JTA News
May 19, 2004
By Carl Schrag

BERKELEY, Calif., - Common wisdom has it that Jewish students are facing a deep crisis as college campuses across the United States burn with anti-Israel fervor.

Certainly there has been an outpouring of anti-Israel agitation at many campuses since the Palestinian intifada began in September 2000. Faculty, especially in the field of Middle Eastern studies, often are anti-Israel, and student efforts to force schools to divest their holdings in companies that do business with Israel have garnered headlines, if not mass support.

Last fall, Israeli Cabinet minister Natan Sharansky visited 13 American college campuses and reported that he was horrified by what he found.

But aside from the most egregious cases, is the common wisdom true?

Some say the campus scene in fact should be a source of hope and inspiration for the Jewish community.

At scores of schools across the country, pro-Israel students have mounted a dramatic effort over the past two years to take back campuses from anti-Israel activists.

"We have spent the last two years trying to tip the balance on campus in favor of Israel," said Alexander Ross Berger, 20, a junior at George Washington University in Washington. He and others say they have succeeded by targeting student leaders, the fraternity system and other campus opinion makers.

The turning point was spring 2002, when Israel responded to a wave of Palestinian terrorist attacks by invading the West Bank.

Palestinians claimed Israeli troops massacred hundreds of Palestinian civilians in the Jenin refugee camp in April of that year. The fallacious charges sparked anti-Israel demonstrations worldwide.

At the University of California at Berkeley, students returned from spring break to find that someone had lobbed a cinder block through the glass doors of the Hillel building. Then came the campus' annual Deir Yassin rally, commemorating an episode in Israel's 1948 War of Independence in which Jewish militiamen killed Arab civilians.

One Jewish student described the rally as "one of the scariest moments of my life." The crowd called Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a Nazi, and people spat at anybody who seemed to question the anti-Israel sentiment.

But even at the height of the crisis, the situation was never as clear-cut against Israel as it seemed.

As some 1,500 to 2,000 anti-Israel students occupied a campus building during the Deir Yassin rally, thousands of Berkeley students were casting ballots for student government officers. When the results were published, Jesse Gabriel, who had been a member of the Israel Action Committee, had been elected student body president.

Gabriel and Daniel Frankenstein, another Jewish student, had spent the year as what Frankenstein called "the dynamic duo of Israel activists" in the student senate.

Gabriel's freshman year coincided with the beginning of the Palestinian intifada. Not knowing how to advocate for Israel, he did what thousands of other supporters of Israel had been doing for decades: He tried to convince protesters that they didn't understand the situation.

Over time, he said, he came to realize that he had little chance of winning an argument with someone who was holding a poster denigrating Israeli soldiers as Nazis.

That summer, Gabriel, Frankenstein and Rebecca Simon, another Berkeley student, went to Washington to participate in the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's Saban National Political Leadership Training Seminar, an intensive program for 250 college students from 60 campuses.

"We were given the tools to take back the campus," Frankenstein said on a spring afternoon, seated in a shady spot at an outdoor café near Berkeley's campus. "Not only have we taken it back - we own the campus now."

Rather than engaging in shouting matches and refuting every anti-Israel comment, poster or speaker, the students were taught to promote their own agenda of pro-Israel messages by networking with campus leaders. Simon organized a campus visit by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and used it to build relationships with a wide range of student leaders.

Many Jewish organizations have campus outreach and support programs, but many observers believed they wouldn't be able to cooperate. The Israel on Campus Coalition, established in 2002 by the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Foundation as anti-Israel agitation on college campuses was growing, set out to coordinate multiple efforts to help students adopt a proactive approach to pro-Israel activity.

"We have to unlearn many of the old approaches," said Wayne Firestone, who directs the coalition and Hillel's Center for Israel Affairs. "You don't have to chase after every extremist who says something nasty about Israel. It just isn't worth the time of Jewish students, who can do more important things to impact on public opinion on campus."

The ICC has succeeded in bringing together organizations with diverse viewpoints - its two dozen members run the gamut from the dovish Americans for Peace Now to the hawkish Zionist Organization of America - though they don't see eye to eye on every issue.

Some might say the coalition isn't diverse enough. While many students have mobilized to support Israel, others say they feel alienated by efforts to line them up behind Israeli government positions.

Earlier this month, a controversy arose over the removal of one student, Jilian Redford, as Hillel president at the University of Richmond in Virginia.

Redford sent an e-mail to the Israeli Embassy in Washington, asking, "Could you please stop sending me e-mail after e-mail about radical Zionist propaganda?" according to news reports.

Hillel officials said they objected to the tone of Redford's comments. When she refused to apologize, the local JCC, which oversees Hillel, relieved Redford of her duties.

Robert Blecher, a Middle East history professor at the university, has organized a letter-writing campaign in Redford's defense.

"It is a sad day for Judaism when standing up for one's beliefs is deemed inappropriate," the letter states.

Firestone denied any effort to stifle diverse points of view. Redford had every right to explore her Jewish identity and ask critical questions about Israel, he said - but as an individual student, not through her position as Hillel president.

