Salam, Heller community,
Three weeks before I arrived at Brandeis, I made the hardest decision of my life.
I fled.
I began an 11-day journey where everything felt uncertain, and I didn't know if I would even make it alive.
I crossed the desert with a backpack, through a country in civil war, carrying fear, prayer, and hope. It felt like a personal exodus, a journey I never imagined I would have to take, away from Egypt, the country I loved enough to risk my life for.
Coming to Heller changed something in me.
For the first time in nearly a decade, I felt safe. I felt something I had almost forgotten: normal. I found community. I found people who listened, who challenged me, who asked the kind of questions rooted in justice, dignity, and responsibility to the world.
Heller did not ask me to leave my past behind. It gave me the space to make meaning of it.
And I know my story is not unique. It carries pieces of many others, classmates here, and people far beyond this campus, who know the weight of displacement, resilience, and the courage to keep asking difficult questions.
For a long time, I carried a heavy feeling in my heart: that I didn’t belong anywhere. I felt like a stranger.
And maybe some of you have felt that too, that quiet question: Where do I belong?
I have always struggled with the idea of belonging to just one community. I have never fully seen myself as only one thing, or from only one place. I feel like a global human, carrying many worlds within me, just like many of you do.
Part of that comes from my journey. In my fight for justice, I have paid a price. I have been shot, forcibly disappeared, and imprisoned. And maybe our experiences are not the same, but I know all of us here carry our own battles, our own losses, our own moments that shaped who we are. And yet, we are all still here.
I remember sitting in class during my first semester, listening to my friends’ stories, the memories of their countries, their hopes. I was quiet, but inside, I was overwhelmed. I remember thinking how beautiful it is that we can come from such different places and still choose to sit together with openness, honesty, and care.
That feeling stayed with me. You made me feel seen. You made me feel less alone.
Slowly, this school became more than a place of study. It became a space where we didn’t have to explain why justice, dignity, and freedom matter, because we all carry that belief, in our own ways. To me, you became more than colleagues; you became a community, a family.
What we share is this: a belief that human life is precious. That we can create alternatives to violence. That we don’t have to accept killing, imprisonment, or fear as the only answers. That another world is possible, and that we are responsible for imagining it, and building it.
I may be the one speaking, but this story belongs to all of us in one way or another.
To my Heller family, thank you for creating this space and for making me feel home when I was a stranger.
Thank you.