a little more.
I believe that many more people could find the sorts of relationships they are looking for if, as a campus, we separate ourselves from considering the Bachelor/Bachelorette as television that represents reality. Thinking someone is physically attractive may not have any bearing on what one looks for in relationships (most people choose friends, people they like spending time with, based on traits other than physical attractiveness). But looking for someone who you emotionally connect with, and finding that attractive, will most probably result in a stronger foundation for anything from a hook-up to a committed relationship.
Simon Cann is a member of the Class of 2019.

Talk of the Quad

This piece represents the opinion of the author:

Nina Alvarado-Silverman

Contributor

February 3, 2017

The day of the Women’s March, I received a record number of likes on an Instagram post. As I scrolled through my feed on that day, I saw iterations of the same picture over and over. Each featured a crowd of women, many of who were wearing pink hats and holding signs denouncing Trump and his beliefs in one way or another. Each photo also had a substantial number of likes. As I scrolled through the photos of the Women’s March, double-tapping with wild abandon and delighting over the accolades pouring in on my own post, I had a thought: how many people marched “for the ’gram?” Was I one of them?

Although I loved the attention from my Instagram post, and I did put great care into choosing the most aesthetically appealing photo, I know that I did not march for the ’gram. I marched because of fear and concern and love and because it was my civic duty. The problem is this: when I posted to Instagram, was I reducing my action, and the action of others, to a photo op? How should I feel about the fact that instead of posting a photo focusing on the movement as a whole, I made a post focused on why I, as an individual, was in attendance?

The march was flawed in that it excluded many groups: the focus on vaginas excluded trans women, tickets to D.C. and other locations were expensive, those who had to work or take care of family were not able to participate and the March was not accommodating to those with disabilities. Because it was a crowd filled with middle-class white women, law enforcement was respectful and we were not perceived as a threat. The privilege that allowed the Women’s March to be so successful and so momentous is the same privilege that limited it from being an all-inclusive march. I see the Women’s March as a place of privilege, a place of self-aggrandizement but equally so as a place of empowerment, unity, hope and the conception of a movement that needs to continue. The March was for an umbrella of issues. It was a way to say “We’re here! Listen to us!”

Marches and petitions and action in the future need to be more focused and more specific, but for the first day of the new administration, I think that the Women’s March, although flawed in many ways, was what it needed to be.

Instagram activism is flawed in a similar way. By avoiding controversy as much as possible, marchers and Instagrammers alike were able to receive support and generate positive attention. However, by not addressing the flaws of the March, was I complicit in the exclusion of key groups? Was I reinforcing the exclusionary feminism that I so deeply aim to avoid? And what is the effect of widespread social media coverage of political events? Does seeing Instagrams of protests teach people that they can have a part in the government and in making change, or does it teach them that they can look cute holding a sign? Just as the Trump memes desensitized us from the threat of his actions, do well-framed photos from protests desensitize us from the immediacy of the cause? Is liking an Instagram post enough? Is making an Instagram post enough? Is showing up enough? Probably not. It is a right to march but a privilege to feel safe while doing so. It is a right to have free speech but a privilege to have overwhelmingly positive responses. To not use those privileges would be unfair—I just hope I am using them in a productive way.

Nina Alvarado-Silverman is a member of the Class of 2019.

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