“Do you have a brother?” asked David Olesker, the founder/director of the Jerusalem Center for Communication and Advocacy Training, an organization that educates people on how to advocate on behalf of Israel.
“Yes,” I answered, having no idea what his question had to do with his line of work.
“Answer me quickly, yes or no: Has your brother gotten out of prison yet?”
With this simple technique Olesker called “the fallacy of the complex question,” I found myself suddenly on the defensive, looking as if I had a convicted felon in my family when such was not the case.
“I think the media does it intentionally all the time,” said Olesker. “But they don’t do it with malice. Rather, it is a way of collapsing a lot of information into one question,” he told the audience of about 25, students and non-students, at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee on Monday evening.
Olesker — who also spoke Tuesday morning to Jewish community leaders, rabbis and professionals at the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center — travels outside Israel about four times per year presenting pro-Israel advocacy seminars. In addition, he provides “more than 200 programs a year in Israel alone,” he said.
His trip to Milwaukee was sponsored by the Milwaukee Jewish Council for Community Relations; The Israel Resource Center of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation; Hillel Foundation-Milwaukee; and was also made possible by a grant from MJF’s Jewish Community Foundation.
Olesker’s presentation is informative and motivational, and laced with humor. But he takes his line of work seriously.
“Israel’s relationship with the rest of the world is a matter of life and death,” he said. “Both Israel and the pro-Israel community here in the States have to tackle that [issue] with the same seriousness and conviction that they deal with other life-and-death situations regarding Israel.”
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Olesker became involved with pro-Israel advocacy “about 23 years ago” when he was a student in the United Kingdom during a time of “vicious” anti-Israel attitudes, especially on university campuses.
After making aliyah in 1982, Olesker worked with the World Zionist Organization’s Educational Resource Center. By 1989, he had fully developed the techniques he now uses during his programs.
The techniques are “partially stuff I and other people have learned in the field and partly stuff that comes out of the field of communication studies. I use a variety of techniques, such as role-playing and trigger films” to name a few.
Olesker said the British news media are some of the most hostile toward Israel, mainly because “there aren’t enough Jews on their backs to stop them from doing it.
“People here complain about [National Public Radio], but if you compare it to the [British Broadcasting Corporation], it is nothing like it, because the Jews are on its back stopping it from being worse. Sometimes it is hard to see the results of what you are doing, but it is vital to do it; otherwise things could be even worse.”
Corrina Dorfman, a junior at UWM, said she found Olesker’s presentation to be “inspiring” and that the materials and resources provided in the information packet will help in advocating for Israel.
Still, she said she was concerned about her ability to advocate successfully for Israel because “I feel that I’m lacking [some of the knowledge] of history.”
UWM associate professor of psychology Marshall Dermer found Olesker’s program “absolutely” relevant and helpful. Like Dorfman, however, he is concerned that knowledge of techniques is not enough. “You have to have a lot of practice” dealing with the issues, he said.
Olesker said as much during his presentation, suggesting that people spend “at least ten minutes a day” perusing one of the many Internet sites listed in the resource packet.
Olesker ended the program by referring to his family’s experience during the Gulf War when they cowered in their sealed room, waiting for Iraqi SCUD missiles to rain down on Israel.
He said at the time he “realized how vital it was, our relationship with the rest of the world…. Did the world like us? Did it like us enough to not see us gassed?”
“You are it,” he told the audience. “If you don’t [advocate for Israel] nobody will.”
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