This weekend, some will look to Georgetown University where the Palestine Solidarity Movement will be holding its fifth annual conference Feb. 17-19. Yet those who focus too narrowly on PSM risk missing a much larger and more important story.
This year, tens of thousands of students, Jewish and non-Jewish, on more than 400 campuses across the U.S. have assumed roles in fostering support for Israel on campus and making Israel a positive, permanent presence at their universities.
Together with the 30 member organizations of the Israel on Campus Coalition and others, these students have charted a course that has made Israel come alive on campus.
In the first semester alone, approximately 4,000 students participated in Israel extravaganzas nationwide and an additional 3,000 showed up to hear one of Israel’s most popular bands bring their Hebrew music to campus.
Some 1,500 students traveled far and wide to attend multi-day, intensive pro-Israel conferences on local, regional and national levels, and more than 5,000 students returned to campus this January having experienced some part of their winter vacation in Israel on missions and on birthright israel.
And these numbers do not even include the tens of thousands of students who will be a part of second semester initiatives, such as the 1,000 students who will soon arrive in the nation’s capitol to attend the policy conference of the America Israel Public Affairs Committee.
In addition, over the past year, nearly two-dozen schools have reinstated Israel study abroad programs following outstanding student, faculty and community activism.
For those unable to travel to Israel, the opportunity exists to study with a growing number of visiting Israeli scholars who are being placed on campuses throughout the country — a number that will likely triple in the coming year.
While these statistics are noteworthy, they do not begin to convey the depth of pro-Israel activism throughout the country.
No traction for PSM
Over the past few years, the ICC has had the privilege, in partnership with the AVI CHAI Foundation, to invest approximately $500,000 in nearly 100 student-initiated projects aimed at changing long-term Israel campus culture.
These projects, ranging from publishing Israel journals to creating American-Israeli exchanges, have demonstrated a desire on the part of students to take ownership of their community and promote Israel in a serious manner.
By continuing to support these students, the community can help them develop the skills and tools they need to be successful on campus and, when they graduate, in our communities.
PSM conferences have historically attracted significant national attention for their hateful content and their consistent failure to condemn terrorism. But this same, small group of Israel bashers has gained no traction.
While universities that have hosted the conference, including Georgetown, have resisted calls to cancel the conference, year after year, university presidents have publicly declared their rejection of divestment and its cynical use meant to undermine Israel’s right to exist.
More important than the conference itself, however, is that over the past four years, after conference attendees pack their bags and move their circus elsewhere, the pro-Israel community on each campus has emerged stronger, more capable and better prepared than before. This year will be no different.
Georgetown students are working tirelessly to ensure that Israel is fairly represented on campus and that the broader Georgetown community has an opportunity to engage in real dialogue about the Middle East.
In fact, at a recent meeting between birthright israel returnees and Georgetown President John DeGioia following his December visit to Israel, DeGioia spoke of his desire to strengthen relationships between Georgetown and Israeli universities and his commitment to reexamining the current obstacles to study abroad in Israel.
In addition, the students, with the full support of the mainstream pro-Israel community, have organized a semester-long initiative to strengthen support for Israel on including an array of activities aimed at exposing the Georgetown community to Israel’s diverse and vibrant society.
To be sure, American campuses continue to present specific challenges that must be addressed in focused and appropriate ways. Yet, today’s students exhibit a real passion for Israel and a yearning to leave a legacy on campus beyond their short stay.
By and large, students have shifted away from the debating tactics of previous decades and have embraced sophisticated pro-Israel activism that makes Israel relevant to the lives of their peers and the campus community.
The pro-Israel community has committed itself to working together and with students over the coming years to advance an ambitious agenda that includes addressing issues of bias in the academic environment, helping to establish grievance procedures, ensuring that students can study in Israel, and making Israel a positive and permanent fixture of the U.S. campus.
Our initial investment in this work has already yielded significant returns for our community, and we can ill afford to risk losing momentum by distractions such as the traveling sideshow that is the PSM.
