As an advocate for Israel at my university campus, I face a different battlefield of the same conflict that Israeli Defense Force soldiers see daily. On our battlefield, we are fighting a different type of enemy, one that cannot be seen or destroyed with a weapon. This enemy lurks around every corner of our school with no need to hide. The real enemy is apathy.

There are always the few but growing number of students that demonize the state of Israel and deny the Zionist dream. Then there are always the small group of us whose passion for Israel goes beyond any passing academic or political interest.  However, the vast majority of students do not feel that inner drive to defame or to protect our people’s homeland.  As advocates for Israel, our goal is to find a connection with students and community members who would not normally think about this tiny, distant country in the middle of the most volatile and misunderstood region in the world. That is the challenge of every Israel advocate and it is much more difficult to find that positive link amid all the vitriol and slander targeted at Israel. At East Carolina University , however, we face  additional challenges: a very small Jewish population, a non-existent (before us) pro-Israel population, and an apolitical atmosphere that hinders our ability to fight this apathy.

Facing those obstacles, Pirates for Israel has risen to prominence of a  student groups on campus. Hosting 6 events, we have brought over 600 students to our events for the year. This is virtually unheard of for a school with a brand new pro-Israel group. We also passed a resolutions in our student government to bring more study abroad programs to ECU and condemning anti-Semitism on our campus. Through the hard work of our 6 member board and the support of our national co-sponsoring organizations, ZOA, CAMERA, StandWithUs, and Hasbara Fellowships, we have quickly and successfully built a name for ourselves on campus. Pirates for Israel is set to be a permanent student club that will remain long after those of us who founded it graduate. Now, the question is, what brought about this success against all odds?

The answer is persistence. We began modestly with only two board members – just me and a good friend with a shared passion. We modeled our group on the national Students Supporting Israel (SSI) movement. During our year as an SSI chapter, I planned all of our events, coordinated all of our tabling sessions, recruited all of the 4 board members that we would gain before the end of the year when we would make the jump to Pirate For Israel. This was no easy task. I vividly remember one tabling session where it was only me, standing outside of our student book store, with Hasbara Fellowship posters, campaigning for the “Think Green Think Blue” campaign. With the wind blowing severely and all my cards flying away, I managed to get a total of ten other students to sign up for the new club. For many campuses, this may have seemed like a complete failure. For me, it was an amazing success! Running that table completely by myself for three hours enabled me to connect with those ten people, ensuring I’d have their support for the next tabling and growing what was to become Pirates for Israel.

This all did not happen overnight. In the beginning, we had board and group members come and go. We could not keep a board member in their position for more than a month and I was putting more than 35 hours a week into planning for the organization.

With our first social media page, we were able to get over 250 likes on Facebook and reached an average of 3000 people each week. As many of my friends and family already know, my Facebook page is a billboard for Pirates for Israel. By sharing our posts on my page, students began to learn our name and soon, we started a buzz around campus. After going on the ZOA Student Leadership Mission to Israel  over the summer, my board members and I decided we needed to make a change. We changed our name to Pirates for Israel to create a personalized and proud brand for our school. We became an Emet for Israel group with the national organization the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA). As an Emet for Israel group, we re-imaged our appearance and our logo, created a group t-shirt, and went on to to be an effective voice for Israel on a largely apathetic campus

Still with all dark clouds, there is a silver lining and this silver lining should serve as a message to all the small pro-Israel chapters out there who feel as if they are barely making any progress on their campuses. Persistence is the key to success. Even if the odds are against you and it feels as if all hope is lost, there is always a way. We draw inspiration from our homeland and the historical persistence of our people. Israel has stood against greater odds, surviving horrific persecution, isolation, demoralization, and war. It is our job to do our part here. We can succeed against any odd.

When Mahmoud Abbas visited the White House in May, he assured Donald Trump that “we are raising our children, our grandchildren on a culture of peace.” But when President Trump met with Abbas in Bethlehem, the US leader was furious. “You lied to me,” Trump reportedly said. “The Israelis showed me that you are involved in incitement.”

