All About Israel: 67 More Days!

             Just last month I went on a field trip with my Physics class to our local community college. We were visiting a planetarium, and after the presentation, my teacher decided to take us  on a short cut through the campus to get back to our bus. On the way back, we were walking into the main building where students can buy food or study for classes. As we entered, my class passed a seemingly normal man who was handing out something - a pamphlet I thought, what looked to be the size of my palm. I didn’t really think much of it, in fact I tried hard to not look the man in the eye anyway, as I really didn’t care for anything he was going to potentially give to me. Persistent, the man actually came up to me and tried to give me his little black book - a bible, the New Testement, I eventually realized. I was shocked. Of course, I knew that this kind of thing went on on college campuses, however, how could this be happening to me, at my local community college, nonetheless? My classmates were more annoyed than anything, in fact one of my good friends muttered to me something along the lines of, doesn’t he know I already have one? My teacher and one other girl, the only other two Jews in my class of twenty, also were a bit stunned by the man. Even after we got passed him, my teacher was still saying she couldn’t believe he was trying to hand us bibles, as we were clearly not college students. But, as we all learned this Sunday, these passionate activists, whether outspoken or not, are desperately trying to gain the support of college students today, and we, as Jews living in America, must understand the basic facts about Israel to fight back with the truth.

                As scary as it may be, we’ll soon all be on college campuses throughout the country and will most likely have to deal with an issue like this. But, how will we deal with it? Should we walk away, avoiding any kind of confrontation, humiliation, or threat? Or do we stand up for the country we love and point out the various flaws and lies the speakers have in their rants?

                It’s a pretty hard few questions to answer. Although you obviously want to stand up for what you love, but, at what consequences do you decide that this may not be safest option to proceed with? Your heart is in one place to stand up and ask this speaker what his problem is and that he doesn’t know anything about what he’s talking about, but at the same time, you could be potentially putting yourself in a dangerous situation. This Sunday, we discussed how to respond back to these speakers with facts about Israel, and questions to put them on the spot, and force them to tell the truth.

                First, as a large group including many other groups besides Diller, we discussed some basic facts about Israel that we could tell our friends, like how Israel is smaller than New Jersey, and can fit into the state of California about nineteen times. Or how Israel has only ever fought in wars if they are attacked first. Afterwards, we separated into three groups to start more specific case studies.

                We saw Two Sides to Each Story from The David Project, Extremist Speaker from Hasbara Fellowships, and Hate on the Internet from StandWithUs. In Two Sides to Each Story, we listened to a speaker on a campus who shouted passionately while throwing his arms around to gain support from the students, however, his points were baseless and ultimately nonexistent. Together, we discussed asking him questions where he’d be forced to tell the truth. At an Extremist Speaker, we looked at an anti-Israel protist that had been televised, where a Jewish student was interviewed. She clearly didn’t know what to say and although she may have wanted to defend Israel, she did a poor job as her points weren’t strong enough for anyone to understand Israel’s side. Lastly, at Hate on the Internet, we watched a pro-Israel speaker trying to speak to University of Irvine in California. The college is not known for being particularly friendly to Israel, and this was clearly demonstrated in the video. As the man tried to speak, eleven times students who did not agree interrupted him. Embarrassed, the school apologized and threatened the students, but despite all this the speaker was able to keep everything together, asking the students to just pay attention to what he had to say, and maybe he could sway their minds.

                Overall, the program was very successful. The fact that this kind of thing is a very real issue, it is important for us to learn about Israel and learn how to defend it, and when to defend it.

                After this, Diller stayed together to discuss further about Israel, as we only have 67 days left until Israel. Not that we’re counting or anything...

                On Sunday, we, more specifically, talked about Israel’s borders. We talked about the West Bank, Golan Heights, and Israel’s neighbors - Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan.

                Some of us were given different places on a general map of Israel, including Israel, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, The Red Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, and Iraq. We talked about when these countries became independent, and the pieces of land that Israel won and lost from these countries.

                In 67 days, we will be in Israel, and it is extremely important that we know these facts about Israel in the time leading up to this experience. I think that we have to be extremely grateful for this past weekend as we were able to expand our understanding of Israel and truly prepare for college campuses and future discussions with our own friends about Israel.

               

We just wanted to say thank you to Noga Maliniak for allowing us to participate in the program and ending the program with an inspiring way to see Israel, along with the presenters and speakers - David Dranikoff, the Israel and World Affairs Chair, Avi Gordon from StandWithUs, Matthew Ackerman from The David Project, and Jesse Shore from Hasbara Fellowships.

                         Can’t wait to discover even more with Diller,

                                    RB

Check out this awesome "Made in Israel" Video: