In November 2023, shortly after the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel and the beginning of the ensuing war, two young Muslim women (not university students) entered the Ohio State University Hillel building, took Israeli flags, shouted at staff, and discarded the flags before leaving the premises. The incident occurred during heightened tensions and left the Jewish campus community feeling vulnerable, leading to increased security measures.
Rather than pursuing maximum punitive consequences, Rabbi Aaron Portman and Hillel leadership proposed a restorative justice process. The following interview explores how this process unfolded, and the lessons learned. An interview by Rabbi Or Rose.
Background and Initial Response
Rabbi Or Rose: When did you begin working for OSU Hillel?
Rabbi Aaron Portman: I was hired in late August 2023. Prior to that, I worked as a hospital chaplain in Columbus. I was ordained in 2021 from Yeshivat Chovevei Torah and then spent a year in Israel working on interreligious dialogue and peacebuilding between Israelis and Palestinians. Interreligious work has always interested me. During rabbinical school, I was an educator at an interfaith Sunday school for children from Christian-Jewish families and served as a chaplain at Rikers Island prison. After my hospital chaplaincy stint, I increasingly wanted to work in a setting where I could combine my interests in serving the Jewish community and engaging in interreligious work. Hillel felt like a very good fit, and OSU hadn’t had a rabbi since COVID began. The new CEO invited me to join the team.
OR: How did you experience interreligious life on campus prior to October 7th?
AP: Honestly, I didn’t have much time to develop relationships on campus beyond Hillel before October 7th since I only started working in late summer and spent most of the month of September preparing for the Jewish High Holy Days. From what colleagues told me, there were mostly positive relationships in place with episodic tensions related to Israel-Palestine. There is an active Muslim Student Association at Ohio State, but I just didn’t have the capacity to get to know the students or staff person before October 7th.
The Incident
OR: Can you walk us through what happened?
AP: In early November 2023, two young women (in their early 20s) entered our building saying that they wanted to look around and possibly eat in our kosher cafe. After they walked through the building, they picked up some Israeli flags, shouted at me and other staff members, threw the flags on the floor and exited the building. They ran into a waiting car and drove off.
This shocked our community. We were unsure who these young women were, and if this was part of a larger coordinated action. It left us shaken and required us to reevaluate our security protocols. Following the incident, we began having full-time security whenever the building was open; this wasn’t something we had done before.
The Restorative Justice Process
After reporting the incident to the campus police, the women were quickly identified by video. According to the investigating officers, the women expressed genuine remorse, as did their families. The police left the response in Hillel’s hands.
Through in-depth discussion with the OSU Hillel CEO, Naomi Lamb, and our board of directors, we decided that we wanted to undertake a restorative justice process. It took us some time to reach this decision, but ultimately, we felt that it reflected our mission and values as a Jewish organization dedicated to education and bridgebuilding within the Jewish community and across religious and cultural communities.
With Naomi’s blessing, I also reached out to Rabbi Sharon Mars, a local congregational rabbi and personal mentor, for insight and support.
The Muslim women agreed to participate in exchange for reduced charges. Rabbi Sharon also agreed to participate in the process. I was very grateful to have her by my side, particularly since we were working with younger women from the broader Columbus community. We also invited two Jewish student leaders from Hillel to join us in the process. This created greater parity and provided my students with an unusual learning opportunity.
And so, we developed a four-part meeting series through which we could learn about one another’s identities and values, including our relationships to Israel and Palestine. It was our hope that this would lead to a point of genuine apology and reconciliation.
Session 1: Introductions and Identity:
The six of us met privately at Hillel. We introduced ourselves by discussing our names, families, and places of origin. Identities connected to Palestine, North Africa, Israel, and Eastern Europe emerged in our conversation. One of the Muslim women was the child of a Palestinian, and one of the Jewish students was the child of an Israeli.
A particularly meaningful connection developed when we discussed our religious garb. One Jewish student wore a kippah, and one of the Muslim interlocuters wore a hijab. They connected over being visibly “other” in America and shared how when their families visit the Holy Land, they bring them back new kippot or hijabs.
When the discussion turned to the Israeli and Palestinian flags, we learned just how differently we view these symbols: For the Muslim women, the Israeli flag symbolizes hatred and/or fear directed toward them, their families, and their communities. For our students, it represented connection to family and loved ones in Israel and abroad—particularly in a world in which Jews are a tiny minority and have been subject to repeated oppression over the centuries. The Muslim women were quite surprised when the Jewish students explained that they did not always or even regularly support Israeli governmental policy or action (like with Americans and the US government).
When we discussed the Palestinian flag, our students shared that it sometimes felt to them like a hostile symbol associated with violence or terrorism. The Muslim women explained that to them it represented culture, community, and the dream of national liberation.
This exercise helped everyone recognize that symbols can carry very different meanings for different people.
Session 2: Roots (Shorashim–Judur):
For our second meeting, we attended a presentation by the Israeli-Palestinian peace organization Roots, featuring Palestinian activist Noor Awad and Rabbi Hanan Schlesinger. Before the public event, our small group met with them to discuss their post-October 7th experiences.