Some groups help students speak out against the Israeli government, though not necessarily against Israel itself. Recent Brandeis graduate Judah Ariel, 23, works closely with students across the country as campus committee chair of Brit Tzedek v'Shalom, a dovish group.

"A lot of students are very pro-Israel but their sympathies lie with Labor or Meretz, not with Likud or the settlers," he said. "Brit Tzedek helps them find ways to express their Zionism and their support for Israel in the way we believe is the only option for Israel."

Ariel said that on many campuses, Hillel and other organizations welcome Brit Tzedek and other left-wing activists, though he notes that at Brandeis some students treated Brit Tzedek as an anti-Israel threat.

"I wish it were possible for the groups that make up the pro-Israel community to be more open to the democracy and debate that is one of the great things about Israel," he said.

Actually, it isn't so rare for Jewish students to be critical of Israel; some even are prominent pro-Palestinian activists. And others who care about Israel don't want to get involved in political debates at all; they may prefer to participate in Israeli dancing or Israeli cultural activities, or choose religious observance or community service.

But many Jewish students are stumping for Israel on campus.

A year ago, three students from the University of Oregon in Eugene went to Washington to attend AIPAC's annual policy conference, which draws thousands of activists - including hundreds of students - from across the country. This year, 12 students from Eugene signed up, part of a contingent of 850 students from 150 campuses who came to this month's policy conference in Washington.

Lach Litwer, 24, a senior from Portland, Ore., majoring in psychology and business, has played a key role in building the pro-Israel community on his campus.

Litwer said he was not involved in Jewish campus activities until the day he went to Hillel for free pizza and was recruited to join Alpha Epsilon Pi, a Jewish fraternity that has put Israel advocacy at the center of its national agenda.

Last year, AEPi's director of programming invited Litwer to attend AIPAC's policy conference. Then Litwer learned about the birthright israel program, and got the chance to see Israel last June.

Birthright, which offers free 10-day trips to Israel to Jews ages 18-26 who never before have been on a peer trip to the Jewish state, has had a significant influence on campus activism.

Hillel serves 15 percent to 30 percent of Jewish students, Hillel's president, Avraham Infeld said, but birthright offers an opportunity to reach out to another 40 percent of Jewish students - those who aren't opposed to Jewish or Israel-related activities but have not really felt compelled to explore them.

"If we can pinpoint five or six participants on every birthright bus who have leadership ability, they can be the ones to reach the 40 percent," Infeld said. "We need to find those leaders and invest heavily in them."

Litwer, who serves in the U.S. military reserves and is considering signing on for active duty after graduation, said Israel has become a central part of his identity. He said the growth of pro-Israel activity on campus excites him.

"I almost wish I wasn't graduating this year," he said. "I want to see what we can do next year."

He'll be leaving the campus in good hands: Two rising stars of Israel advocacy on the Eugene campus - Jonah Fruchter, 19, from Minnetonka, Minn., and Daniel Rosove, 18, from Los Angeles - are completing their freshman year.

The two collected hundreds of signatures for a campus petition in support of Israel. AIPAC coordinated similar petition campaigns at dozens of campuses this year.

The empowerment of pro-Israel activists isn't limited to Berkeley and Eugene. Hillel has placed unprecedented emphasis on Israel over the past two years and works closely with AIPAC to develop strong advocacy groups on campus.

Jonathan Kessler, AIPAC's leadership development director, oversees a far-reaching program to groom thousands of pro-Israel leaders on campus. Through seminars in Washington, trips to Israel and a network of campus liaisons who work with student leaders, AIPAC helps students build a pro-Israel presence on campus.

"I do not agree that anti-Semitism on campus is rampant," Kessler said. "I do not agree that we're losing the battle, and I do not agree with the alarmists who assert that the sky has fallen."

"Generally speaking, Jewish students are not scared," he said.

The key is hope, not fear, he said.

"I want my own children to grow up confident but to know that it's not always easy to be Jewish or pro-Israel," Kessler said. "It's up to parents and institutions to prepare young people for the challenges they'll face."

At Berkeley, the approach seems to be paying off. Last month, two years after pro-Israel students mounted their pro-Israel campaign on campus, barely 150 people showed up at the annual Deir Yassin demonstration.

Gabriel noted that a pro-Israel petition on campus garnered over 1,500 signatures, while an online petition from Students for Justice in Palestine has garnered only about 150 signatures in three years.

This year, AIPAC launched a pilot core education program at four campuses. Groups of about 50 students at the University of Texas, Washington University, Northwestern University and American University underwent on-campus training to get more comfortable talking about Israel and to identify creative ways to generate support for the Jewish state.

At a recent session at the University of Texas, students brainstormed about how to engage other students in discussions about Israel. They role-played situations ranging from a chance encounter at the dentist's office to a conversation between roommates. The pro-Israel group, Texans for Israel, was named Best Political Group on campus last month.

Gabriel, the former student body president from Berkeley, acknowledged that there are uncomfortable moments for Jews and pro-Israel students at Berkeley. But he argued that it's a wonderful time to be Jewish on campus.

"The most empowering lesson is that when the Jewish community comes together, we can do anything," he said. "We may be small, but we can effect change. That's what happened at Berkeley."