As she prepares to graduate from UC San Diego, Ellia Torkian reflects on her experiences navigating a campus climate transformed by the aftermath of October 7. A two-time CAMERA Fellow and leader within her pro-Israel community, she has witnessed firsthand how conversations surrounding Israel, Zionism, and Jewish identity have changed on campus. I recently sat down with her to discuss those observations and what she learned along the way.
How would you describe the current climate surrounding Israel, Zionism, and Jewish life on your campus?
I would say the climate is still pretty hostile. Although there are fewer protests and outward displays of antizionism than there were right after October 7, I think there’s still a lot of antizionist and anti-Jewish sentiment on campus.
Do you have one experience from this year that best captures what you’re describing?
Actually, last week I went to a student government meeting to speak about a resolution that characterized a Jewish American Heritage Month display as antisemitic and Islamophobic without consulting anybody from our community.
Whenever anyone from the pro-Palestinian side went up to speak, including members from Faculty for Justice in Palestine, there was a near standing ovation. But when someone mentioned that they were pro-Israel or Jewish, there were crickets. Nobody clapped. Nobody acknowledged them. It was as if they weren’t even listening.
How have these dynamics affected Jewish and Zionist students on campus?
A lot of us feel as though we have to choose whether to isolate ourselves by self-identifying as Jews or Zionists, or conceal our identities and remain part of broader campus life.
I played Ultimate Frisbee during my first year and planned to continue. But after October 7, many of the people on the team unfollowed me on Instagram, stopped talking to me, or stopped saying hello when we passed in the halls.
At the time, I wasn’t very connected to Israel. I wasn’t posting anything inflammatory. But somehow the perception that I might be involved in Jewish or Israeli groups on campus was enough to make people ignore me.
You’ve spoken before about a culture of virtue signaling surrounding this issue. What do you mean by that?
I think the kind of virtue signaling or social posturing that I see on my campus is different from what most people talk about when they talk about virtue signaling.
The way I describe it is that, for many people, this cause is something they can find belonging in, and so they adopt antizionist beliefs without sufficient information in order to fit in. But when it comes to other causes or communities, specifically Jewish communities, they’re unable to apply the values driving their beliefs uniformly.
For example, if your value is that innocent people don’t deserve to be targeted, and therefore innocent Palestinian civilians shouldn’t be targets of war, but then you justify Hamas’ attack on October 7, where over 1,000 individuals were killed and more than 250 were taken hostage, many of whom were innocent civilians, then the values driving those antizionist beliefs aren’t being applied when it comes to situations that would lead them to support Jews or Israelis.
Have you noticed situations where the label “Zionist” seemed to end a conversation before it started?
Yes. Last year during Apartheid Week, Library Walk was taken over by the Muslim Student Association. Many of the people involved remembered our faces from student government meetings and protests the previous year. They knew who we were. They knew we were Jews and Zionists.
When people from our club tried to speak with them, engage with them, or simply gain a better understanding of what was happening on campus that week, we were literally shunned. People would stare at us with a blank face and refuse to engage, or they would turn away.
I think our identities were serving as barriers to conversation because they didn’t even want to acknowledge our presence.
I’ve seen similar things happen in other settings too. During this year’s Israel Week, we hosted a carnival on campus. Some people would come up because it looked fun and they wanted to participate. But as soon as they heard it was being hosted by [CAMERA Coalition member group] Tritons for Israel, they would say, “Oh, that’s not cool,” or “Never mind, I have work to do,” and walk away.
Why do you think that happens?
I think people don’t want to be associated with Zionists in a campus climate where it feels like everybody, or at least the majority, is antizionist and anti-Israel.
To associate with Jews or Israelis, or even appear as though you might be engaging with them, can cause you to face the same kind of social isolation that we face on campus. People don’t want to lose their social status, their friends, or their sense of belonging.
What do you think is lost when people stop listening to one another on an issue like this?
First of all, dialogue is very important. On a college campus especially, people should be encouraged to use information to form their own beliefs.
When we stop talking, we lose the ability to form beliefs that are grounded in truth. We also lose the ability to find mutual understanding. I think that if a lot of people who seem completely opposed had a conversation and talked about their values, they would realize that the values driving their beliefs are actually pretty similar.
Maybe they could find some common ground, or at least come away with an understanding of the other side that they didn’t have before.
What do you think students can do to push back against these dynamics, even if they disagree about Israel?
People should be open to listening and having conversations. They should be okay with feeling a little uncomfortable when they’re talking to someone they disagree with.
The only way to stay comfortable is to keep yourself in an echo chamber and keep being fed your own opinions back to you. That feels safe, but it doesn’t challenge your beliefs in any way or help build a community where people can understand one another better.
We should be able to be respectful, have conversations, listen, and be uncomfortable in those conversations. That’s okay, because we may come away with a deeper understanding and a less fractured community.
Have you found yourself in situations where you’ve had to challenge your own views?
Yes, for sure, and I wish I had more opportunities to do it. Unfortunately, most of those opportunities have been online.
The most recent example was probably that student government meeting. I tried to actually listen to what the pro-Palestinian speakers had to say. I didn’t entirely change my opinion, but listening to other people is always informative. It always leaves me with a little bit of, “Oh, I hadn’t considered that.”
My beliefs might remain the same, but I still come away with a better understanding of where the other side is coming from.
Was there a particular experience through the CAMERA Fellowship that changed how you think about these issues?
Last summer I attended CAMERA’s student fellowship conference, and the debate workshop was probably the most informative session for me and something that really stuck with me through this past year.
The whole method is built around asking questions. You really have to understand what the other person is saying in order to continue the conversation. Inherently, it’s an exercise in listening because you have to understand the responses to your questions in order to keep the conversation going.
After everything you’ve experienced, what do you think your peers misunderstand most about Zionists?
I think they assume we’re a monolith. They think we all believe the same thing and that we’re all the same.
That’s not true. Just like any other group or political category, we all have different opinions. There’s a lot of diversity. We agree and disagree with each other all the time.
I think that’s the biggest misunderstanding because it’s easy to lump us all together into one category. Once that happens, it’s also easier to block us out because people think what we have to say is already invalid. But you can’t know what I believe based on the opinion of any other Zionist.
If you could force every student on your campus to seriously consider one idea for five minutes, what would it be?
I would say that it’s okay to stand out.
I think a lot of people fall into black-and-white thinking because they want to fit in. Everyone wants to belong, especially on a college campus. It seems like people often feel pressured into choosing one extreme or the other.
But it’s okay to be different. It’s okay to exist in the gray area and challenge the extremes a little bit, even when you find yourself in those spaces.
The extremes are not sustainable. It’s okay not to conform. People should feel comfortable questioning assumptions, thinking for themselves, and living in the middle a little bit.
