An anti-Israel ‘apartheid wall’ on display at Columbia University during Apartheid Week in 2017. Photo: Facebook.

When I was in college, I signed up for a course on the Middle East. I knew absolutely nothing about it, but I wanted to take it because the professor had a good reputation.

The first day of class, I learned what it was about: Israel and the Palestinians. I knew the two were in conflict, but that was the extent of my knowledge. Israel just seemed like some religious place in the middle of nowhere.

I wasn’t Jewish, so I had no connection to Israel. I didn’t even know it was officially the Jewish State. Educated in public school my entire life, I had only heard about the Holocaust. I didn’t know what happened afterwards. Though most of my friends and boyfriends were Jewish, they didn’t mention Israel, either.

The professor taught us how after the Holocaust, the Jews were given land in the Middle East that they established as Israel. Many of these Jews were highly educated lawyers who used their skills to deceptively take homes and land away from the Palestinians. They then changed the laws on the poor Palestinians, so that they couldn’t get their property back. The Jews were sophisticated colonizers stealing from a native people. It reminded me of the story of Christopher Columbus coming to America, though it sounded much more calculating. I became infuriated at Israel. How could they do that and get away with it?

During one of the classes, a student raised his hand.

“I’m Jewish, and Israel is my people’s homeland,” he said meekly. “We weren’t stealing it. We were going back to where we rightfully belonged after the Nazis slaughtered us. We had nowhere else to go.”

“Well, that is just one side of the story you were taught,” my professor said. “You have to take the emotion out of it and see there is much more to it.”

The student slunk in his seat and didn’t speak up again. That would be the last time I’d see him in the class.

One Friday night about halfway through the semester, I was drinking with some friends, when I ran into a girl from my class. She might have been Jewish.

“Wow, Israel are real jerks, huh?” I said, tipsily.

“Yeah, they’re awful,” she said.

“I never knew.”

“Me neither.”

I thought I was becoming so enlightened through this class. But it turns out that the professor wasn’t so impressed with me. I got a D on my first test, and he called me in to meet with him.

“I don’t think you understand the course material,” he said.

“I believed I did, but I guess I was wrong,” I said.

“Maybe you should consider dropping the class.”

My face got red. I felt the tears forming in my eyes. I was a good student. I’d never dropped out of a class before.

“I just don’t think this class is right for you,” he said. “What do you think?”

“I … I guess I’ll drop out,” I said.

“I think it’s for the best.”

I felt like a failure for not understanding the class. Still, what the professor taught stuck with me.

Five months later, I started dating a Jewish guy named Daniel. This was in May of 2010, when the Gaza flotilla incident happened. I was with Danny and his Jewish friend when the news about the flotilla came on the radio.

“Oh man, I heard about that,” I said. “I can’t believe Israel did that. They’re terrible.”

“What?” his friend said. “You can’t believe Israel did that? I can’t believe you just said that!”

“What did I say? What?”

“The Israelis are not the aggressors. It’s the Palestinians!”

“What are you talking about? Didn’t Israel attack them?”

“What, are you only reading the mainstream media? They hate Israel. Danny, what is she talking about?”

“She doesn’t know anything about it,” Danny said. “Leave her alone. And calm down.”

Later on, Danny explained to me how the media often made Israel look bad.

“But why?” I asked him.

“Well, some of them hate Jews, and others just don’t understand the situation,” he said. “They simplify it, saying that we’re colonizers and we’re oppressing the Palestinians. But there is so much more to it than that. Do you know how many times the Palestinians rejected our peace offers? Did you know that they want to destroy us completely instead of trying to make peace? I spent a year in Israel. It’s much more different than how they portray it on the news.”

“I didn’t know,” I said. “I took a college class on Israel and they never explained that side of it to me.”

“Of course not. College campuses are so anti-Israel.”

As I learned more about the subject, I saw how nuanced it all was. My professor was clearly biased and only told one side of the story.

I quickly realized how dangerous this was. I was an impressionable young person. I trusted my college professors. I thought college was a place where you learned the truth.

I started to question the other things I’d learned in college. Was everything a lie? It shook me.

Just a few months into my relationship with Danny, he took me to Chabad for a Friday night dinner, and it was there that I fell in love with Judaism. It led me on a path where I pursued an Orthodox conversion.

Right before I converted, I decided I wanted to go to Israel. Now that I was about to become a Jew, I needed to see it for myself.

What I noticed immediately was Jews in yarmulkes and women in hijabs sitting next to each other on the subway, eating together in cafes, working side by side in stores. There didn’t seem to be any tension.

I knew there were problems in nearby Gaza and that when Waze directed you to Palestinian villages, you didn’t go there — unless you were in an armored vehicle with the IDF protecting you.

I learned more about the situation there and felt terrible for all the innocent people involved, like the Palestinians living in Hamas territory. I hoped that leaders on both sides could find a way to make peace.

Over the years, I’ve read countless articles about anti-Israel attitudes on college campuses, which I knew to be true from my firsthand experience. I see young people on social media who have absolutely no connection to Israel or Palestinians posting anti-Israel memes and quotes. Many of them post about Israel being an apartheid state, which is complete nonsense. Have they ever been there? Of course not. Will they ever dive deeper into what’s really going on? No.

According to a Pew study from this past summer, 56% of Americans ages 18-29 have an unfavorable view of Israel; overall, they rate the Palestinian government as favorably as the Israeli government.

Thankfully, I learned the truth. I realized that the Israel-Palestinian conflict was much more complicated than was usually presented, and that my professor was anti-Israel.

But my situation was unique. Most of these young people will learn at college that Israel is very, very bad, and they’ll spread lies on social media about it. Ironically, many of them have good intentions. They want to support a people they believe are oppressed. That’s it.

Now, in a time of rising antisemitism and anti-Israel misinformation, it’s critical to support the efforts of young pro-Israel activists online as well as the organizations that go to college campuses and teach non-Jewish and Jewish students about what’s really happening on the ground. Most students don’t come to college radicalized, but you can be sure that by the time they graduate, they are.

If these organizations and young voices step in and add some truth and a different perspective, then there is hope. We just may have a way to reverse this troubling trend, and ensure the future and longevity of our very necessary Jewish state.

Kylie Ora Lobell is a writer and president of KOL Digital Marketing, where she does ghostwriting, marketing, and publicity for clients like authors, brands, and influencers. She has been published in The Washington Post, New York Magazine, Los Angeles Times, The Jewish Journal, and Aish.