SAN MARCOS, California – My husband and I went to CSU- San Marcos for an event put on by Students Supporting Israel on March 25th. They brought in IDF soldiers to speak about their experience.
The event started a bit later than intended as one of the two soldiers was running late. The organizers decided to start with him. We were probably about 25 or so people and enough pizza boxes for each person to have their own box.
The one soldier that was there in timely fashion told us how he is from LA and he went to enlist in the IDF a decade ago. He was part of the Golani unit and served on the Lebanon border. He joined the reserves after October 7th. After telling his story, there was a Q and A portion where the organizer asked the various questions. At this time, the second soldier arrived so the Q&A was cut off to allow him to tell his story. He too had a similar situation where he went to Israel to enlist. The second soldier spoke for about 10 minutes before the organizers had to stop him to make an announcement.
Due to protesters, unfortunately, the event was cut short as we had to be evacuated from the building. This involved having us in groups of four leave from the back door and to be driven to the parking lot where our cars were parked due.
When the protestors first started close to the beginning of the event, it was addressed by one of the event organizers who stated that they deal with this on a weekly basis. At one point during the event, an organizer made a comment about “hundreds of protestors” surrounding the building. I’m not sure if this was an exaggeration or a fact. We didn’t really see the protestors. There was a police presence which I presume kept people away from getting too close to the building and when we were evacuated from the back, it was intentional to avoid the protestors. So, we never had a clear visual of the amount of protestors.
This experience solidifies to me why we absolutely must support our students. When you have a chance to attend a student-run event, please go. Show these students they are not alone and that you stand with them. I can’t imagine how terrifying and mentally draining it is for them to deal with this on a regular basis.
*
Miriam Gershenson is an Israeli-American freelance writer based in Escondido, California.