Student groups both opposing and supporting the selection of Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren as the main commencement speaker met separately with President Jehuda Reinharz during his office hours last Friday, following student protests against Oren in front of the Bernstein-Marcus Administration Center and at Wednesday's opening of the Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Creative Arts and outside of Bernstein Marcus.
Friday afternoon, between 10 and 15 students opposing Oren's selection gathered in front of Bernstein -Marcus with banners that claimed statements such as "Brandeis doesn't have a foreign policy," and called attention to their presence by beating on Source/ReSource buckets distributed throughout campus and using a loudspeaker with cries of "One, two, three, four, Oren just divides us more! Five, six, seven, eight, hate we will not advocate!"

Last Wednesday approximately 12 students who opposed Oren's selection had participated in the opening of the Festival of the Arts. After participating in the festival by using the buckets to fill the water sculpture Source/ReSource in front of the Rose Art Museum, they lined up their buckets with signs taped to them that read, "Another Brandeis Student ALIENATED By Michael Oren ..no alumni donations here."

"Our thinking was that the event that we participated in on Wednesday . was a very subdued event. It wasn't really cathartic in the sense of letting people scream, shout and get their opinions out," protester Mariel Gruszko '10 said in an interview with the Justice at the start of Friday's demonstration.

During her meeting with Reinharz after the protest, Gruszko said she and other protestors were not creating a division but that the selection of Oren itself was inherently divisive.

Reinharz said in the meeting with students that he thought of Brandeis students as "willing to listen to any opinion any time" and told students, "None of you know what [Oren's] going to speak about." Stressing commencement as a learning opportunity, Reinharz asked whether students would rather have "Commencement speakers who are bland and will tell you nothing."

Daniel Orkin '10, who also met with Reinharz to express his disappointment with the choice of Oren, questioned "how am I supposed to oppose my own commmencement?" and added that there was no opportunity for dialogue during the ceremony.

Gruszko asked whether an honorary degree recipient, humanitarian Paul Farmer could speak at Commencement. Reinharz said he did ask Farmer whether he would speak at a departmental commencement, but that Farmer declined because will be giving another speech later the same day at a different event.

In a separate meeting with Reinharz, Adam Ross '10 and three other students handed Reinharz a copy of the letter with the signatures they collected that expressed support for the selection of Oren as commencement speaker.

The letter additionally notes Oren's "achievements and contributions to academia as a former professor at several prestigious universities in America and his work in Israel to promote the creation of the country's first liberal arts college."

Ross told Reinharz that he was "ecstatic" when he heard about Oren's selection. He said that even though he anticipated some controversy, he felt that some of the dialogue particularly online and in campus media had developed into anti-Israel, anti-Zionist rhetoric.

"I felt that students on campus were feeling ashamed to be supportive or excited that Ambassador Oren was coming," he said.

Reinharz said he was pleased to see the letter, and that critics should not make judgments of Oren without reading his books. "His book on the Six Day War, for example, is a classic," Reinharz said. "It shows that he is a scholar who can take a very detached view when dealing with a very controversial issue."

Ross said after the meeting that he appreciated Reinharz's efforts to meet with groups who both opposed and supported the selection of Oren.He said he hoped to reach out to the students critical of Oren to start a dialogue in order to avoid protests at commencement.

Orkin said afterward that he "was especially frustrated by [Reinharz's] inability to recognize the difference between bringing this speaker versus any other controversial speaker in the past. . He doesn't really seem to recognize unique problems presented by Michael Oren."

Orkin said he was very open to meeting with Ross and other students about the issue and that they could still get along personally. "In the waiting room before we went into our meetings, we were joking around and having a nice conversation."

As of Monday, an online petition against Oren coming had 134 signatures, while 243 had joined a Facebook group critical of the selection. The group favoring Oren had 159 members, and the letter in support of Oren had 2,243 signatures.

Even as students remained divided over Oren's selection, a united student-led Facebook effort calling for honorary degree recipient Paul Simon, the Grammy nominated singer, to sing at Commencement proved successful with notice from Simon's management that he would sing one song at the ceremony and speak at the Creative Arts mini-commencement, according to an April 28 e-mail from Reinharz to graduating seniors.

"Music can keep people in the same room when they have a hard time being with each other," Prof. Judy Eissenberg (MUS) said with regard to Simon singing at the ceremony, explaining that Simon acts as a mediator between different cultures and points of view.

"I think of Brandeis as being supportive of the arts and social justice and Paul Simon is a good example in a popular mode of combining those," she added.

Former Student Union Vice President Amanda Hecker '10 started the Facebook group with Senator for the Class of 2010 Micheal Weil; the group had 746 members as of press time. Hecker said she walked out of a test Wednesday and was feeling "drained intellectually, and then I looked at my cell phone and saw I had these calls and text messages and the e-mail from [Reinharz], and I got so excited that the Facebook group had been a success," Hecker said. She added that the successful effort to persuade Simon to sing shows that the "Brandeis community was so excited about a particular cause that we could come together and make a request in a unified manner."



-Fiona Lockyer contributed

reporting..