Indeed, there’s an abundance of proof that Abbas is a systemic liar. For example, Abbas and his Fatah cohorts constantly praise Palestinians who have murdered innocent Israelis — despite claiming to support “peace.” Fatah leader Nabil Shaath recently said that the Palestinians’ right to use “armed struggle” was “indisputable.”

In addition to misleading Trump, Abbas also lied to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson about stopping payments to terrorists’ families. Tillerson later had to admit — once again — that the Trump administration had been duped. Abbas apparently told Jared Kushner that the Palestinian Authority’s payments to terrorists and their families were the government’s “social responsibility.”

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This summer marked my second visit to the State of Israel. I’m sure you already know all about my first trip–good old Birthright, they call it. But this time around, I was there for a two-month internship in Jerusalem at The Michael Levin Lone Soldier Center through the Onward Israel program, and my family literally had to beg me to return to the US.

What is it about this country that always leaves me wanting me more? I wondered. It is as though every time I go back, Israel starts to feel more like home, and home starts to feel more foreign. You see, being raised in a very Zionist family, I had always grown up with a strong passion for the State of Israel. Most of this came from my father who moved to Israel just two months after the Six-Day War in 1967 when my grandfather was on a Fulbright teaching sabbatical at Tel Aviv University. Unfortunately, my dad was only a 4-year-old during that time, so he has very few memories of what actually happened. Yet he instilled in me the love for Israel and my Jewish heritage.

To think of it, my childhood set the stage for my Zionist journey. I was always involved in Israel related events at our local JCC and synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and G.U.C.I. (Goldman Union Camp Institute), the overnight sleep away camp I attended for three summers in Zionsville, Indiana. Any time there was something Israel related, I was always there to learn as much as I could and to ask as many questions as possible.

I have always had the greatest interest in the IDF–– especially the amazing work they do to protect the state of Israel and the humanitarian aid they provide to countries in need around the world. At the summer camp I attended, we always had two or three counselors who had just finished their military service, and, of course, you could always find me asking questions and trying to hear as many stories as I could.

The one thing that I took away from every one of those counselors was this amazing sense of nationalism for the state of Israel. They all said that it came from their military service. They felt as though they had a piece of the country that they spent 3 years defending. That feeling was something that resonated with me a great deal and made me want to do something to defend the state of Israel in my hometown or on my college campus.

So… fast forward to my sophomore year of college, I had just transferred to The Ohio State University and really didn’t know anyone or what to get involved with. So, as I was walking on The Oval (campus green) during our involvement fair with 15,000+ other freshman, I stumbled across a table with an Israeli flag hanging high above all the tables. This immediately gave me a sense of comfort and I walked up to the table to find out what this student organization was about. The student organization was called Buckeyes For Israel and I knew this was something I wanted to be a part of.

Throughout the first semester, I attended a few meetings and events but really wasn’t that involved. However, toward the end of the semester, a friend from the group invited me to the organization’s big end of semester event which was three days long. The last day of the event was a brunch, which featured two speakers from the David Project and The Zionist Organization of America.

To be honest, I attended the event with no intention of paying close attention to the speakers. I was there primarily for the free food, just like any good college student would be. But after enjoying the delicious food, I thought it would be respectful to listen to the two speakers. The second of the two speakers was a man named Pandit Mami, and his story, and what his organization stood for, were things that very closely lined up with my beliefs. After his presentation, I approached him to introduce myself and to thank him for coming to speak to us that morning.

Pandit and I got into talking for quite some time, and he told me about the ZOA campus fellowship. I, of course, was extremely interested and started to look into what the fellowship entailed over the course of my winter break. Over that winter break, I also went on Birthright, my first visit to the Jewish homeland, and I knew I was home. I had the absolute time of my life; even after day two, I had called my parents saying they were going to have to beg me to come home.

