By Alan Levine

The Santa Cruz Israel Action Committee (SCIAC) at UC Santa Cruz has hit the ground running this semester. With two new Hasbara Fellows and lots of enthusiasm, they hosted a major event on campus last week.

After reaching out to various fellow student organizations, the leadership of SCIAC, led by co-president and Hasbara Fellow Lauren Kasner and Guy Herschmann, felt they had enough student interest to bring in a speaker on the topic of the Iranian threat.

They chose to bring in Tabby Davoodi, who heads the campus department at Stand With Us, and fled with her family from post-revolution Iran. Tabby Davoodi: From Tehran to Los Angeles was an event unlike any other at UC Santa Cruz. With a diverse audience of more than 140 students and community members, the campus was taken aback.

Davoodi spoke of what life was like for a little Jewish girl in Iranian schools, where she was often forced to chant "Death to America." She spent much of the talk sharing her family's history and educating the audience on the nature of the Iranian regime. "She got people to really think of why Iran is such a big threat to Israel, America, and the rest of the world, and that there needs to be some kind of plan," said Kasner.

Professor Tammi Benjamin added: "Never, in all my years of teaching here, have I been at an event like this in which the speaker was given such a warm welcome, and such a profound standing ovation."

One of the ways to know that the event was a success is that it was co-sponsored by such a diverse group of student groups, all of whom can agree that something must be done about Iran. On campus co-sponsors included Kresge Multicultural Education Committee (KMEC), Stevenson Multicultural Advocacy Committee (Stevenson MAC), and the UCSC Women's Center.

SCIAC followed up the event by hosting a Shabbat dinner with all of their co-sponsors and other campus leaders to continue the discussion that Davoodi sparked on campus.

Special thanks to Adam and Gila Milstein for making the event possible.