Letter to the Editor: To the Protesters At My Daughter’s U-M Graduation…

by Kellie Zell

To the protesters at my daughter’s University of Michigan graduation on May 4th:

I write this because I think it’s important for everyone to understand the impact of their actions.  So I suppose you should look at this as feedback.

It wasn’t easy, but we managed to get all of my daughter’s grandparents to come to her college graduation.  Getting five 80-plus-year-olds down the steps and through the crowds at the Michigan Stadium was no easy feat.  But they were determined to be there, partly because they had not been able to come to her high school graduation, because it was canceled due to Covid. 

When we walked into the stadium, I saw a woman wearing an Israeli flag as a cape, and a shirt that said, “Stand up to Jewish hate.” 

My thought?…”I hope this day can be about the graduates and not be hijacked by people making political/social statements.”

Sitting in the stadium waiting for the ceremony to start, I watched an airplane circling with a banner that read, “We Stand with Israel. Jewish lives matter.” My thought?…”I hope that plane runs out of gas before the ceremony starts so the engine noise doesn’t drown out the speakers.”

I’m Jewish. You might expect that I would have been sympathetic to these statements. I wasn’t. They felt out of place on a day that was supposed to be about celebration.

A second plane started circling the stadium. Plane number 2 carried the message, “Divest Israel. Free Palestine.” My thought?…”I guess this cancels out the first plane.”  And I also hoped it would run out of gas soon.

Then came your group of protesters chanting and marching up towards the podium as the Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Del Toro, tried to administer an oath to the armed forces graduates.  I looked over at my older children and the grandparents (who all object to the war in Israel and the current Israeli government, by the way) and saw the look of disappointment, hurt, and worry on their faces. My thought?…”Don’t I have a right to sit in the stadium with my family and watch my child graduate from college without this pivotal moment being about this group of kids yelling and chanting?”

Lastly, there was one other protester I saw that I haven’t mentioned. I saw her outside of the stadium when we were walking in, sitting quietly against the fence with a hand written sign on cardboard that simply said, “No graduations in Gaza today.  All of the schools have been destroyed.” 

My thoughts?…Well, I thought about this woman all during the ceremony and I’ve thought about her and her words everyday since. I’ve thought about have much I disagree with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government, how short-sighted Israel has been for decades as it relates to Arab Israelis and Palestinians. How much I hate the settlements in the West Bank and how disrespectful they are. And how all of this goes against every Jewish value I hold near and dear.  She was able to put me in the shoes of a 21 year-old student living in Gaza and it was extremely painful.

At the end of the day, hate is hate, violence is violence, and intolerance is intolerance.  Once you cross the line into hate, violence, or intolerance, you become the very thing you’re protesting against.

Evoking empathy is the only path to authentic and lasting change. You didn’t do that with your chants of “Long live the Intifada.” You didn’t do that by interrupting when the first Black woman to ever get a Ph.D. from Michigan in robotics was trying to talk about what she’d learned. You didn’t do that when your chants could be heard over the conferring of degrees earned through four years or more of hard work.

Maybe you could have just held up signs, quietly, and with respect for those around you. Maybe you could have silently prayed for peace. Any of this would almost certainly have evoked more sympathy from the crowd and less frustration. You came across as a little tone deaf. I doubt you changed anyone’s mind, and I’m guessing you alienated some who might have been persuadable. Maybe you don’t care. But if you’re trying to be effective, take a lesson from the woman sitting outside the stadium. I’m still thinking about her, and her message.