A few weeks back, I received a call from a colleague in New York, Rabbi Matthew Abelson, the Executive Director of a group called Rabbis United. He was inviting me to attend a 24-hour conference of this group, which is a subdivision of StandWithUs, a non-partisan, non-profit organization which supports Israel and combats antisemitism. I had not known much about the work of StandWithUs previously, but the conference sounded quite interesting, and I was quite impressed by what I learned about this international group. StandWithUs as a non-partisan organization; does not advocate for any particular party or viewpoint in Israel or in this country or elsewhere. Its focus is simply on supporting the State of Israel and providing educational materials regarding the Jewish state for children as well as for adults. They also support a network of representatives in this country and around the world training young leaders to combat antisemitism particularly on college campuses. They also work with students in high schools and even with younger students who may be facing antisemitism in their schools. The organization began over 20 years ago during the second Intifada, a time when there were constant terrorist attack in Israel, and it employs experts in the field, some of whom we got to hear from during this conference.
On Monday evening, I joined about 25 rabbis and cantors from around the country at Northbrook Community Synagogue. I knew a few of the rabbis: Michael Sommer, a Reform colleague who served here at TBI briefly after the passing of Rabbi Mann, David Krishef, a Conservative colleague from Michigan, and Doug Zelden, an Orthodox rabbi and chaplain in Chicago, who seems to turn up at just about every meeting I attend in the city. I also met rabbis from Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Tucson, and Tyler, TX, among other places, a congenial group who gathered to hear from the CEO and Co-Founder of StandWithUs, Roz Rothstein, and a number of very interesting presenters during this short period.
After introductions and welcomes, we had dinner followed by the main program of the evening for which a number of the members of the congregation joined us as well. Senior Educator for StandWithUs, Charlotte Korchak, spoke about how to communicate effectively about Israel. She had a variety of suggestions on how to deal constructively with critics of the Jewish state, how to disagree, as they say, without being disagreeable. Her suggestions were intended to help lower the temperature of such discussions and, if not convince the other side of the error of their ways, to at least provide an opportunity to broaden their perspective and encourage them to consider other possibilities. The evening ended with a social hour and a bit of entertainment as well.
In the morning, following the morning worship and breakfast, we connected via Zoom with Michael Dickson, the Executive Director of StandWithUs in Jerusalem, who had gone into his saferoom shortly before we connected as some rockets were intercepted in his area. He introduced us to Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus who updated us on the current military situation in Israel. He gave us a full picture of the progress of the war and the efforts to wind it down. Among other interesting facts he shared, he noted that in spite of a longstanding peace treaty with Israel, Egypt bears a great deal of responsibility for much of the suffering in Gaza. Aside from allowing armaments and supplies into Hamas’s tunnels prior to the outbreak of hostilities, the Egyptian government refused to allow civilians from Gaza to temporarily evacuate into the Sinai outside of the Gaza Strip, despite large offers of compensation from other parties. Though he recognized the tragedy of civilian casualties that occur in any war, he explained that, even accepting Hamas’s inflated numbers of deaths, the ratio of civilian deaths to that of combatants was significantly lower than that generally occurring in other wars including those in which the United States has taken part.
Following this briefing, we were introduced to a panel of college students, two of whom are Emerson Fellows, a group created by StandWithUs in 2007, to train college student leaders from 90 universities throughout North America to be pro-Israel advocates on their campuses. Lauren Weizer is at Northwestern and Michael Kaminsky at DePaul. They were joined by two professionals from StandWithUs, Eric Blatt who is the Midwest Campus Regional Manager and the Associate Director of Campus Education, Rebecca Fine. They shared with us some of their experiences from the past year dealing with the attacks on Jewish students on campus. Michael’s arm was still in a sling following an assault on campus by a masked attacker and he told of a friend who was with him at the time who was also seriously injured suffering a concussion. These young leaders are in the forefront of educating their peers and others on the facts regarding Israel and the current conflict. We were asked if we knew of other Jewish students who might be interested in becoming Emerson fellows.
Before lunch, we heard from two other professionals the first was Arnold Bloch, a licensed social worker originally from South Africa, who spoke about “Confronting the Indoctrination of our Youth: Best Practices.” His very interesting presentation was followed by educators Nina Rush, the National Director of Middle School Education and Programming and Rabbi eric Leidermann, Midwest Israel Link, who gave us a sample of very creative educational materials produced by StandWithUs that are aimed specifically at young people, particularly of bar or bat mitzvah age, but which could well be adapted to adult studies as well. Thinking of our own experience with Melton and how well that pre-packaged program was received by some of our congregants, I was interested in the possibility of utilizing this free material for our adult learners as well and so I signed up to receive more information that we might incorporate into our Adult Education programming..
After lunch, we went into break-out sessions to discuss some of the challenges in our own communities. The last session I attended before leaving was a talk by Carly Gamill, director of the StandWithUs center for combatting antisemitism. She spoke of legal options to fight antisemitism and when those options should be considered and applied and when other means may suffice. She explained to us the application of Title Six of the Civil Rights Act to antisemitic actions and how this has been established in law..
All-in-all, this gathering was a most enlightening conference and I hope to hear more from this group, utilize its materials, and be in contact with their professional staff in the future. I urge you to view their website and learn more about their programs which I’ve only barely touched upon. In light of the continued increase of antisemitic acts in this country and throughout Europe, it is important to be aware of this resource that is working to combat hatred of Jews and of Israel worldwide and to educate people on the real facts about the Jewish State.
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