After this life changing two-week trip in Israel, I came home with a burning passion to get back to Israel and to share with my friends on campus what this amazing country has to offer. Shortly after I returned to the US, I accepted the offer to become the ZOA Campus Fellow for The Ohio State University and became extremely involved with our pro-Israel group, Buckeyes For Israel. This became an awesome way for me to have a sense of Israel away from Israel.

I spent the beginning of the semester sharing the story of my trip in Israel and all the amazing sites and opportunities it had to offer. But about midway through this past spring semester, I received a notification that our CJP group on campus was on the verge of launching a BDS Referendum campaign. At that moment, I knew it was the perfect opportunity for me to preserve the peaceful atmosphere on my campus as well as standing up for Israel, a country that I have loved since I was a little kid.  Fortunately, we were able to thwart this referendum at its embryonic stage. It never made it to our Student Government’s ballot box.

Our experience with BDS had made us realize that victory on campus calls for a vibrant and diverse ally network. Going forward, our pro-Israel group has made many plans to ensure that we have formidable coalitions and networks so that we can effectively replicate our success in the future.

For me, standing up for Israel on campus is my own way of defending the country I love. Through this act of Zionism, I feel a deeper connection to the Israeli people and to our Jewish homeland.

I am a forgotten Jew.

My roots are nearly 2,600 years old, my ancestors made landmark contributions to world civilization, and my presence was felt from North Africa to the Fertile Crescent — but I barely exist today. You see, I am a Jew from the Arab world. No, that’s not entirely accurate. I’ve fallen into a semantic trap. I predated the Arab conquest in just about every country in which I lived. When Arab invaders conquered North Africa, for example, I had already been present there for more than six centuries.

Today, you cannot find a trace of me in most of this vast region.

Try seeking me out in Iraq.

Remember the Babylonian exile from ancient Judea, following the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE? Remember the vibrant Jewish community that emerged there and produced the Babylonian Talmud?

Do you know that in the ninth century, under Muslim rule, we Jews in Iraq were forced to wear a distinctive yellow patch on our clothing — a precursor of the infamous Nazi yellow badge — and faced other discriminatory measures? Or that in the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, we faced onerous taxes, the destruction of several synagogues, and severe repression?

And I wonder if you have ever heard of the Farhud, the breakdown of law and order, in Baghdad in June 1941. As an AJC specialist, George Gruen, reported:

“In a spasm of uncontrolled violence, between 170 and 180 Jews were killed, more than 900 were wounded, and 14,500 Jews sustained material losses through the looting or destruction of their stores and homes. Although the government eventually restored order… Jews were squeezed out of government employment, limited in schools, and subjected to imprisonment, heavy fines, or sequestration of their property on the flimsiest of charges of being connected to either or both of the two banned movements. Indeed, Communism and Zionism were frequently equated in the statutes. In Iraq the mere receipt of a letter from a Jew in Palestine [pre-1948] was sufficient to bring about arrest and loss of property.”

At our peak, we were 135,000 Jews in 1948, and we were a vitally important factor in virtually every aspect of Iraqi society. To illustrate our role, here is what the Encyclopedia Judaica wrote about Iraqi Jewry: “During the 20th century, Jewish intellectuals, authors, and poets made an important contribution to the Arabic language and literature by writing books and numerous essays.”

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Over this past winter break, I had the opportunity to be a part of ZOA’s Student Leadership Mission to Israel. For two weeks, campus activists and student leaders from all faiths were given a comprehensive look at the situation in Israel.

From meeting with elected members of the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) to visiting Palestinian Arabs and Jews who work together in large production factories, we were able to hear stories from a wide range opinions and perspectives. This diversity also helped give us the tools with which to empower ourselves as we advocate for Israel on our respective college and university campuses.

Even though a main focal point of the mission is to present “the facts on the ground” so to speak, during a discussion session, a fellow student asserted that it was not the facts that make the strongest case for Israel, but rather the conveyance of emotions.

