YOU CAN WALK OUT OF CLASS, THEY CAN’T WALK OUT OF GAZA
“YOU CAN WALK OUT OF CLASS, THEY CAN’T WALK OUT OF GAZA” was one of the many banners displayed across US campuses on the morning of Thursday, January 18th. On that date, the Students Supporting Israel movement, that has a stated mission to “be a clear and confident pro-Israel voice and to support students in grassroots activism” called for a national walkout event to start the new spring semester with actively raising issues of importance to the Jewish and Israeli community on campus.
Students were gathering outside at 10:07 AM, a symbolic time commemorating the date of October 7, and with the date that was picked to represent the word Chai — the number 18, meaning life, in Hebrew. The event was meant to deliver three messages to the academic community: remember the October 7 terror attack and its victims, call to bring home the hostages in Gaza, and say no to antisemitism on the streets and on campuses.
SSI chapters from across the country from New York to California, Washington, DC to Tennessee, Louisiana and other states in between participated in the event with walks, tables, and gatherings, whether with a large group or alone, on a sunny day or with snow outside. A special focus of the event was also the first birthday of baby Kfir Bibas that is January 18, where the students wanted to highlight the story of the youngest Israeli hostage in Gaza, who was brutally taken from his home at Kibbutz Nir Oz together with his older sibling, Ariel (4) and parents Shiri and Yarden.
Dave Phillips, from University of Colorado Boulder SSI said, “we held the SSI National walk out at 10:07am in honor of Kfir’s first birthday. We study near one of the student hubs on campus, and hundreds of students walked by us, many of them reading our signs. You could tell that some of the students took that to heart and a couple of them even stopped and asked us about it. We chose to participate in this event because all of us members of SSI, at the University of Colorado, are strong Zionists, and simply people with hearts that care.”
The University of Florida SSI chapter also participated in the event. Amit Sapir shared that it was “a beautiful gathering of pro-Israel students to stand in solidarity with the hostages in Gaza right now. It was empowering both for us and for people walking by to see eighteen yellow balloons lighting up the busiest plaza of campus on an early Thursday morning. We had the opportunity for different individuals to speak, specifically with one about the volunteering they completed in Israel in the last month, and another about going to visit the Holocaust concentration camps in Poland over break and the essence of how “Never Again Is Now.” We were constantly reminded with the single orange balloon that today was Kfir’s birthday. The balloons, along with the hostage poster with a mirror replacing where the face should have been, empowered students to continue to fight for Israel and to stand united in our hopes for the hostages to return home alive now.”
By hosting a nationally coordinated event on multiple locations, the SSI movement’s goal in addition to raising the topics that were the focus of the day was also to empower the Zionist and pro-Israel students. While the environment on many college campuses may feel hostile, the SSI movement wants to make sure students are comfortable speaking up in the academic community by urging them to express our beliefs and proudly standing up for our values. SSI also encourages students to engage in peer-to-peer grassroots activism and reach out to everyone including those who are not following the events in the Middle East. Coordinating an event with the participation of multiple chapters across the country gives students the opportunity to join a united effort within a larger frame, thus being part of a strong, national, pro-Israel, grassroots movement.
