By: Channah Barkhordari

Following Boston University’s successful Israel Peace Week, Brandeis University and Tufts University are in full gear, packing their IPWs with speakers, screenings, and campaigns enlightening America’s hub of academia.

At Brandeis University, highlights of the Brandeis Zionists Alliance (BZA) initiatives for the week included “All You Need is AHAVA,” a student-led discussion on Israel’s efforts for peace, and a screening of Iranium coordinated by President of Brandeis’ College Democrats and Hasbara Fellow Amber Kornreich, which was also co-sponsored by College Republicans, and the Tea Party. BZA closed off the week on Thursday with a lecture organized by Rebecca Pollack featuring Dr. Jonathan Adelman, a professor at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver and the doctoral dissertation adviser to Condoleezza Rice, as well as a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. He spoke on Israel’s security concerns, the four necessities in democracy building, and the future of Egypt and other countries undergoing revolutions.

His message was received as especially pertinent given the recent turmoil that has arisen in the region, and he fielded relevant questions from students such as Hasbara fellow Avi Fuld regarding the issue. Dr. Adelman pointed to Israel’s unshakable democracy as an optimistic hope for its neighbors at this point. The week was covered in an article by The Brandeis Hoot entitled “BZA fo’ life” on Friday.

Dr. Adelman also spoke at Tufts University, where he addressed a diverse crowd of students and Tufts professors addressing the topic of Israeli democracy and the Middle East. Among other points, he discussed the rights of minorities and women in the state, comparative economic and educational opportunity in Israel versus in surrounding nations, the technological modernization and overall growth of Israel’s Arab population, their representation in Israel’s system of governance, and the efficacy of Israel’s supreme court, headed by its female  president Dorit Beinisch.

Among the organizers of the event were Tufts Friends of Israel (FOI) president Daniel Bleiberg and FOI Executive board members as well as Hasbara fellows and Erica Feldman (Exec. Communications Chair) Natalie Milstein (VP) and May Igawa (Sec.). The latter two students also published an op-ed in The Tufts Daily on Thursday, sending a clear message concerning IPW and its invitation to the wider campus community to become involved in the conversation on Israel as a democracy in pursuit of peace.

Tufts propelled into their week-long series of events on Wednesday with three Ethiopian-Israeli students from “Israel at Heart,” an organization sending out a variety of panels composed of diverse groups of students currently on a tour of the States, and will be closing with a screening of the Israeli film “The Bubble.”

Also visiting Emerson College for their Israel Peace and Diversity Week, last Wednesday the students shared their stories and discussed the normalcy of meeting and befriend non-Ethiopian Israelis, serving in the army, and even dating.

Emerson also hosted a diversity panel last Sunday sent by Israel’s Foreign Ministry called “Faces of Israel,” which included a female Arab-Israeli lawyer, a gay soldier of the Israeli army, an Ethiopian Israeli, and an American Israeli who previously hosted MTV Europe. The event was co-hosted by the college’s pro-Israel group, Ariyot, Emerson Hillel, and Emerson’s Center for Multicultural Affairs, as well as a number of other cultural student groups on campus. An op-ed was similarly published in Emerson’s paper, The Berkeley Beacon, commenting on the efficacy of Governor Deval Patrick’s trip to Israel this week.