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By Abram Shanedling

Each year thousands of Jewish young adults from across North America participate in Taglit-Birthright, the free 10-day educational experience in Israel. This summer alone, Taglit plans to send roughly 15,000 young adults. But with so many students enthusiastic about Israel and eager to share their personal experience, many return to campus unsure or uninterested in translating their personal story into advocacy.

Luckily two Mid-Atlantic campuses are seeking to change that.

At George Washington University last week, the local Hillel and Campus Shaliach Noam Aricha (with help from Birthright Next) invited me to speak to the recent GW Birthright “alumni” from this past Winter Break trip. The event, which began with a great combination of Israeli food, music and schmoozing was meant for students to share their wonderful experiences in Israel, but also to look at new ways to get involved with Israel advocacy at GW and the importance of doing so.

In particular the talk focused every student can bring a unique skill set and connection to Israel and use them for pro-active, Israel awareness programming in the face of growing efforts at delegitimization.

Special thanks again to Hillel of GW, Sybil Ottenstein of the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise (AICE) as well as the Student Alliance for Israel (SAFI), GW Acting Politically for Israel (GAP) and Hasbara Fellow Rebecca Abramson.

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The second campus reaching out to an excited new group of Birthright alumni is the University of Virginia, from where I write this post.

Sending close to a hundred students each year on Birthright, Hillel at UVA and the pro-Israel student organization, Hoos for Israel (HFI) have been working on several new strategies to reach out to Taglit returnees and provide them with new opportunities for leadership growth.

One way has been through HFI’s “Coffee with Professors” series. The semester-long program is planned by first year students on HFI’s board (many of whom are recent Birthright alumni) and invites local UVA professors to discuss pressing issues related to Middle Eastern and Israeli history, politics, culture and current events.

This month Coffee with Professors will host Professor Bill Quandt, a member of UVA’s Department of Politics and a former Middle East advisor to President Jimmy Carter.

In addition, I myself had the pleasure of speaking to many of UVA’s recent Birthright returnees at an event last night co-sponsored by Hillel and HFI. Similar to my talk at GW, I challenged the students to channel their best memories in Israel into positive action on campus.

Special thanks to HFI President Carrie Filipetti, Amira Beeber and to Hasbara Fellow Shoshana Spiro.

HFI has also been reaching out to students – Birthright or not – with several other pro-active programs so far this semester.

With help from Hasbara Fellowships, the group tabled during the week of Valentine’s Day for Save a Child’s Heart, raising over $1,000 for the Israeli charity. In addition, HFI’s work was recognized that week by UVA’s Student Council Public Service Committee as the Public Service Spotlight.

HFI President Carrie Fillipetti weighed in on the week. “The event was not only for a good cause, but the purpose was to show that Israel truly values this type humanitarian work,” she said. “We had a similar fundraiser last year, and were glad we could continue its success.”

Capitalizing on the new coalitions built through the SACH fundraiser, HFI is now working on an Israeli film series, featuring eight films over the next month and co-sponsoring each showing with different student organizations. This includes the LGBT organization, the Organization of African Students as well s the Indian Student Association.

“Our goals with the film series are to form new partnerships with organizations, showcase Israel in the arts and highlight important aspects of Israeli culture and politics,” Fillipetti said.