Yale Daily News

On Tuesday, the Advisory Committees for Arab and Muslim Student Life and Jewish Student Life will host an inaugural event focusing on engaging with members of the Yale community from various backgrounds and beliefs. 

University Chaplain Maytal Saltiel noted that after a year that has felt very polarized because of the Israel-Hamas war, the Arab and Muslim Student Life Committee and Jewish Student Life Committee wanted to host a panel that would reflect the many perspectives of faculty experiences from the past year. 

“We wanted to show that even in times of disagreement we can still be in conversation and build community together,” Saltiel wrote to the News. 

The panelists will include SOM senior lecturer Teresa Chahine, Director of the Hebrew Program Shiri Goren, School of Medicine Professor Hani Mowafi, and Maurice Samuels, who directs the Yale Program for the Study of Antisemitism.

The panel will not be filmed or recorded.

Chahine, who comes from Lebanon, was invited to serve on the Arab and Muslim Student Life Committee when it was formed last year. She emphasized that faculty play a large role in promoting dialogue on campus and that this panel is “long overdue.”

“Last year people were just so afraid to talk to each other. They were so afraid of saying the wrong thing or being perceived as antisemetic or anti-Arab,” said Chahine. “Everyone was just so scared to talk about this topic and … people were feeling so much but they were all tiptoeing around it at first. I think not being afraid to talk about it is really important.”

Chahine recalled that last October many Arab students approached her as a resource. She said that she hopes that the panel will show the humanity of the four faculty members talking about what it has been like to be at Yale since the war began. 

Goren noted that she hopes the panel will promote understanding of the many layers of complexity of the situation in the Middle East. In May, she co-designed and taught a course to faculty titled “Israel-Palestine 101” with Jonathan Wyrtzen, a professor of sociology and history. The course focused on the history of the conflict and was offered to faculty as part of the FAS Faculty Academy. 

According to Goren, 28 faculty in many different academic fields took the course. In designing the course, they felt strongly that there should be spaces at Yale that go beyond viewing the Israel-Hamas war through a binary lens. 

“It’s crucial to remind people that there is far more than ‘Pro-Palestinian’ or ‘Pro-Israel,’” Goren wrote to the News. 

She added that Hamas’ victims were not all Jewish, not all of Gaza’s residents support Hamas and not all Jews support Israel. Goren said that most Israelis “do not support the current government” and “want the war to end and the hostages to return home.”

Chahine stressed the importance of faculty modeling for students on how to have a civil and respectful conversation about the topic. Although the Middle East is not her academic area of study, Chahine said that she felt compelled to participate in the panel as a member of the Yale community. 

“You just have to step up and be an active member of any community you’re in and model what you want to see in the world,” said Chahine. “I hope [students] design their programming with the goal of building bridges and standing up for what they believe in and having conviction but in the context of building bridges.”

Samuels, another panelist, wrote to the News that he also hopes “the panel will help model a civil and compassionate discussion.”

Goren noted that in her classroom she tries to promote and model empathy and care for everyone, even while discussing difficult topics. Chahine added that although this is not easy, it is the only way forward. 

“If we can’t do this then there is literally no hope in the Middle East. If people who have all of their physical, intellectual, and emotional needs met in this beautiful environment with all of the privileges in the world can’t do this then how on Earth do we expect people in Gaza and Israel to do this? It’s the only way,” Chahine said.

Saltiel hopes that the panel will show how even people with different experiences can still be in conversation with one another. 

Saltiel was installed as the Yale University Chaplain on Sept. 8.