One Man’s Story: “I felt safer in Gaza than I do on that campus”
When Max Long graduated from high school in Boston in 2015, he made Aliyah (emigrated to Israel) and joined the Israeli Defense Forces – granting him a front-row seat to the existential threats facing the Jewish state. He anticipated dangers as a soldier. He did not expect to face danger as an American Jewish college student.
On Rosh Hashanah in 2024, Long prepared a plate of apples and honey and stood on the edge of campus with a sign inviting people to hear his perspective as an IDF soldier – a routine he continued every Wednesday for a month.
“I had seen there’s a whole lack of representation on campus of our narrative,” said Long, 27, a part-time student at DePaul University in Chicago who had walked by encampments daily and decided to make himself available to answer questions. “What really enraged me to go out there was seeing a rally for the martyrs with pictures of Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7.”
But on Nov. 6, 2024, he said two masked men approached him on the edge of his Chicago college campus, where he had been inviting passersby to ask him questions. One approached him from the front, shook his hand, and asked questions for a couple minutes. The other, he said, approached from behind and knocked him unconscious.
Between 2015 and 2018, he and his fellow IDF soldiers had worked to uncover cross-border terror tunnels between Israel and Gaza. When his active duty was complete, he launched Growing Wings Foundation, a nonprofit to link lone soldiers like himself to the community support they would need.
He made plans to return to the US to attend college in 2023, but after Oct. 7, he was immediately called up from the reserves and sent back to Gaza where he helped recover hostages’ bodies from the tunnels.
After that tour of duty, he picked up where he left off and enrolled in classes for the spring of 2024.
“I had seen so much to not go out and share that reality,” he said. “For me to live in the US, I cannot live in silence and in secret, especially on my own college campus.”
For three hours, Long stood just outside the campus entrance answering questions, sharing his story and fielding a fair share of harassment and hateful rhetoric.
“That’s how I realized how deep-rooted this antisemitism is,” he said.
The day after he was attacked and the suspects escaped, students staged a sit-in inside the school library holding “Wanted” flyers featuring Long’s face, not the assailants.
He has not returned to campus for class since. He attends class remotely.
“Knowing I have a team around me that’s got my back, I felt safer in Gaza than I do on that campus,” Long said. “Now that my face is out there, it’s worrying. Who will be the lunatic who wants to be a hero by taking me out?”
(Source: The Free Press)
