The Basics - Pirkei Avot 1:15
Shammai says: affix yourself to valuable teachings; speak little, but do much; and receive all people in good faith.
Shammai says:
Doing work on the ground is hard. It requires putting in a lot of time, planning and effort. But when you’re finished, you know you’ve acted on something meaningful—hopefully for the better. Yet, when it comes to changing social and political structures, action is only half the battle. The other half involves publicizing your efforts, which is unfortunate for me. I would rather simply go and do work.
I’ve always found solace in meaningful work, but recently, I’ve struggled with how to share that work in a way that feels true to me. Recently, I revisited Pirkei Avot (Wisdom of Our Ancestors), a classic Jewish text, and reflected on a teaching that deeply resonates with me, the source of my disposition against talking much about work I do.
Shammai says: affix yourself to valuable teachings; speak little, but do much; and receive all people in good faith.
It struck me upon rereading the passage that it does not say “say nothing,” but “say little.” Therefore, after much encouragement from people dear to me, I’ve decided to make a substack as a part of how I create change.
Affix yourself to valuable teachings
One of my favorite professors opened up her class with the question: “Where do you know from?” stressing the importance and diversity of the ways that learning is possible. I’ve learned much as a Philosophy and Political Science student at Columbia—but even more through personal experience.
My thought process was shaped by a childhood move from Oakland, California, to a settlement in the West Bank. It is shaped by coming of age in that settlement, in a high school that ideologically supported Israeli fascism, and then turning away from both as I discovered my leftism. It was shaped by my time in an academically focused religious seminary (Yeshiva).
It was shaped by my time trying to prevent and delay my mandatory conscription into the IDF’s Air Force, and it was shaped by my eventual four months and five days going in and out of military prison when I refused to load bombs onto an Israeli fighter jet, which was the official start of my conscientious objection to the IDF.
My thought process was shaped by my activism at Columbia as well, through J Street U at first and eventually founding Columbia University Jews for Ceasefire, where the majority of my efforts have been focused to this day.
The first category I will be using this space for is that of sharing the notions, lessons, and thoughts that motivate what I do. Ideas, big and small, serve to mediate which systems we support and participate in, and which we decide to disrupt. I hope to be able to articulate my thoughts in a way that is accessible, even to people operating from different frameworks.
Speak little, but do much
I hope to post about once a month in 2025. While my primary focus remains on-ground action, I hope this forum can help us reflect together on our shared work.
In addition to people encouraging me to make a space like this, people have asked me how they can contribute to my various actions and projects. As a result, I’m turning on the option for a paid subscription in addition to the free one. While I am rather capable at organizing, acting, and reflecting, I try to spend less effort to get compensated for these projects. For those who want to further support this work, a paid subscription option is available. Your contributions will help sustain my efforts, ensuring I can continue organizing, reflecting, and building a better world—even after graduation.
In addition to my degree, here are the projects I am actively working on, as of the writing of this post:
Organizing CU Jews for Ceasefire, a Columbia campus group dedicated to the collective liberation of all peoples, with a special focus on the joint liberation of Israelis and Palestinians. We work to try and build consensus and action around the notion that the true fight is not between Israelis and Palestinians, but rather of Israelis and Palestinians alike against systems of oppression and the few, powerful people who enthusiastically perpetuate them.
Executive Director of Mouthpeace, a fledgling nonprofit dedicated to reducing tensions and building community solidarity between Israelis and Palestinians.
Protective presence, where I work with other activists to help nonviolently protect Palestinians living in the West Bank from settler violence. Protective presence has proven to be one of the most effective methods for nonviolent resistance of the occupation, and is needed more than ever after October 7th and the recent ceasefire.
Peace Initiative for Israel and Palestine, an initiative I co-host with a fellow Palestinian student and a Columbia professor to help devise more sensitive and responsive policies for Israeli-Palestinian peace, assist with refining those policies with in consultation with experts, and presenting our work to potential peacemakers who represent Israel, Palestine, and the United Nations.
I’m also trying to live and foster my values at the Bayit, Columbia’s Jewish food & housing cooperative, and working as the editor in chief of the Gadfly, Columbia’s philosophy magazine.
If you’d like to hear the ideas that result from this work, I’d encourage you to subscribe.
Receive all people in good faith
I often think dialectically, treating ideas as a conversational back-and-forth to refine them and make them clearer. This makes writing on these topics in a one sided way challenging. As a result, I’d encourage you to comment and respond with your thoughts on what I write, and consider that everything I write here is not something I am fully certain about, and I consider myself open to change should I be exposed to a better argument. However, two core motivations will not change—they are the foundation of kindness and integrity. I expect you to share them if you are participating in this conversation:
Kindness means: All people are equal.
Rejecting the belief that anybody’s life or experience is more valuable, more worth protecting, or more worth grieving. This means rejecting exceptionalism, supremacy, and bigotry, even in spaces where they are still socially acceptable. Hold yourself to the same standard you hold others to: people do things for reasons. Everyone is unique, but inversely, nobody is unique for being unique. Embrace empathy for the person on the other side of the conversation in addition to people or groups you have little exposure to. We all bleed the same.
Integrity means: Epistemic Humility.
Forums like these are for thoughtful conversation, which can be ideologically charged but should not push an agenda at the cost of the striving truth. At the same time, understand that no person, myself and yourself included, have a monopoly on truth. An ethos of humility calls attention to the fact that learning opportunities are everywhere, even if they can be uncomfortable to hear. This will happen most often with ideas that have been dominant or dogmatic narratives in your life, perhaps in your community. Human beings are full of cognitive biases, and conversations can be opportunities to challenge those biases cooperatively. Treat that discomfort as a sign that an idea is unfamiliar, not as a sign that it is a threat. When someone learns that they have been holding an “erroneous” belief, they are the biggest winner for being able to correct it for themselves and be more right. Basically: be curious!
These are far easier said than done, and as a result I see them as motivations and shared values, even when we fall short. I hope we can help each other back up when these values are not expressed, supporting each other. It takes real courage to choose to live with kindness and integrity, and it takes a community to sustain that choice. In acting with good faith, lets be brave and supportive of each other.
Finally, I hope this serves as a complement to action in your life, as it does in mine. If you find these conversations nourishing, take that energy and use it to fuel your activism. Attend a protest, organize your community, or build mutual aid. It’s not enough to think about a better world, we must build it together.