JOSH Siegel and Zach Silverman are two courteous and well-spoken young men sophomore and junior at CU, finance and international affairs majors, respectively with a very big ambition.
Its absolutely our goal to make CU the most pro-Israel campus in this country, says Siegel who shares with Silverman the co-presidency of an accredited campus organization called Students for Israel at the University of Colorado.
Siegel volunteers a self-analysis that is every bit as bold as his ambition is big.
At this point right now, he says, I can safely say that were probably doing that.
While some might see such comments as boastful, Siegel and Silverman do not, nor do they come across as being in any way bigheaded. Their positive thinking is an integral part of a proactive and to coin a phrase anti-negative approach to their mission.
Theyve been on that mission most intensively since the beginning of the current fall semester at CU, after they were asked to take over the reins of a student group that was already several years old but which had never really gotten particularly active or attracted more than a handful of students.
Old friends who hail from Centennial Siegel and Silverman were debating partners at Cherry Creek High School the pair had been active in the group earlier, part of the five or six students who regularly showed up for meetings and activities.
This year, they decided that Students for Israel needed a significant boost.
One of the first things they did was draft a down-to-earth mission statement that articulated their intention to educate, inform and engage students, faculty members and the Boulder community at large about a multitude of Israel related issues.
They followed that up with a petition that was similarly eloquent in its brief clarity. It reads, in its entirety: As a student leader at the University of Colorado, I support the USIsrael relationship.
I support continued investments with companies that do business in Israel.
I maintain a position that Israel has the right to exist and defend its borders.
In no time at all, they managed to get more than 150 CU student leaders including the student body president and the presidents of campus Democrats and Republicans to sign.
Siegel and Silverman, both of whom have volunteered for AIPAC activities in the past, have wasted no time demonstrating a knack for organization.
Just a few weeks after becoming co-presidents, they are attracting a core group of 15-20 students to the groups bi-monthly meetings. Although there is not a formal, dues-paying, membership structure, Students for Israel keeps an email list of some 30 students and has a Facebook page with more than 100 students signed on as supporters.
We have to keep it in relative terms, Silverman says, because when I was a freshmen, wed get, like, six people to show up. Last year, it was more like three.
Students for Israel, in other words, is clearly waking up.
Siegel says that the timing of that awakening is crucial, considering the significance of such current Israel-related issues as the ongoing Boycott-Divest-Sanctions movement on hundreds of American campuses and collegiate activism generated by the Palestinian Authority bid to gain UN statehood recognition
Theres a lot going on there and were trying to really educate our students on campus as to how they can get involved in supporting Israel, says Siegel, emphasizing the proactive dimension of the groups entire approach.
We want to be a proactive movement at the university. We dont want to react to anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism on campus. Thats not what were about.
SO far, Students for Israel has certain divestment activists Siegel and Silverman point to off-campus sources but that, and the whole BDS effort, seem to have just kind of shut down, in Siegels words.
In fact, they say, CU today is a far cry from such notoriously anti-Zionist (and some say even anti-Semitic) campuses as the University of California-Irvine and Torontos York University.
Our anti-Israel sentiment is very inactive, Siegel says. We dont have any of those groups that are really actively pursuing anti-Zionism on campus.
Silverman reports that such stagy anti-Zionist campus events as death-ins (where students symbolically drop dead to illustrate Israeli oppression of Palestinians) or mock checkpoints have yet to take place at CU.
And were lucky to not have that, Siegel adds. It makes our group a lot stronger to not have anybody trying to put us down.
There are, at least at present, no indications that the university is even considering divesting from Israel. In fact, Siegel points out, the CU Board of Regents has stated that they do not intend to take any action on the issue, which is exactly what they should do.
Theyre not going to make a super-political statement and divest from Israel just because one external community member in Boulder decided that he wanted to push for it, Silverman says.
