By: Ilanna Newman, University of Maryland, College Park

Now in their second full day, participants on the Hasbara Fellowships Winter 2010-2011 program in Israel are already learning new Israel advocacy skills and visiting important sites. Read more as University of Maryland student Ilanna Newman, a member of ZOA UMD, shares her experience so far.

12/22/10

After a classic Israeli breakfast at the hotel, the first day of our program began with an advocacy training workshop at the Aish World Center in the Old City of Jerusalem. The session, led by Alan Levine taught us how to effectively communicate for Israel and focus on positive information. After that, we had the privilege of learning about the history of and reasons for anti-Semitism in a fascinating course taught by Rabbi Ken Spiro and later, heard from Hasbara Fellowships’ National Director Natalie Menaged about strategically countering anti-Israel propaganda on campus.

The most enlightening part of the first day was our discussion about our different campuses and our successes and challenges advocating for Israel. Each campus has a different strategy for its pro-Israel groups, from promoting Israel’s culture and diversity to a more political emphasis.

I also learned that the levels of student involvement vary greatly on each campus across the country. Some schools, such as the University of Maryland, have large and active student populations with multiple pro-Israel groups and very little opposition. Other schools struggle to maintain even one Israel advocacy group and are fighting strong anti-Israel sentiments.

We’ve just completed the second full day of the trip, which began with a seminar led by Abram Shanedling on building and organizing our college pro-Israel groups and how to set strategic goals for programming and coalition building. Following this, the group boarded a bus to spend the bulk of the day on a strategic tour of Jerusalem led by Jonty Blackman. The tour has traveled to points of key political importance such as Mishkenot Sha’ananim, Kibbutz Ramat Rachel, Motzav HaPa’amon (Bell Outpost), and the Goldman Promenade, which offered a panoramic view of Jerusalem and its environs, including a portion of the security fence.

But most excitingly, today our group doubled in size as 20 students from across Canada arrived in Jerusalem! Many of their schools are heavily infested with anti-Israel biases, so they will certainly add a unique perspective to the program. I look forward to working with them and all of the program participants toward strengthening the pro-Israel movement across North American college campuses.