By: Channah Barkhordari

Yesterday, Boston University Students for Israel (BUSI) inspired nearly 300 students and affiliates to come out to the campus’s Marsh Plaza in support of the Jewish state.  The peace rally, which was held at 3 pm, was a mass of Israeli flags and smiles in the midst of large banners and posters.

The rally, organized earlier in the week by Hasbara Campus Coordinator Arielle Adler alongside Hasbara fellow and BUSI President Rachelle Rubin, HillelVice President Meggie Wyschogrod, and BUSI Coordinating Director Amy Woogmaster, intended to unite the community and mirror Israel’s own desire for peace and civil discourse.

The mass of people, however, were met with members of BU’s Students for Justice in Palestine, some of whom were holding a painted “wall” and Palestinian flags. On Tuesday, those same members had first displayed the boards and reportedly yelled obscenities to Adler, Hasbara’s New England Aish Advisor, Rabbi Weiner, and Hasbara fellow Matt Beller. Vice President of BUSI Joel Udwin said he was the recipient of hostile hate speech as well. All three were in attendance at the rally. Unlike previously, SJP remained calm in the face of security personnel.

Students coming out to support Israel largely ignored the small faction of nearly fourty counter-protesters and cheered enthusiastically to the on-goings of the peace rally while holding signs that read “We Support Israel,” and “Extremism is the Real Obstacle to Peace, Don’t bring it to our Campus.” Executive BUSI board member Matt Goldberg emceed the event, and Rubin gave the keynote speech. In it, she opened with a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a BU alumnus: “Peace for Israel means security, and we must stand with all of our might to protect its right to exist,” she offered to a swell of cheers. Rubin then eloquently spoke of the mirror relationship between state and students, relating, “We stand here ready to take the first step towards peace, which is discourse, just as Israel stands waiting for a partner in peace.” She descried intimidation, demonization, and reiterated that campus groups espousing extremism breed misinformation, lies, and hatred. In her concluding remarks, she quoted former Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin, to say, “The time has come to begin a new reckoning in the relations between people, between parents tired of war, between children who will not know war.”

“ We are all waiting for that day,” she ended.

Afterwards, BUSI board member James Gatonga commemorated the deaths of all victims of the conflict Israeli and Palestinian alike leading the crowd in a moment of silence.

Appropriately, thereafter BU’s premier Jewish student a capella group, Kol Echad, sang three songs, “Salaam,” (Arabic for “peace,”) Israel’s national anthem Hatikvah (“The Hope”), and reggae artist Matityahu’s “One Day.”

Other Hasbara fellows involved in organizing and spreading the word about the rally included BUSI board members Gaby Salpeter, Sarah Schrag, Karen Reichgott, Jennifer Whitman, Rachel Dushey, and Rachel Tessler.