This was transformative for the Muslim women, who had never met Israelis or Jews before this process. Hearing an Orthodox rabbi living in the West Bank express appreciation for Palestinian culture and support for Palestinian self-determination was shocking to them. The Jewish students were also deeply moved by Noor’s humanity and his commitment to peace and justice for both peoples. It took courage and resilience for the young people to attend this event and listen carefully to people who challenged some of their assumptions.
I found it particularly meaningful that the young women came to the event wearing kaffiyehs, while Rabbi Sharon and I wore kippot. Walking together into the church where the event was being held felt like a concrete step forward.
Session 3: Discussing the Incident:
In this session we reflected on what happened at the Hillel building. The young women shared that they were motivated by pain, sorrow, and anger at images of widespread destruction and death from Gaza following October 7th. They wanted to engage in activism and happened to be in the neighborhood when they saw the Israeli flags outside our building. Their actions were not premeditated—they were getting lunch nearby with friends and acted impulsively.
Our students then shared their experiences. One mentioned that the incident occurred on Kristallnacht (“Night of Broken Glass”), when he was preparing a program commemorating a horrific event of organized vandalism of Jewish institutions in Nazi Germany (November 9-10, 1938). The women had never heard of Kristallnacht but now understood why their actions were particularly distressing to our community.
This revealed a crucial misalignment: The women intended to engage in an act of political protest, but our students and staff experienced it as an attack on our Jewish identities. We also explored the fact that for many Jewish people—not all—their religious identities are intertwined with their commitments to Israel.
We concluded with a writing exercise in which we all reflected on how we might have acted differently on the day of the incident given our current knowledge of each other.
Session 4: Shabbat Dinner:
Our fourth and final session was a Shabbat dinner at Rabbi Sharon’s synagogue. I cooked for the six of us, as well as for a few of the siblings of the Muslim women and my wife. The dinner happened to align with Ramadan, so our guests broke their fast as we recited the opening blessings of the meal over grape juice (kiddush) and bread (ha’motzi). We discussed the meanings of Shabbat, Ramadan, and Iftar, and celebrated our newfound community.
Later, the women voluntarily presented their experiences to the Hillel board, despite no longer being obligated to do so. I was deeply grateful to them and to the board members for their willingness to engage in this meeting.
Impact and Reflections
OR: To what extent did your discussions include political matters?
AP: We deliberately decided not to focus on attempting to change anyone’s political views. We did want to help our interlocutors understand our connections as Jews to Israel (and to the Israeli flag). We also wanted to gain a better understanding of the connections these Muslim women felt with Palestine (and the Palestinian flag). As part of this discussion, we did explore different visions of Zionism, including our personal desires to see both Israelis and Palestinians flourish in the Holy Land—since both groups view it as their cherished homeland.
OR: Have you remained in touch with these women?
AP: We have remained in touch with the women, communicating through text messaging from time to time. The process also motivated me to connect with others in the local Muslim community. During Ramadan, I attended an interfaith dinner at a local mosque. It was very important for me to hear a Palestinian community leader speak about his feelings of alienation in the broader Columbus religious and cultural landscape since October 7th—not unlike how I was feeling at times as a Jewish person. I approached him afterward, introduced myself as the Hillel rabbi, expressed empathy, and asked if we could be in touch. We have remained connected, chatting before holidays and discussing ways to bring our communities together when possible.
OR: In thinking about the experience, what would you like to say to other professionals in your field?
AP: I want to say that there are times when we need to step beyond our usual boundaries to serve in pastoral and educational roles to individuals outside our communities. This includes people—especially young people—who do not share our political allegiances (including those within and beyond our religious communities). This does not require us to minimize or hide our commitments, but to help others sort through their spiritual, emotional, and intellectual commitments with as much dignity and care as possible.
Further, I believe this restorative process worked well because it was private and confidential. We weren’t trying to showcase our reconciliation efforts but genuinely wanted to understand each other.
This type of work across difference requires trust and patience.
Without such foundations in place the work rarely succeeds. This is especially true in times of conflict and trauma. Even when robust group collaboration isn’t possible, maintaining these fragile bridges intact is crucial so more people can cross them when ready.
Lastly, while I think there are lessons one can learn from our experience, it is also important to remember that every situation is unique. I hope that by sharing this story, I am providing others with a basic framework for thinking through some of these difficult and painful issues.
Rabbi Aaron Portman is Campus Rabbi and Senior Jewish Educator at Hillel of Ohio State University. He was born and raised in Columbus, where he attended Columbus Torah Academy. He received his BA in English from Yeshiva University. He also studied at Yeshivat Ha’Kotel and the University of St Andrews. After college, he participated in the Avodah Service Corps, working with the nonprofit Footsteps. Rabbi Aaron attended rabbinical school at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah as a Wexner Graduate Fellow. During his time at YCT he worked as a chaplain at Rikers and taught at City College. Before taking up his position at OSU Hillel, he participated in a Dorot Fellowship in Israel and worked as a chaplain at the Wexner Medical Center. Rabbi Aaron lives on campus with his wife, who is a medical student at OSU. As Campus Rabbi and Senior Jewish Educator, he offers support and guidance to students and staff, invigorates religious life at Hillel, and builds relationships across the campus community. Rabbi Aaron enjoys sourdough bread baking, weaving, and riding his bike on the Olentangy Trail.
