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When I was first elected to The Crimson’s Editorial Board, I resented the institution.

The Crimson had just published its editorial endorsing the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against Israel, and as I sat in my first editorial meetings, watching the Board’s chair lead the discussion with his Palestine Solidarity Committee sticker conspicuously placed on his laptop, I wondered just how long I’d last.

Ultimately, I remained. In the following years I would again encounter personally upsetting opinions on the Board — but I would again decide to stay.

Looking back on the past four years — during which I served as both Hillel President and Editorial Chair — I can say that the most formative, meaningful, and valuable experiences were the times I spoke with peers who disagreed with me. It was also those experiences that led to the greatest understanding and sympathy at a time when divisions consumed our campus.

The dialogue was far from easy. But fighting for it was the most important thing I ever did at Harvard.

***

On Oct. 7, 2023, I was at Harvard Hillel when I began hearing details about Hamas’ rampage in southern Israel. I raced back to my Lowell bedroom and asked the maintenance staff to turn on my phone — it was a Jewish holiday on which phone use is forbidden — and text my brother in Israel to make sure he was alive.

Due to the holiday, he couldn’t respond for nearly a full 24 hours. As I anxiously awaited news about his fate, I learned 34 student groups had signed a statement attributing full responsibility to Israel for Hamas’ violent attacks. Beyond the fury this news provoked, I felt a deep sense of betrayal. My community had embraced a political stance that turned its back on brutal bloodshed. In the coming days, individual friends would text me to check in; these texts felt like a negligible consolation next to the dozens of student groups — ostensibly representing hundreds of my peers — who raised a middle finger to my pain and suffering.

As Harvard Hillel President, I saw some of the most hateful and despicable posts on Sidechat and Instagram from the Harvard community in the following weeks, including one saying “Harvard Hillel is burning in hell.”

That semester was the most alienating period of my life. I coped with the pain by concentrating on my duties as Hillel President — a task that, in those months, required 60- to 80-hour work weeks. I gave dozens of interviews, appeared on national television, and spoke with countless administrators. I compiled a dossier containing evidence of online antisemitism that I distributed to everyone from a New York Times reporter to the Harvard Corporation.

During that time, I wavered back and forth for weeks deciding whether to run for Editorial Chair, uncomfortable with the prospect of helming an institution whose stated positions I found troubling and occasionally offensive.

Eventually, I ran. Little did I anticipate how formative chairing the Board would be, not despite — but because of — the meaningful differences that divided me from many peers.

***

A few months into my term as Editorial Chair, I read Franklin Foer’s cover story for The Atlantic, “The Golden Age of American Jews is Ending.” The piece, which connects the resurgence of antisemitism to the rising tide of illiberalism on both ends of the American political spectrum, articulated a feeling that had been growing inside me: Engaging with diverse perspectives was not antithetical to my service at Hillel. On the contrary, it advanced a liberal order that had, for generations, enabled Jewish flourishing in the United States.

I began seeing my work differently: After feeling obligated to compartmentalize my identity as I edited pro-Palestine op-eds, I now took pride in curating an opinion section that represented the gamut of campus opinion. I was not “platforming” my opponents; my work laid the basis for a robust and healthy setting for discourse.

The attempts to thwart these conversations — both on campus and across the country — were clear. Students embraced extreme politics: At one point, they chanted “Zionists not welcome here.” Another time, they called to boycott The Crimson in part for quoting a public speech made at their encampment — seemingly copying Donald Trump’s anti-media playbook.

Also disturbing were the illiberal tendencies from the pro-Israel side. A truck paraded through campus intimidating students associated with the PSC statement, many advanced over-encompassing definitions of antisemitism to shut down pro-Palestine speech, and Jewish organizations became zealots for restrictions on protests — a seeming attempt to regulate speech with which they disagreed out of existence.

As my term progressed, many of my Zionist friends were confused why I didn’t spike pro-Palestine op-eds. But a society in which we resort to tactics like these to counteract others’ ideas is a dangerous society — and one that hurts Jews in the long run.

And yet, my year chairing the Editorial Board gave me hope. Some of Harvard’s most extreme activists — on both sides of the conflict — were the same people who respectfully listened to others’ perspectives at our meetings three times a week. I learned that my peers had a larger capacity for dialogue than Harvard’s administration, the national media, or even they themselves believed.

***

Today’s fraught politics makes dialogue difficult. Current political issues often involve aspects of our identities with significant implications for our lives. I understand the urge to respond to offensive ideas by seeking to silence them or deciding to personally disengage — I’ve felt this temptation acutely.

But I urge us to resist that. Not because it’s easy, or because discourse will magically help us find common ground, or even because it will reveal the humanity in others.

It’s because the alternatives are far worse. In an era in which partisan tensions are tangible, when entrenching in echo chambers is fashionable, and when political issues feel too personal to discuss, respectful dialogue is more needed than ever.

Class of 2025, keep fighting for this discourse — no matter how difficult it becomes.

Jacob M. Miller ’25, a former Crimson Editorial chair, is a double concentrator in Mathematics and Economics in Lowell House. He served as Harvard Hillel president in 2023.