Beyond that, they point to their own rising numbers and the number of signatories on their petition to make the case that CU-Boulder is, in simple terms, not a very anti-Zionist place. A number of their active supporters, in fact, arent even Jewish.
Silverman doesnt believe that evangelical Christianity has anything to do with these non-Jews pro-Israel stance. Its motivated more, he feels, by curiosity about an important and relevant topic.
Its something interesting that theyve heard about but they dont necessarily know about. They want to get involved with it because theyre curious.
Siegel says that the main challenging facing Students for Israel is not virulent anti-Zionism but uninterested apathy.
Political apathy is the biggest problem at CU, he says.
You would think that Boulder means a very liberal campus with a lot of liberal students trying to push these liberal causes. And they dont. There is a lot of political apathy at CU, but actually we see that as an opportunity to reach out to students and to educate them on the issue.
THE fact that there is currently no big anti-Israel bugaboo on the CU campus and that apathy might be stronger than antagonism doesnt mean that things will always remain the same, Siegel and Silverman say.
When and if things grow more tempestuous in Boulder, they want Students for Israel to be ready.
We hand out brochures with facts, Silverman says. We have conversations with students. Weve sat down personally with the president of college Democrats and the president of college Republicans, the student body president. We have one-on-one conversations, just educating them, discussing how they can get involved, asking them for their support.
And its been unanimous. Everybody has helped out, everyone has supported us. The student body president of CU went to the AIPAC policy conference last year and will be going again in March.
Silverman feels its significant that that particular student leader is a non-Jew, with no ties to the organized Jewish community. As for Students for Israel itself, the co-presidents add, it also has no formal ties with the organized
Jewish community, although it sometimes works in conjunction with such groups as AIPAC, Stand With us and the David Project.
Nor does it receive any funding from organized Jewry, they say, although the group is applying for grants.
This policy of non-affiliation frees up the group to be able to offer a comparatively open-minded and unrestrictive approach. At its meetings, virtually any and all perspectives on Israel and the Middle East are welcome for debate and discussion.
The fact that Silverman is a very big Democrat and Siegel is more to the right, they say, helps create an environment were we can work together and foster debate and bounce ideas off each other, Silverman says.
It means that you guys are all welcome, regardless of whether you think there should only be Israel, and no two-state solution, or if you believe in a two-state solution. Youre more than welcome to have those opinions and share them.
There is, of course, a firm foundation that governs the groups activism.
The bottom line right now is that we support the US-Israel relationship, Siegel says, so no matter what your belief is in terms of Israeli politics or settlements or terrorism or anything, the bottom line for Students for Israel at CU is that we support the US-Israel relationship.
Implicit in that bottom line is that the State of Israel has the right to exist, but there are few philosophical restrictions beyond those basic commitments.
Were very focused but were also very broad, Siegel says.
And because we dont have any of that bottom line in terms of Israeli politics, Silverman adds, that allows for anybody of any sort of Israeli political view to come in and be a part of it.
FOR Silverman, leading Students for Israel is the most effective way for him to honor his personal and extremely emotional obligation to defend Israel from faraway Colorado.
As opposed to joining the Israeli army, this is how I can best support Israel, and thats by diminishing the falsehoods against it. There are so many people out there with false opinions or false facts and I want to be there to make sure that the truth is out there.
It worries Siegel that terrorist organizations like Hezbollah are spending huge amounts of money to fund anti-Israel groups and activities on American campuses.
They recognize, from across the world, that to fight this battle theyre going to have to change the minds of students on college campuses across the United States. We have the obligation to present facts and support the US-Israel relationship.
In the United States right now, the hot spot for pro- or anti-Israel sentiment is on colleges and universities. Thats where the action is taking place. As students, we may be younger than a lot of Zionists in this country Im 19 and Zach is 20 but we understand that there is a need for us on college campuses across the country to support the US-Israel relationship in any way that we can, to reject the falsehoods that the media and other groups present.
Copyright © 2011 by the Intermountain Jewish News
