"I want to hurl you across the room," another student told Springer, during the debate over the controversy. Springer had just made an announcement asking that members hold up signs outside polling sites, urging voters to vote yes. His announcement followed that of a Hillel member asking students to hold signs for the opposing side. Springer recalls, "I wanted people to be reminded that being Jewish didn't necessarily mean espousing a particular political position or blindly supporting Israel."

The reaction of the infuriated student to Springer's announcement was exacerbated by the fact that Springer had led religious services that night. Springer muses, "I had just finished leading services--this showed that I was a 'good Jew'--and then I came out with a position which he saw as being against Israel."

The student told Springer that he opposed mixing religion and politics. "What he really meant," Springer says, "was don't mix religion and your politics."

"Many things he does disturbs many right-wing Jews," says Rhoda A. Kaneohe '92, a Palestinian member of the Progressive Jewish Alliance, recalling an incident in which Jewish students tabling for the group were called "self-hating Jews" by other students.

Springier says that he occasionally feels alienated at Hill. "I feel welcome there, but sometimes when I'm there I feel like I represent diversity ...I'm to some extent typecast into a role which I have to fulfill," he says, adding, "I think it's important that people like me don't just resign from the Jewish community but try to make it our own."

Semen notes that Springier has provided a mode of representation for members who would otherwise feel disenfranchised. But, he adds, Springier has also served to polarize the Jewish community. "Sometimes I find myself taking more extreme positions in response to what the Progressive Jewish Alliance has done. But Jonathan would probably think that was a good thing--making people take a stance."

Semen, Sprinter's friend despite their differing political perspectives, recounts a frequent joke between the two: "I tell him that I hope we will meet each other on opposite sides of a picket line some day. I'll be in Israel next year, and so will he, so it's really a possibility. And I would like to meet him across a picket line."

In fact, last year, another Hill member found herself in exactly that position--she stood across the street from Springier outside of polling sites, holding opposing signs for Question Five. Ellen L. Chuan '90 recalls, "We stood on the same corner, me holding a 'no' sign and him holding a 'yes,' and we'd debate each other. It was ironic top me that there was another Jewish person standing opposite me. It's all the more surprising because his mother is from Israel." She adds, "But he's definitely very committed to Diadems."

Several years ago, Springier would have enthusiastically stood on Semen's and Chubb's side of the picket line. "I had been an uncritical supporter of Israel," he says, smiling as he remembers a retreat he planned in high school for a school youth group. "The retreat was in 1982, during the war in Lebanon, and I got propaganda from Israel's consulate. While I was planning the retreat, it was important for me to show the Israeli side of 'Oration Peace for Galilee.' I don't even think of it as a war; it was a necessary security measure."

He began Harvard after a year off working and living on a kibbutz. At the start of college, he maintained his "uncritical support", but soon he began to question his own assumptions. The spring of his sophomore year he organized a celebration for Israel's 40th anniversary. "It was five months after the intifada started, and I had to general feeling of malaise. But I still felt that it was important to affirm and celebrate Israel. "

This feeling of malaise stemmed from a new perspective on Israel. He read an article about some Israeli soldiers who tired to bury alive four Palestinians, apparently for no reason. "Probably for stone throwing," he scornfully comments. Shortly thereafter, he saw a clip on television news of Israeli soldiers beating Palestinian soldiers "not to subdue them out above and beyond the call of duty."

He recalls that the 40th anniversary of Israel's independence coincided with his growing knowledge of such occurrences. "The past two Israel Independence Days," he says, "I went sort of mournfully--but I went--just because, how can we be celebrating when all this stuff is going on?"

The following fall, he learned of administrative detention, which allows the Israeli government to detain people for up to three months without charges--a measure frequently used against Palestinians. "I was feeling increasingly uneasy," he says.

Responding to these feelings, Springer and two friends started the New Jewish Agenda, which was soon renamed the Progressive Jewish Alliance. Springer resolved to learn more about the situation from a firsthand perspective. He received grants from Radcliffe's Education for Action program and the Dorot Foundation, which together funded a trip to Israel for the following summer.

There, Springer lived with an Arab family, worked for a West Bank-based human rights organization named B T selem, and worked as a counselor at a camp for Jewish and Palestinian children. The family was very welcoming , Springer says, but he heard constant grievances against Israel. "Sometimes it seemed that they ascribed things to Israel that it didn't deserve ,like the weather," Hearing such complaints was not always easy for Springer, he says, because "when it comes down to it I'm very attached to Israel on some level. It was a bit difficult to hear them nonstop."