Depolarization Should Be a Focus on Campus and Elsewhere
When was the last time you made the choice to sit down and listen to people you disagree with?
Debate and disagreement are as much a part of Jewish tradition as challah on Shabbat. Going back to Talmudic times, Jews have sat down together for deep discussions that encouraged lively and sometimes heated debate. Their ability to come together and hear opposing opinions allowed for stronger communities that incorporated different points of view into tradition and practice.
Today, we live in an increasingly polarized and fractured world, where it’s generally easier to avoid those with whom we disagree than truly engage with them. But learning to disagree, to connect and listen, and build relationships across differences is more important than ever. It’s not an impossible task (even though it sometimes feels that way) — it’s a skill that can be learned, if we’re willing to lean into discomfort.
As director of social impact at Hillel International, I had the honor to represent Hillel’s MitzVote campaign at last month’s Jewish Summit on Civics, which took place in conjunction with National Civic Learning Week in Washington, D.C. The highlight of the event was a conversation between Supreme Court Associate Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Amy Coney Barrett, discussing the ways justices of our nation’s highest court create and maintain a culture of congeniality and colleagueship, even during profound disagreements.
As the political discourse in our country today often seems uncivil at best, I was curious — like most of the rest of the audience — to see some perceptible tension among the Supreme Court justices on stage.
Instead, I lost count of the number of times I heard Justice Barrett say, “I completely agree,” or Justice Sotomayor say, “She’s exactly right.”
I listened as the justices described the norms they follow when discussing cases:
- Sit in a circle or around a table, in assigned seats. Don’t sit down randomly — we naturally gravitate toward those who we are least likely to disagree with.
- No one speaks twice before everyone has spoken once.
- No interrupting.
- No yelling.
- Disagree on the merits of the discussion at hand, not the character of the person you disagree with.
- If you learn that something you said or wrote has offended another person in the group, apologize. Apologizing is not about a “feeling,” it is a choice that prioritizes strengthening ongoing relationships.
- Eat lunch together every day, in assigned seats, and don’t talk about work during lunch.
These are some of the first rules we all learn as we grow up, and at first, seemed overly simple. But the more I thought about them, I realized that what made them so profoundly effective was their simplicity. Justices Sotomayor and Barrett didn’t negate the fact that their disagreements were real and incredibly consequential. Instead, they offered a roadmap for how to be in community, how to care for one another, despite profound ideological differences. I left that conversation with so many questions, but also with a renewed sense of hope that what I saw modeled on stage by the two associate justices could be replicated on campuses and in communities throughout our country.
Cultivating Student Connections
On college campuses across the country, polarization has never felt more intense. There seems to be no shortage of opportunities to reduce all disagreements to a simple us vs. them narrative. As the war between Israel and Hamas stretches into a seventh agonizing month, dehumanization and polarizing rhetoric is everywhere, coinciding with a dramatic increase in both antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents.
Despite this tension and escalation, across our campus communities, there are students and professionals pushing back on polarization, following the models offered by our Supreme Court justices. One example is Syracuse University, where Hillel Rabbi Ethan Bair and Syracuse Imam Amir Durić are leading a Jewish-Muslim dialogue fellowship program to help students find common ground. This semester, the month-long fellowship connected 10 Jewish and 10 Muslim students together for weekly discussions focused on building empathy and trust. Students and professionals are hungry for nuance and compassion, invested in building relationships, and determined to open doors for the dialogue our communities so badly need.
This spring, Hillel International launched a new initiative called Cultivating Student Connections, aimed at opening those same doors. More than 1,500 students at over 50 campuses are participating in programming designed to bring students together across differences. The initiative supports Hillel professionals with tools they can use to help create environments where relationships can endure across ideological differences, and where all students feel seen and heard. There are multiple program offerings available, from facilitated town-square style conversations in partnership with Resetting the Table, to non-verbal creative processes in partnership with the Jewish Studio Project. All the programs create opportunities for listening and learning, bettering relationships and fostering stronger communities.
If we can do our part to begin listening, to address the toxic polarization on campus, we can model those skills for our broader communities at the local, state, national, and even global levels.
So I’ll challenge all of us, just as I was challenged by Justices Sotomayor and Barrett, to make an active choice to engage with people we disagree with – to listen — truly listen — to each and every person at the table.