Young Zionist Voices Book Launch: Reclaiming Identity & Leadership Post-October 7
Explore the voices shaping the next generation of Zionist leadership in this impactful panel from the Z3 Conference 2024.
Moderated by Eylon Levy, listen in on this conversation between Gen Z Jewish leaders and contributing writers to the book Young Zionist Voices: Alissa Bernstein, Charlie Covit, Maya Platek, and Avi Gamulka.
From campuses worldwide to the streets of Jerusalem, these young leaders tackle the pressing challenges facing Jewish and Zionist identity in the aftermath of October 7. They discuss the surge in antisemitism, the evolving relationship between American Jews and Israel, and the importance of reclaiming and redefining Zionism for their generation. This dynamic discussion sheds light on the resilience of young Jews around the world in navigating hostility and division while embracing their Jewish and Israeli identities with pride and purpose. A must-watch for those invested in the future of young Jewish leadership and Zionism.
Video Transcript
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:33:53
On college campuses around the world, the bullies feel that this is their moment to assert their presence in the yard. The threats, the violence, the intimidation. None of these are new. But in the moment, after 10/7, they feel energized and emboldened to push Jewish students around. And a new generation of Jewish students are rising up to tell them that you can pick on the Jews, but the Jews are no longer easy pickings.
00:00:33:58 - 00:00:52:57
The guests on stage today are some of those Jewish students and leaders of the Jewish tomorrow. They understand that they are not just Gen Z, they are Gen Zionists.
00:00:53:02 - 00:01:20:21
And that being a Zionist means standing up to the bullies. You don't let them push you around. You don't let them call you names. You don't let them make you be ashamed of who you are. You stand up for yourself. You stand up for each other, and you stand up for your Jewish brothers and sisters in need, wherever they may be.
00:01:20:25 - 00:01:56:47
Alissa, Charlie, Maya and Avi are four of the eight contributors who are here at the conference today of Young Zionist Voices. I was too old to write a contribution at the grand old age of 33. So, David, very, very kindly letting me write the forward. and today we're going to have a conversation. We're going to catch up and take stock on what has happened over the last year, and specifically what lessons we have learned about how to fight back, about how to stand up to the bullies and take control and take responsibility.
00:01:56:47 - 00:02:17:48
Because as we'll discuss, one of the most inspiring things that has happened since 10/7 has been the way that the Jewish community, and especially the young generation, have taken responsibility and not waited for other people to seize the gauntlet. They've seized that themselves, and they are determined to drive a new agenda, to take responsibility for our future.
00:02:17:53 - 00:02:36:58
So I'll let you introduce yourselves, and then let's get cracking with an interesting conversation. Alissa. Hello, everybody. Alissa Bernstein, I'm the assistant director of American Jewish Committee here in Los Angeles. I’m a Bay area native. My bat mitzvah party was here, and I'm so excited for being here with all of you. And thank all of you for being here today.
00:02:42:58 - 00:03:03:25
Hi, everyone. My name is Charlie Covit. I'm a sophomore at Harvard. and I'm here because, I started my college experience in a pretty bizarre time. as you all know, I ended up writing in the Wall Street Journal, being on CNN and Fox really just sort of a mini, very small-scale version of what Eylon was doing and I'm excited to be with you all today.
00:03:11:12 - 00:03:33:37
Hi, everyone. I'm Maya Platek. I'm a senior at Columbia University, where I am the student body president of my undergraduate college. I am Israeli, but I was born and raised in Japan, and I've been doing my part in advocating for Israelis and Jewish students on campus.
00:03:33:42 - 00:03:58:41
Hi everyone, I'm Avi Gamulka. I live in Jerusalem. I grew up in Jerusalem. I'm a student, a second-year student at Hebrew University. And, and I do some work with the World Zionist Organization getting ready for the World Congress in 2025. Thank you everyone. Avi my first question is for you. We're going to talk a lot today about the American Jewish community’s relationship with Israel and Zionism.
00:03:58:45 - 00:04:21:52
But you are there on the ground in Israel at a time when your connection to Zionism is not about pushing away hostile debates on campus. It is literally about how we sustain and build a country that is under attack on seven fronts, because the Iranian regime now is pursuing a strategy of trying to make life in Israel intolerable, impossible.
