Alexandra Friedman

Israel has certainly played a role in prolonging the Palestinian condition. To say that Israel and its policies are the root cause of the problem, however, is historically inaccurate.

It is not merely unwise for a company or its CEO to openly harbor anti-gay sentiment; it is suicidal.

On my first day of spring break, I got the first of many emails about Hey Day.Stream of consciousness: What?! Hey Day?! But Hey Day is for rising seniors and I’m not a ... oh.

What can be gleaned from this realization? There is a unique worth of human life in Israel unlike that of almost any other nation.

The idea of leaving the “ivory tower” of Penn often echoes throughout campus. It seems, however, not to have resonated with far too many students, who, like me as a freshman, rarely venture past 41st Street.

As long as our cultural definition of success requires that we identify “losers” among us, the ingredients for tragedy will be ever-present. When will we accept that we have already achieved success, just by being part of the Penn experience?

On my newsfeed, I have discovered articles, videos, Buzzfeed lists and pictures that have made me laugh, cry, empathize and understand.

I can say confidently that I took in every sunset, devoured each Israeli-style breakfast and relished each walk around my home of four and a half months. I went to the bus station without a destination in mind, embracing a more spontaneous lifestyle than the one we have here at Penn.

Growing up in Marietta, Georgia, I was a proud liberal. Like my parents, a blue dog Democrat. At a young age, I didn’t necessarily know what being a liberal meant, but I rubbed it in the faces of my classmates, who, like their parents, identified as conservatives.

In this case, however, I didn’t have to. I photographed Jews, Christians and Muslims; tourists, citizens and people in between; Zionists and Pro-Palestinians; young students and grandparents.People wrote in Hebrew, English, Arabic, French, Farsi, Spanish, Romanian and Russian. All helped me convey a narrative, one that we called “An Israeli Collective.”