Why I became a reluctant campus activist

IWATCHED SOMEONE implicitly and publicly deny the existence of any rockets, stabbings, car rammings or suicide bombings in Israel. This woman used air-quotes and shrugged her shoulders while she spread the illusion that there was no terror against Israel — simply a “so called discourse of terror”. And that’s when I started to become a campus activist.

In that moment I remembered Israel Tour during the Gaza War: sheltering under a stairwell with 150 people; the Israelis singing Heveinu Shalom Aleichem (“bring peace upon us”); tourists crying as the Iron Dome missile glowed red above us. I replayed a conversation with my cousin about the huge hole in his colleague’s car window made when fallen rocket debris smashed through it. This was her “so-called terror.”

Then there was the time I heard Israelis were described as worse than the Nazis. This trope was invoked by an audience member at a talk on campus by Dan Meridor, the former deputy PM of Israel. I was familiar with this slander but had never experienced it directly. I was prepared for protesters spreading hate outside, but did not expect it from audience members within the ring of security staff, so my guard was down. My internal rage was like a (small) volcanic eruption — my family fled Russian pogroms on one side and Hitler on the other. To paraphrase Dan Meridor, the questioner was intelligent, yet ignorant. The only outcome of his malicious intervention was that it strengthened our unity against him.

I had never thought I would be a campus activist, but after these incidents, I decided that I wanted to be more proactive about defending Israel, instigating positive dialogue on campus with people who had not been given the real facts. I started conversations with friends from other cultures about current Middle Eastern affairs and measured their reactions when I mentioned Israel. I was surprised at how openminded or supportive many of them were, which encouraged me to show more of my identity. I am grateful that King’s College, London (KCL), where I study, encourages diversity of perspective and respects my Judaism.

Ironically, I am grateful also to the Israel-haters — it is partly because of the challenge I felt that I had been set that I discovered this positivity. Unfortunately, despite this and KCL’s adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism, many Jewish students feel jostled by antiZionist aggression. Friends who had participated in leadership programmes with the advocacy group StandWithUs (which I had originally felt were not for me) encouraged me to become involved.

By the end of my first year at university I felt a responsibility to learn how to represent our Jewish homeland more meaningfully and I applied for a fellowship with StandWithUs. I liked the fact that they are an apolitical education charity, with a strong presence in the UK, Latin America, Canada and North America. They promote dialogue between those affected by the conflict, share the truth about Israeli affairs through their strong online presence and help students victimised by anti-Zionism They provide students with a network of mentors, digital resources, speakers and funding to facilitate events on campus. The anti-Israel activists effectively pushed me into the world of Zionist activism they were attempting to extinguish.

So far, Standwithus has provided me with a better grasp of the history of the region and connected me to a network of student activists from 19 campuses across the UK. We represent a diverse range of ethnicities and perspectives politically, religiously and philosophically. This in itself provides me with learning opportunities as we all have different views about Israel, ideas and potential solutions. So far (I am only a few months into a seven month programme), the most useful thing I have learned is how to frame and reframe arguments to cut to the heart of an issue more quickly. My understanding of the contemporary political and social realities of the Middle East has become more nuanced, enabling me to engage more deeply and empathetically with others.

Zionism and Israel education feeds into my passion for interfaith work. Israel activism to me is so much more than challenging BDS or countering political antisemitism. It means openly celebrating Israeli identity and culture through conversations, hosting a variety of events and writing about it. A quarter of Israeli citizens are not Jewish, as are many other people who live and work there. The demonisation of the Jewish state also harms these communities and diminishes their voices.

I hope to use the tools and information I have acquired and my voice in the KCL interfaith community (as the Chair of the Student Union Interfaith Committee and the Jewish Society Interfaith rep) to be a vehicle for respectful intercommunal conversation about Israel.

Through StandWithUs, I have been connected to a diverse range of interesting and motivated people who support each other’s desires to represent Israel despite the aggressive attempts to silence it. I can now have more control over a conversation about Israel and steer it away from hate, when the other person actually wants dialogue. I feel far more confident speaking as an openly religious and Zionist individual both on and off campus.

Sara Greenbourneis a second year student at King’s College London, the StandWithUs Emerson Fellow for her university and Chair of the Student Union Interfaith Committee.

I’ve learned to cut to the heart of an issue