00:04:21:52 - 00:04:44:12
I don't know how people raise children there, when every day there are rocket attacks from 4 or 5 different directions. And it means that for the young generation of Israelis, those who have the chance to take that relocation and move abroad, they need to connect to a real sense of meaning and purpose about why they want to live in this country and what they are fighting for.
00:04:44:17 - 00:05:12:56
So since 10/7,what changes do you see within Israel about how the young generation are connecting to that Zionist mission and understanding why they have to stay and fight and not take the easy option of taking that relocation in Silicon Valley? Well, the first step to solving any problem is defining the problem itself. And we have to recognize that in some ways, they've already succeeded, the Iranians.
00:05:13:03 - 00:05:34:22
Life in Israel is unbearable. And you have to know that. And we have to recognize that. Ee have to look at in the eyes and not stray away and not, you know, gloss over the fact that life in Israel is quite unbearable. And it leads to a national feeling and a sense of despair.
00:05:34:27 - 00:06:14:55
And that is by far the most common emotion in my generation, young people, and not limited to the streets of Israel. So, we have to recognize that this extreme lack of hope, this despair, is real. It's palpable. It exists. It's out there. And without recognizing that, it will be very hard to move forward. Part of that, and let me take a step back and acknowledge that that is not entirely true demographically.
00:06:15:00 - 00:07:04:39
The Israeli public is more divided than one can even imagine. And I think you can imagine pretty well, it doesn't take too much. and there are many people for whom that experience is not true. That is not their lived experience. And part of the issue in solving this problem is that people are living very different realities within the small, tiny little borders of our country and having very different experiences of their reality, whether it's, you know, Arab Israelis who, I won't speak on to their lived experience, but clearly have a different relationship with hope and despair when it comes to
00:07:04:43 - 00:07:35:11
the Israeli public. Whether it's ultra-Orthodox, Haredi Jews who are a growing share of society, whether it's the Israeli versions of QAnon who live in their own warped experience. And so when I say that the common feeling of despair and lack of hope are a real issue that we need to tackle, it's not entirely true, but it is true for most of us,
00:07:35:16 - 00:08:05:47
common sense, young folk. And I would say that the first step is defining the problem. x There is an experience of of living in Israel that is, that is essentially and at its core, different than living in a place where, where your reason for waking up in the morning, the reason for existence is your quality of life. And it is a return to the reason to wake up in the morning that is larger than oneself.
00:09:32:59 - 00:09:59:01
Alissa, I think there's a similar question, analogous question confronting young American Jews because the hate movement around campuses, and increasingly encroaching on other public spaces, is trying to make Jewish life impossible for Jews. It is saying at most, you can have conditional acceptance as Jews and do your challah and do your havdalah and kiddush,
00:09:59:05 - 00:10:20:41
if you separate yourselves from Israel. If you tell your cousins in Israel and Tel Aviv burn, we will throw you under a bus. And some people are taking that opt out. Some people are taking that opt out, whether it's going all out for the pro Hamas movement, whether it's shamefully calling on the Biden administration to suspend arms sales as young Israelis are dying, fighting on seven fronts.
00:10:20:45 - 00:11:01:51
But there is a movement that says we're going to make it impossible for you to live proud, Jewish lives because if Israel, God forbid, people accuse it of genocide, there is the threat that every young Jew is seen as being guilty by association unless they disavow Israel. So I wonder what you have seen over the last year about how young Jews are reconnecting to a sense of meaning and community, and rediscovering what it is that they are fighting for and waking up for every day as Jews, when there is so much pressure on them to keep their heads down, to fade into the wallpaper, and even worse, to defect to the dark side.
00:11:01:56 - 00:11:25:25
Thank you for that question. I think one of the biggest things that I have to say for young Jews, but for all, is that the pressure to succumb to being the kind of kind of appealing Jew that our anti-Zionist, anti-Israel colleagues, peers, hopefully not friends, but the people around us want us to be is to say, this isn't the truth.
00:11:25:30 - 00:11:47:18
You may think that Jews or Zionists are one way that we believe in supporting genocide, that we believe in settler colonialism, apartheid. And it can feel scary to confront these things when people around you who you trust and admire and respect, believe these things to be true. But it's important to start by saying that isn't true.
00:11:47:19 - 00:12:07:47
That's like someone trying to tell me my hair is blue. It's not. I know it's not blue. So why would I succumb to you trying to convince me otherwise? I think being an effective advocate, being a proud Jew starts with understanding where you come from. What is Judaism? Where do we come from? What does it mean for me to be a Jew?
