Mohsen Mahdawi this week became the latest in a string of arrests of international students from Columbia University.
But in the Upper Valley of Vermont, he’s just Mohsen.
There’s a photo of him on a wall in the basement of the First Universalist Unitarian Society church of Hartland. His head is neatly shaved. And his mouth is in a sort of half smile. His eyes are also smiling, inviting.
Mahdawi came to Vermont about a decade ago, following a partner who was attending graduate school at Dartmouth, and has been associated with the congregation for most of that time. He’s helped out with the religious education program. He’s spoken to members of the congregation about his childhood growing up at a refugee camp in the West Bank, where he watched people close to him die at the hands of Israeli forces. And he’s sought out friends of all backgrounds and faiths.
"I think he wants to know what makes everyone in the world tick," said Paul Sawyer, minister at the Hartland church. "He wants to know what people's beliefs and highest values are. He wants to form who he is with an understanding that's broad and deep."
This week, Sawyer said, has been devastating.
Mahdawi, 34, showed up to the immigration field office in Colchester on Monday for what he was told would be an interview on his path to citizenship. Instead, he was arrested by officers, put into an unmarked car and whisked away. They told his lawyer they were taking away his green card.
He’s currently being held at Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans. He hasn’t been charged with a crime.
"He should be here in the Upper Valley with people who love him and care for him," Sawyer said, "and I pray that he will be, and I fear that he won't."
Mahdawi’s kept a strong foothold in the Upper Valley while studying at Columbia, where he’s set to graduate this spring with a major in philosophy.
At Columbia, he helped found the Palestinian Student Union along with Mahmoud Kahlil, another student who was taken by immigration officials, and was an active participant at peaceful protest and walkouts on campus, though he took a step back from activism last year. Still, a memo from the state department obtained by the New York Times referenced that activism in its case against Mahdawi, which it alleged could undermine the peace process in the Middle East.
Mahdawi’s arrest has garnered attention from Gov. Phil Scott, all three members of the Vermont congressional delegation, state legislators and the select board in Hartford.
Back at home, Mahdawi’s friends in the Upper Valley say he’s the extrovert of all extroverts. That’s helped him meet new people everywhere — while he worked jobs at Dirt Cowboy Cafe in Hanover and Dan & Whit’s in Norwich. At bonfires at his cabin, at seders and church services and on hikes.
"If you speak with him for 20 minutes, you fall in love with him," said Dov Taylor, a rabbi in Woodstock.
"Mohsen is funny and is a man of appetites," added his wife, Judith. "He loves good food, good wine, good bourbon, and working hard with his hands."
The Taylors first met Mahdawi about a decade ago at a screening of a locally-made film about an interfaith trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories. Dov Taylor said the first time they spoke, Mahdawi apologized to him for the preconceptions he had had about Israelis and the Jewish people. During a now well-documented incident during a 2023 walkout at Columbia, Mahdawi condemned one person for making an antisemitic comment.
"There isn't an angry bone in his body," Dov Taylor said. "There isn't an ounce of antisemitism in him. He's completely opposed to violence, and that comes across when he speaks."
Mahdawi is a Buddhist — a practice he discovered shortly after moving to the U.S., according to his profile on the Columbia Buddhist Society website. On the site, Mahdawi says he found Buddhism an important way to heal from the trauma and loss he endured growing up.
“Through meditation, Mohsen cultivated empathy and compassion, which fueled his passion for peacemaking and justice,” the blurb said.
Several years back, he bought land in West Fairlee and built a one-room cabin there, with a deck overlooking the mountains.
"It felt like a Lama's retreat, where somebody could meditate for 40, 50 years and reach enlightenment," said Chris Helali, who met Mahdawi on a hike in 2018.
"His dream is to create a retreat center there where Palestinian and Israeli kids can come and get to know each other and listen to each other and constitute a core of people you know, working toward a peaceful solution," Taylor said.
After he graduates from his program this spring, Mahdawi is slated to start a master’s in international relations at Columbia in the fall. It’s unclear what his arrest Monday means for those plans, or his hopes to become a citizen.
"He’s become an integral part of the Upper Valley," said Don Foster, a White River Junction resident who said Mahdawi is like another son. "And the Upper Valley would be at a loss without Mohsen and people like Mohsen."
The only solace, Foster said, is that Mahdawi told his friends not to worry about him. Because if he can meditate in prison, he can believe that he is in heaven.