As a political science major and someone who considers himself a rational person, I found this quite troubling. After all, what more could one need outside of the facts? It was only later that, with a bit of added nuance, some deep and meaningful dialogue, and introspection, that I realized how true this student’s statement actually was (and by default, how wrong I was to disagree).

Increasingly, we find ourselves living in a “post-facts” society where hateful literature like The Protocols of The Elders of Zion is assigned as required reading in classrooms and Jews are consistently scapegoated for ludicrous conspiracy theories like training undercover killer sharks all the way to stealing Kim Kardashian’s jewelry (all real-world events).

Around the end of the trip, I had the chance to go to a concert in Tel Aviv with a cousin of mine. I have had plenty of experience rapping in Israel and around the world and I personally knew the rappers on stage, but as I stood on the second floor of the Barby, listening to the music playing and staring out at a multi-ethnic sea of people that represented the colorfully rich mosaic of Israeli society, all getting down to music rapped in Hebrew, it hit me.

I felt a wave of emotion breathing life into all the facts that I had learned during the trip. It was ten years to the day from my first summer spent in Israel, mostly in Tel Aviv, in which my love affair with Israel began. This was when I knew I could experience a Zionism that was entirely my own.

Today, I can say with certainty that a true advocate of Israel is not born of facts alone and neither do facts a good advocate make. It is personal experience that gives someone the passion to fight for a country, which regularly faces insurmountable odds.

To defend Israel on campus means going against the grain in such a profound way that, it is not only students who will antagonize you, but even academics and faculty members. I personally experience this on a regular basis. When I hear biased professors who have never even been to Israel distort the facts and demonize Israel to a student body who is generally more receptive (and apathetic) than not.

It was not just “the facts” that led me to challenge a particular professor at my university who teaches a class of over 500 students. This professor originally hails from Lebanon, and his brother is rumored to be involved with Hezbollah. His blatant distortion of the situation as well as the emotional tie that I felt, led me to need to defend Israel even in an academic realm, which could have cost me my grade and/or GPA.

I am proud to have fostered a Zionism that was built from equal parts personal experiences in Israel, and amongst my fellow Jews in the Diaspora, as well as through hevruta study of our sacred text, the Torah. The beauty of Zionism is its ability to serve as a platform for a wide and ever-growing range of ideas regarding Jewish peoplehood and sovereignty.

Israel is where all people can live their Zionist dream freely. I was fortunate over the years to have been able to weave my personal story, which include victories and failures with Israel’s story, and create my own personal Zionism.

Indeed, facts are excellent tools, yet it is emotion, which inspires one to act courageously. It seems that Zionism is always seen in the context of conflict, but in that smoke-filled and hazy room in south Tel Aviv looking over the pulsating crowd of Israelis of all colors, I realized that Zionism and Israel are much more than that.

At the end of the day, all the advocacy and conflict is in defense of freedom. In a corner of the world dominated by religious fundamentalists and brutal dictatorships, Israel serves as a beacon of freedom. It is a country in which its citizens are free to pursue life, liberty, and happiness regardless of their race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation. It is this freedom that drives us to advocate for Israel.

The conflict and its details are merely in defense of one thing, freedom. In Israel, a person is free to pursue his dreams in a society, which will support him in doing so, even under the threat of terror and murderous intentions by some of Israel’s surrounding neighbors.

To be an advocate for Israel is to be an advocate for freedom. Without this foundational feeling guiding us through the war of accusations, it is difficult to find meaning in all the facts. With this feeling however, the facts are illuminated and serve to stoke the flames of our passion to defend Israel and rise to the defense of the only true democracy in the Middle East. Advocating for Israel is advocating for freedom. Once a person can understand and truly feel that, it is then that the facts take life and that person realizes just how important it is that we fight for Israel.

Feel free to apply for the next ZOA Student Leadership Mission to Israel and begin creating YOUR personal Zionism! https://campus.zoa.org/student-leadership-mission-to-israel/