00:12:07:49 - 00:12:29:55
What was my Jewish experiences and upbringing? How do I connect to this community, this practice? If you don't know who you are, you're never going to be able to stand up for yourself. If you don't know who your people are, you'll never be able to stand up for your people. Understanding where you come from is the baseline toolkit, but it's a very strong and effective toolkit for teaching other people who you are.
00:12:29:59 - 00:12:52:02
We cannot allow ourselves to be defined by our adversaries. We have seen decades where that was the case, where we felt, you know, I don't want to put a target on my back. I don't want to experience prejudice. We just got to this country from either, you know, Europe or the Middle East and North Africa. I just escaped genocide.
00:12:52:06 - 00:13:20:46
I don't want to cause any trouble. And for years, this assimilation and this being kind of a more appetizing Jew protected us. But we now live in a world where Jews have a lot of strength, a lot of power. We do not have to be vulnerable or subject ourselves or hide ourselves from hate. We have relationships with people in power who can help protect us.
00:13:20:51 - 00:13:39:12
We know who we are, and the people who are most important who are in power. They know who we are, too. We've made that known, I think where we have failed and where we need to improve is sharing with our peers around us on a grassroots level, telling them what Judaism means to us. What was Shabbat dinner like at your home growing up?
00:13:39:17 - 00:13:57:25
What was Hebrew school like? Sure, maybe you didn't want to go to school again at 6 p.m. after hours of school. But when I was 14 years old, I remember my gym teacher saying, you don't have to run the mile today. Walk with me. I want to ask you some questions. I'm married to a Jewish man. I'm not Jewish.
00:13:57:37 - 00:14:16:36
We want to raise our son Jewish. I don't know if we should send him to Hebrew school. What do you think? I said, well, I just I just had my bar mitzvah, so I've done the whole shebang. I've been studying. Lord knows it's a lot of homework outside of my regular school and homework. But I said, my best friends are from Hebrew school.
00:14:16:41 - 00:14:32:45
My very best friend of 15 years, she's somewhere in here today, who also works in the Jewish world. I met in Hebrew school. We went to summer camp together. We worked at summer camp together at Camp Ramah, Northern California.
00:14:32:50 - 00:14:52:14
I love my Ramah-niks. But being able to talk to people because I had that that upbringing, I was able to say he might not love going to more school at 6 p.m., but he will thank you for it in ten years, because he will understand who he is and where he comes from, and he will be able to tell his friends who he is and where he comes from, and what the Jewish community is like.
00:14:52:19 - 00:15:14:18
And there's a there's a quote from Abraham Lincoln that says, and my, my brother used this as his senior quote in high school. And mine was really dumb. So I a little bit regret not choosing something smarter. But it says, “I do not like that, man; I must get to know him better”. This is the reality. If people do not like you, it is because they do not know you.
00:15:14:23 - 00:15:37:10
So if they do not know you and you do not know yourself, that's where we fail. So get to know your community, go back to school. You know, send your kids to Hebrew school, send them to Jewish summer camp. Bring them to the JCC. And then they can be the next generation of fighters and leaders and advocates.
00:15:37:11 - 00:16:02:07
That's such an important point that precisely when there is so much pressure on young Jews to back off, now is the time to lean in and to engage in more Jewish activities, and specifically in activities, Jewish activities that are increasingly Israelized. Because Jewish culture is now increasingly Israeli culture. We see it in the cuisine, the food that we've had here, the music, what counts as Jewish music now.
00:16:02:18 - 00:16:27:00
And that will create the real strong cultural connections. Maya, you go to one of the most hostile campuses against Israel, Columbia. You've had a few problems there. An intifada problem. And I want to ask you, what do we do about the Jewish anti-Zionists? I interviewed your colleague, professor Shai Davidai, on my podcast State of the Nation.
00:16:27:00 - 00:16:50:06
I asked him this question. He said, I have no problem with them because I know for every one Jewish anti-Zionist student, I get 20 emails from their families saying, please do something. They’re a shandah. So I know so I know for every one anti-Israel Jewish student, he has 20 Zionist family members. But these are people who have have fully defected to the dark side.
