MOVING ON

After Avi completed his army service he enrolled at Brown University. At college, Avi’s experiences in the army came in handy. He engaged in campus fundraising efforts for Israeli organizations and even trained the SWAT team of the Providence Police Department.

While Avi was known as a vocal advocate for Israel on campus, he became close friends with students who held a variety of viewpoints.

“He proved that true friendships can transcend political barriers,” Schaefer says of his brother.

Five months into his time at Brown, Avi was killed by a drunk driver while walking home one night.

“There are no words to describe what that loss feels like,” Schaefer says. “It’s like having your heart ripped out.”

This Sunday will mark two years since Avi’s death.

In a letter to the Brown Community following Avi’s passing, University President Ruth J. Simmons wrote, “A young man of inordinate strength and integrity, Avi had already begun to have an impact on the Brown community....By all early signs, he was a student who was going to make the most of his time at Brown and his mark on the world after Brown.”

After Avi’s death, Schaefer and his family founded the Avi Schaefer Fund, which seeks to promote open discussion on college campuses surrounding Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Schaefer spent a year building the fund, speaking at conferences in Israel and America and interning at the Israeli parliamentary office of Einat Wilf ’96.

Schaefer says he also spent that year trying to understand “how I could live my life without Avi by my side.”

Schaefer’s work at the Fund has included organizing an annual symposium in Jerusalem and a conference that will be held at Brown in two weeks. The event will bring together pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian student leaders from across the Ivy League.

At Harvard, Schaefer says he is working to foster dialogue among students from diverse backgrounds about Israel, just as Avi had at Brown.

“Conflict is often generated by misconceptions that become quickly dispelled when you actually encounter each other. I am not here with any agenda, and not for any political reason,” Schaefer says. “I just want to help these people talk to each other.”

—Staff writer Alyza J. Sebenius can be reached at asebenius@college.harvard.edu.