From Your Friend in the Shadows

  Dear Reader… And especially to the incoming freshman who’s rightfully concerned about antisemitism and the relevant security and policy failures with our universities these days, this is for you.       About eleven months ago in November of 2024, I started writing these ‘blog-style’ posts from time to time. Not because I wanted to, but that I needed to. I felt that I needed to write for one major reason and that was that I needed an outlet to let loose my thoughts especially in the dire times we find ourselves in. For a while, I had felt isolated and alone, I think you could’ve deduced that from the title of this blog. Calling oneself a “Friend from the Shadows” doesn’t really inspire a healthy social life. In addition, being one of about three non-Jewish students on my campus that have been vocally against the large antisemitic mob definitely disturbed me to say the least. I did feel that I could’ve been alone perhaps, and it came to a point that I ...

10-07-2025 06:29 hours UTC+3 Dear Reader… It’s been two years. Two long agonizing years of pain, grief on one hand, and utter exhaustion and fatigue. I was born in the shadow of the 9/11 attacks and the Global War on Terror. I never thought I’d end up being on the front lines of the War on Terror, and I didn’t even enlist. Meet the new soldier of the War on Terror. He or She is not a member of any special forces unit, they are merely a university student, at best they have some idea how to navigate a bureaucratic mess some call a system, other times they’re only 16 with no idea what tomorrow’s classes may bring. A uniform? Nonexistent, at most maybe a hoodie and a pair of jeans. Their pack isn’t packed with rations, a sleeping bag, a map or a compass. Instead, their pack at best is packed with textbooks, a calculator if they’re in the sciences, a laptop, and a disorganized mess of papers, maybe even a small flask of contraband liquor if one’s feeling naughty. Instead of a rifle...