00:16:50:06 - 00:17:15:50
And I feel that the debate isn't even— they don't think that the Jewish people have a right to their own country. They don't think we're one people anymore. They look at their brothers and sisters in Israel and say, we're just not the same tribe. We're not the same people, we're not the same collective. And that means the problem is much, much deeper than misperceptions about this military action policy in Gaza.
00:17:15:54 - 00:17:48:17
What do we do about them? So you're very, very right in the sense that I would say that the Jewish movement has become more and more Israeli, especially on our campus. I would say that the world is completely different between before October 7th and after October 7th, especially within Jewish communities. Like I would say that a lot of Jews that identify as Zionist are much more willing to acknowledge their Israeli identity, their relationship to Israel nowadays than they were ever before.
00:17:48:22 - 00:18:14:52
You see, I honestly never really had conversations about me being Israeli, about our Israeli identity as Jews until after October 7th in these spaces. But at the same time, there's always been an anti-Israel sentiment issue at Columbia. And I would say a lot of other institutions and it's very, very easy to be pressured into trying to disconnect yourself from that sort of environment.
00:18:14:57 - 00:18:43:32
And unfortunately, when you have faculty members that are continually legitimizing the end of the existence of Israel, that are continually villainizing our existence and are trying to make it so that Jews don't necessarily feel comfortable in acknowledging their Israeli identity. You come across this problem where you see this divided people amongst Jewish communities, especially amongst younger Jewish communities who no longer identify as much with Israel.
00:18:43:45 - 00:19:07:04
But at the same time, I do want to say, but it's not just not identifying with Israel, it's not identifying with the sense of a global Jewish tribe. Yes. So I would want to say quickly that firstly, many of these Jews are a really drastic minority. They're probably 1 in 10 about that. It is an issue. It is a complete issue.
00:19:07:04 - 00:19:27:18
That doesn't sound like a drastic minority. That's quite a significant minority. And ultimately, I think that going forward, the only way forward is to make sure that we are proud in our Jewish identity, that we reiterate the fact that we are part of one tribe. I would say that it's been an effort for the last few decades.
00:19:27:18 - 00:19:53:41
This didn't just start now. This has been an effort to continually misinform people, to continually divide people across the diaspora, and breaking up Jewish identity away from Israel, away from one tribe. And we have an obligation to make sure that when looking forward, we're educating future Jews like future Jewish leaders, future Jewish students, that they feel entirely connected to their roots, they feel entirely connected to their people.
00:19:53:46 - 00:20:19:46
And ultimately, the reality is it filled with a lot of these students. And I'm not sure what we can do beyond having difficult conversations with them. Some of them are too far gone, but it's not too late to change course. I think that going forward, we have to prioritize younger generations and building this narrative that we are a part of one tribe to rebuild our connection to these people.
00:20:19:46 - 00:20:39:36
Honestly, a lot of people have redefined themselves within this one tribe identity. After October 7th, I think a lot of people actually lost their way and came back to it after October 7th, which means that it's not too late. There are a lot of people that are still willing to change their minds. Charlie.
00:20:39:40 - 00:20:51:56
Hopefully some of these people will be willing to change their minds, but it's not easy in a context. And you go to Harvard, so I use the word context.
00:20:52:01 - 00:21:16:59
In which we have a whole ideological superstructure that is telling a hostile story about us that divides the world into a process oppressed victims victimizes and places the Jews, not just Israel, Jews on the side of the oppressor and of the victimizers. That is a story, a way of thinking that they have fallen into. And it's a threat that we have to be open and acknowledge this.
00:21:16:59 - 00:21:42:05
And Zack spoke about the need in Israel for a commission of inquiry, and there needs to be soul searching in the diaspora about what went wrong. We missed it. The diaspora did not take this threat seriously and was therefore shocked when October 7th happened and there was an outpouring of support for Hamas. They didn't understand where it was coming from because they hadn't been following the intellectual undercurrents.
00:21:42:10 - 00:22:10:21
I wonder why you think that the Jewish establishment in the diaspora missed those intellectual undercurrents, such that they were shocked when what happened happened on campuses after October 7th? Well, look, I think that there's a couple different problems embedded there. The first is that, you know, it's really interesting to look at the events calendars of all of the different centers at Harvard.
