Back in March, when a college student on a panel reportedly asked student government candidate Molly Horwitz about her stance on Israel because she was Jewish, it created a firestorm at Stanford University.
Horwitz, a Milwaukee native, wrote in a column for The Stanford Daily that she was shocked by the question. This was quickly followed by coverage in the New York Times. Horwitz soon got hate mail. Some comments online, which she tried to ignore, were not nice.
But Horwitz, 21, a Jewish Latina who says she doesn’t like the spotlight, has not receded from it. In early October she co-organized a talk on campus on anti-Semitism and she’ll soon speak at a national Jewish conference.
“I was very, very overwhelmed,” she recalled in a phone interview with the Chronicle, thinking back to all the attention in spring. “My campaign organizer, she liked the attention more than me.”
Horwitz, a graduate of Rufus King International high school, 1801 W. Olive St. in Milwaukee, was running for a student government spot at Stanford. She hoped to win an endorsement from the influential Stanford Students of Color Coalition. Horwitz, who was adopted from Paraguay, says she was asked during an interview with the group, “Given your Jewish identity, how would you vote on divestment?”
One student interviewed by the New York Times later denied that anyone in the room had asked Horwitz “whether her Jewish identity impacted her views on divestment.” The Stanford Students of Color Coalition soon issued a statement indicating all candidates were asked about divestment.
“I wanted to cry,” Horwitz wrote in her Stanford Daily column. “I had spent so much time trying to move past the fear that I was not Latina enough, that I was not Jewish enough, that I was too Jewish, that I was too Latina, that I couldn’t be both Jewish and Latina, that my identities were in conflict. Did (Stanford Students of Color Coalition) think my being Jewish compromised my ability to serve on the Senate?”
Her main motivation for running was to try to address issues she saw in Stanford’s mental health-care system, she wrote.
“Wow, you don’t have any other issues to focus on?” she remembers wondering at the time. “It was amazing for me to see someone care more about my positon on Israel when there are many more things going on in the minority community and in the United States.”
Horwitz felt up against an implied notion that she’s either one thing or the other and can’t be both, that she has to be either Jewish or a person of color.
One Jewish student published a column calling Horwitz’ allegations “unsubstantiated” and arguing that one cannot discuss divestment on campus without eventual accusations of anti-Semitism.
“There are Jews who support divestment, there are Jews who do not take a position and there are Jews who are against divestment,” Horwitz wrote in her column. “My involvement in Hillel, my praying in synagogue, my love of the Hebrew language, my study of Talmud, my celebration of Rosh Hashanah and Hannukah and Purim and Passover have nothing to do with divestment.”
Today, she fondly remembers the letters of support from Jews around the world, including from people in Israel and Latin America. Horwitz did go on to win that student senate seat, despite not getting a Stanford Students of Color Coalition endorsement.
Though Horwitz was offended to be asked about the divestment movement against Israel, she is, in fact, a strong supporter of Israel. Active in “Cardinal for Israel” on campus, she spent last summer with a program of Yahel Israel, an educational non-profit, in Be’er Sheva, Israel, teaching young women English in a Bedouin village.
“One of the girls said, oh well you’re not like any Jewish person I’ve seen before,” Horwitz said. “It kind of changed her perception of what a Jew is supposed to be. That was a special thing to show her a part of Judaism that is very close to me.”
Caring about the future of the world is a Jewish value Horwitz holds dear. She was deeply touched by a summer internship with Advocates of Ozaukee, an agency for those who may be experiencing domestic or sexual violence.
The college senior, majoring in religious studies, is to attend the General Assembly for the Jewish Federations of North America in Washington, D.C., held Nov. 8-10, 2015. She’ll have a speaking role, possibly before thousands of people.
She said she plans to talk about what it’s like opposing the divest-from-Israel movement on campus and on what happened with her senate election.
“I speak up when it is important to do so,” she said. “I see the power of words and try to make most of mine meaningful.”
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