Aaron J. Goldberg is acting director of the Israel on Campus Coalition, a partnership of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation and Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, in cooperation with a network of 30 national organizations committed to promoting Israel education and advocacy on campus.
If the Holocaust is a myth, then where is my uncle?
By Robert Stevens
To: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran:
Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Robert Stevens and I am a 27-year-old child of Holocaust survivors.
The purpose of my letter is not to criticize you for being anti-Semitic, or for wanting to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, or for making an international statement calling the Holocaust a myth. Instead, I want to ask you for some advice.
This past Saturday evening, before I left my apartment with my fiancée to celebrate a friend’s birthday party in New York City, I remembered that it coincidentally was also my uncle’s birthday — my father’s brother.
His name is Boroch Jeszyja Miedzinski. I really wanted to wish him a happy birthday, but I didn’t have his phone number or his address. If I did, I’d certainly call or visit him, and I would have mailed him a card.
I am embarrassed to admit this, but I actually don’t know where he is now. Perhaps you could help me find him.
I tried looking up his address throughout the United States, Israel, Poland, Germany, Russia, France, England, and other countries in Europe, but I just couldn’t find his address or phone number.
I used the Google search engine to try and find him or something about him, but to no avail. My father died 10 years ago and, unfortunately, he hadn’t seen his brother in many years, so he also didn’t leave me with any contact information for his brother.
Thankfully, because you have pointed out to the world that the Holocaust is a myth — that the Nazis could not have killed him because such killings were just Zionist propaganda to get world support for Israel — you have renewed my hope that he may still be alive and that I can find him.
I guess I can admit that I feel a little silly, too. I mean, I used to think that perhaps the Nazis killed him, but if the Holocaust never happened, he must be alive, or he’s just a myth that existed to bring about sympathy for Jews.
My father, however, was pretty convincing when he told me that I reminded him of his brother because we both had the same squint and intense look in our eyes.
Before I give up though, I do have the following information that perhaps a man of your power and influence could use to help me find him.
My uncle was born on Jan. 28, 1931, in Lodz, Poland, to my grandfather and grandmother, Pinkus and Tauba Miedzinski. He was the youngest of four children, with my father, David, the eldest.
I have a copy of a photograph of him that I can send to you, if you think it will aid your search. The photograph was taken presumably by the Germans or the Judenrat, and was affixed to a Lodz Ghetto ID card.
I know this because the corner of the photo was stamped with “Litzmanstadt,” the name Germans gave to Lodz when they took it over and formed a ghetto for the Jews.
Some time after his bar mitzvah when he was 13 years old, he was presented with a train ticket — perhaps as a present from nice German soldiers — to catch a ride out of the Lodz Ghetto.
His travel information, which is the only information I have about him, might be the missing link to help you locate him for me. The Germans, as you know, were great record keepers.
According to a chronicle kept by Jews of Lodz, June 26 was apparently a popular day for travel for the youths of Lodz. Of the 912 people who had the same train tickets as my uncle, most were teens and younger children.
The German records state that my uncle was last seen boarding the Cattle Car Express, Transport No. 867 under Record No. 611. One-way ticket from Lodz Ghetto to what historians whom you might consider misguided refer to as the Chelmno extermination camp.
Mr. President, any assistance you could offer in helping to locate my uncle would be appreciated. He just turned 75. I’m definitely going to bust his chops for being an actor in this Holocaust charade.
In the meantime, for his birthday, I will resort to lighting a candle for him next to the only photo I have of him, taken when he was a little boy in the Lodz Ghetto. The birthday candle, which I lit this past Saturday night, on Jan. 28, is actually what Jews call a yahrzeit candle.
And when the flame of the yahrzeit candle glows brightly, it symbolizes an eternal fire from God that will always and forever burn, representing the sacred souls of my beloved uncle and all my other six million Jewish ancestors — and declaring that despite any of your endeavors, their memory will be for a blessing, not a myth.
Robert Stevens is a writer living in Short Hills, N.J. This article originally appeared in the New Jersey Jewish News and is reprinted by permission.
Loading ...