00:22:10:25 - 00:22:44:53
if you go to the center for Middle Eastern Studies or even centers that you wouldn't think of anything to do with Israel, like there's a health and human rights center, there's a center for equal justice in America or something like that. And if you just look at the events that they're having, almost every single one is about, you know, lack of abortion rights in Gaza in the context of the last of the last year, because of the war, or there was just an event on, femicide on scholasticide, they've come up with all of these different forms of -cide, that they can use in relation
00:22:44:53 - 00:23:07:56
to that, that it's not just a genocide, in case you weren't aware. And so we're facing this battle, for many of the most powerful professors, at Harvard to really convinced Harvard and all these other schools, Columbia, to really show kids that Israel is really the embodiment of evil in the world. So that's the first thing, right?
00:23:07:56 - 00:23:28:32
It's this very powerful current. And there really is not anyone fighting back against it other than, you know, maybe Hillel and Chabad having the occasional, you know, Israeli government official come speak that, you know, maybe 20 kids will show up to. But the other thing is that we talk a lot about, you know, these, quote unquote, “as a Jew” Jews, right?
00:23:28:32 - 00:23:46:42
The Jews who are, you know, supporting Hamas. And you know, or have this sort of fantasy idea that Israel could just be a binational state, you know, from the river to the sea. Because if you look at the rest of the Middle East, right. One majority Muslim state has really worked out for the Jews, right? Whenever we've tried that so far.
00:23:46:47 - 00:24:09:33
So that that's another great idea, student of history. So you know that we're fighting back against that. But the overwhelming majority of Jews at Harvard, and I think on most of these campuses really just don't care. You know, they hear people screaming intifada, and they hear us saying, no, this is anti-Semitism. And they're thinking, you know, I want nothing to do with this.
00:24:09:33 - 00:24:28:47
You know, I want to go and get drunk and get a job at McKinsey. Or maybe come to Silicon Valley if they're a little bit more creative. That's what their focus is in that order. Get drunk and then a job at MIT, right? Or maybe. Maybe both at the same time. It depends on the context.
00:24:28:51 - 00:24:46:05
And, you know, Hillel and Chabad and the existing Jewish organizations, as great as they are, they're not appealing to those Jewish students that probably, you know, if anything, think that these, you know, the 10 to 14 kids are pretty annoying but really want nothing to do, you know, don't want to deal with the politics, don't want to deal with the stress and the stigma.
00:24:46:18 - 00:25:07:48
And there is real social stigma of being associated with Israel. You know, I think that these, you know, the Israeli kids at Harvard are some of, you know, the coolest kids. There's none of them in this sort of, you know, elite at Harvard instead of finally instead of, fraternities. There's these things called final clubs. You know, there's not a single Israeli, in a final club, and there's really only a handful of you know, observant Jews.
00:25:07:53 - 00:25:35:29
So there's a stigma. And I think a lot of students think, why deal? So what we've been trying to do at Harvard is we're thinking now, you know, and this is really student led, how can we give kids an incentive to care about Israel and the Jewish people? So one thing that we've been trying out in the last year is we've been bringing in, you know, amazing entrepreneurs and businesspeople, who have a connection to Israel, who whether that's, you know, they got they were served in the army or they started their career in Tel Aviv and bringing them to speak on campus.
00:25:35:34 - 00:25:56:58
and in the last few months, we've had 400 kids, half of them not Jewish, come to these events with, you know, entrepreneurs from both Harvard and MIT. you know, the two best schools in the country. I'm sorry if that offends the Stanford people in the room. but, you know, to come in here, you know, because at the end of the day, you know, you have to give kids what what what is the other side?
00:25:56:58 - 00:26:16:56
Have to offer, right? They have, you know, coffee Thursday. Right? There's not even a real thing. That's that is a real thing. Can you explain? Yeah. I mean, you know what? Coffee first. Coffee. A Thursday is a longstanding tradition at Harvard. it's pretty obvious everyone wears a coffee, and it really has become, you know, you see, a lot of, you know, the good looking kids on campus are wearing their coffee.
00:26:17:01 - 00:26:37:14
You know, we I was talking about it with some some of my Israeli friends over the summer and we said, it's not even like they give free baklava, you know, like they're literally all that they're offering is a coffee that you have to, pay for. And by the way, they're all made in China. and, some, some of them may be Indonesia, in fairness, but, you know, they're definitely not from, they're definitely not from anywhere in the Middle East.
00:26:37:19 - 00:26:53:44
And we thought, you know, there's so much that the Jewish world has to offer, right? So much amazing talent and opportunity. Right. And fun. And so what we really need to think about going forward. And this is what's the response to Keffiyeh Tuesdays. Right. So I mean, our response has been we've actually called it Entrepreneurship Wednesday.
00:26:53:44 - 00:27:13:06
You know, because there's so much on such an entrepreneurial spirit, you know, both here in the Valley and Israel. Right. Obviously the highest, you know, startup per capita rate in the world, you know, when all that they have to offer is coffee. And we have so, so much more as a people, as Jews and as Israelis, you know, there's no reason that we shouldn't be winning this battle.
00:27:18:01 - 00:27:37:12
And that's a critical point, I think, showing your peers that the bullies and the Nazis have gone too far and that they want to tear things down while you want to build, and that Jewish students are the ones who want to help everyone else prosper and grow and not tear down the institutions that have that have built this country.
00:27:37:17 - 00:27:59:02
Alissa, following on from that, I wonder how you see advocacy as having changed over the last year. Not specifically the overall message, but the tactics. A lot of people are looking at the pro-Palestinian movement and saying, wow, they really know what they're doing. That's so on brand. They're so on message. There, so organized. Maybe we need to do more like them.
00:27:59:02 - 00:28:21:03
And then other voices that will come and say, no, we shouldn't try to emulate them. But there are new patterns of community organizing, of speaking out of new organizations and clubs. What are you noticing how Jewish students are mobilizing now in a different way, to speak up? And we'll start with big picture, and then I'll go to specific tactics, because I think the former leads into the latter.
00:28:21:08 - 00:28:38:43
As I mentioned before, primarily what we need to be focusing on is ensuring that our kids are rising. Generation of leaders who love being Jewish. I was raised in a home where we had Shabbat every week. I maybe didn't always love that. I couldn't hang out with my friends on Friday, but my parents did. You can bring them to Shabbat.
00:28:38:52 - 00:29:05:41
They can come here. And Friday night became the warmest, most amazing Jewish experience. I went to summer camp. My best friends are from summer camp and from Hebrew school. All of my closest friends are Jewish, not because I want to only sequester myself to Jewish communities. It just so happens that they tend to be my favorite people. And with that baseline, when I got to college, I went to Occidental College and I witnessed anti-Zionism and antisemitism.
00:29:05:54 - 00:29:24:36
I already had a fire inside me that inspired me to speak out. That inspired me to email the administration and say, you're not protecting us and you're not supporting us, and we need help. You know, when you're serving latkes and bacon as the Jewish option on Hanukkah, that's a problem when you're serving bacon. That was a real thing.
00:29:24:36 - 00:29:54:51
They served bagels as the Jewish cultural option on Pesach. I mean, it's it was pretty unbelievable. So I had an understanding of where I came from, which allowed me to speak out. That baseline is super important. Everything else, in my opinion, are kind of complimentary, but I need to really press that. The most important thing is raising our kids to really love being Jewish, because they'll want to stand up for themselves more.
00:29:54:56 - 00:30:27:38
In terms of tactical response, I know I'll get there. we have started to do a better job of our grassroots organizing. Historically, we have done an exceptional job at our top-down approach, meeting with members of our government, with CEOs of tech companies, and other leaders in the private sector. Top-down approach. Great. We do a really good job of the closed doors kind of quiet advocacy, but a lot of people don't know what's being said behind those closed doors.
00:30:27:49 - 00:30:45:31
And there are a lot of people who don't have access to those meetings, who don't have relationships with these elected officials or CEOs that want to do something, and they don't know what, what to do or how to channel their energy. We have started to do a much better job at saying, here's what's happening at your local city council.
00:30:45:31 - 00:31:05:25
This is a cease fire resolution that's coming up that's riddled with misinformation. This is what time they're meeting. This is the location. Here's a template testimony that you can give go forth and raise hell. And we started to do that more, which is great. We've also started to do a better job on social media, but we need to do even better.
00:31:05:25 - 00:31:24:45
That's one of the things, I think, that we can learn from our adversaries. By no means should we fall into the trap of, spreading misinformation. Because it's frankly a lot sexier and easier to spread. We're great at nuance, but people are really bored by nuance. We should not fall into that trap, but we need to do a better job at making advocacy appealing.
00:31:24:51 - 00:31:48:51
Fun, and energizing. It is very easy to rally behind hate, but it also you lose a lot of energy doing that. We have our entire advocacy movement centered on love, which can be a bit of a slower process, but I think it's something that energizes us and allows our advocacy to be, much more fruitful long term. We have to take it day by day, but we have to do a better job at getting people excited.
00:31:48:51 - 00:32:06:38
And I think on social media, that's one of the things that we really need to learn from our adversaries. Thank you. Speaking about getting people excited, I want to end on a message of hope, but I don't want to end with the cliche of asking what makes you hopeful? Because, as Rabbi Amitai Friedman taught us, hope is optimism plus a plan.
00:32:06:43 - 00:32:32:09
So I want you all, on one leg, to explain to the people in the audience today what they can do to empower other young Zionist voices like you, and to create more. I'll start with one of my own. There are some astonishing Gen Zionist heroes who since October 7th have done incredible things, often paying the ultimate price.
00:32:32:09 - 00:33:00:29
On October 7th. I want to see every Jewish school in the world naming a room in honor of a Gen Zionist hero. I think that Aner Shapira, who tried to save his friends by throwing seven grenades out of a rocket shelter until the eighth, took his life and probably Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s arm as well, deserves a room named after him in every school.
00:33:00:34 - 00:33:18:41
I was in Vancouver just now, one of their alumni, Ben Mizrahi, was killed at the Nova Festival using his experience as a combat medic to try to save lives. I think every Jewish school needs to have a Ben Mizrahi room as well.
00:33:18:46 - 00:33:48:58
Give young Jews a way to honor the heroes and the role models their age. So standing on one leg in one sentence, how can the audience today empower more young gen, young Gen Zionist voices like you lean into the discomfort that can mean a million things. And I know it sounds vague, but when you feel that you've reached your limit, when you feel that everybody's against you, when you feel like there's nothing more that you can do, lean in and do more for the people around you who want to act but don't know where to start.
00:33:49:09 - 00:34:15:28
They only need one person to show them that it's possible to act in the face of hate when you are fearful and when you feel uncomfortable. So when you feel your most uncomfortable, step forward even further. Thank you, Alissa. Charlie. You know, my parents are super secular and they always say that, the reason they sent us, me and my siblings to Jewish school is because the Jews are the best club in the world, and they wanted us to get to be part of that club.
00:34:15:33 - 00:34:34:14
So what I would say is that make sure you know that you're welcoming people into that club. You know, when you're interviewing someone for a job or you're recommending someone, for a position, you know, at a university or as a student who's applying to college, you know, really reinforce for them that they're part of this club and that that's why you're helping them out.
00:34:34:19 - 00:34:51:15
You know, that's what we're trying to do at Harvard, and that's what I think we have to be doing at campuses around the country, is showing kids that they are part of really the best family in the world. As Groucho Marx said, I wouldn't want to be a member of any club that will have me. Empower people to be able to tell the truth.
00:34:51:15 - 00:35:11:34
Unfortunately, the reality is a lot of students and a lot of younger generation members are nervous about speaking out about the reality. So despite that discomfort, kind of along the lines of what you were saying, we need to encourage people and incentivize them to be strong enough to tell the truth, even if it is at the cost of a social cost.
00:35:11:43 - 00:35:33:38
We have to make sure that these students and those people that are standing up to what hatred and to standing up to what's incorrect about the consequences that they may face, that they have a reason to continue standing up. Because as more people stand up, more people will follow along. Thank you. Maya. Avi, give us a plan from the Holy Land.
00:35:33:43 - 00:35:57:40
I want to echo what, Alissa said at the end of her, remarks and say, speak truth to power. there we've had a moment of clarity on the forces of good and evil, of right and wrong, over the past year. We know now with perspective on where everybody stands on those issues, and we need to speak truth to power.
00:35:57:45 - 00:36:21:26
My unpopular opinion is that politics are something to be leaned into and not shied away from. for the for the TV show nerds out there, I like to say politics are one part The West Wing, one part House of Cards and one part Veep, and they create a vacuum together that is both inspiring and dark and sometimes downright clownish.
00:36:21:35 - 00:36:41:45
And if you leave that vacuum to other people, it'll just be filled with frustration and darkness. And it is our job to, you know, roll up our sleeves. get off the fence, as Zack mentioned earlier, and dirty our hands and get involved. Thank you. Z3, please give a round of applause to our Gen Zionist panelists.
