An Educational Mock Experience

On Yom Ha'atzmaut, students from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Club ran a mock anti-Israel fair to expose students to the type of anti-Semitic rhetoric students are experiencing on college campuses. ADL Chug members prepared arguments that are typical of the lies and distortions that permeate the world of academia and college campuses.

The objective of the fair was to expose our students to the type of rhetoric they will encounter on their future respective campuses. ADL members set up stations that focused on such hot-topics as apartheid, Holocaust denial, oppression, occupation, equal rights, and other corrupt arguments made by our enemies. For many students, this was the first time they had encountered this type of offense on their sensibilities, and they struggled to find responses. Some were outraged, while others offered thoughtful, cogent arguments. The fair was preceded by the showing of the movie The Thin Red Line, which illustrates the coordinated anti-Israel efforts on campus.

After the fair, Rabbi Elliot Mathias, Aish HaTorah's director of Hasbara Fellowships, demonstrated to our students the most effective ways to advocate for Israel.

Hasbara Fellowships is the largest and most comprehensive Israel education and activism program for North American university students. Started in 2001 in conjunction with Israel's Ministry of ForeignAffairs, Hasbara Fellowships was the first formal program for studentsbattling overwhelming anti-Israel propaganda on their campuses in thewake of the second Palestinian intifada. Ten years later, Hasbara Fellowships remains the largest program of this type. Hasbara Fellowships uniquely takes hundreds of students to Israel for 16-days of pro-Israel education.


The goal of the Hasbara program is simple: educate, train and motivate university students to be passionate, dedicated and effective pro-Israel advocates on their campuses. We firmly believe that proper Israel advocacy education is the most crucial component of a successful pro-Israel movement on campus. All other components of success for the pro-Israel movement -- including programming, materials, speakers, conferences, relationship building, and talking points -- depend on cultivating well-educated student leaders who can plan strategically and execute effectively.


Intensive Israel activism education is the core strategy of Hasbara Fellowships and remains exclusively our niche. Hasbara Fellowships brings hundreds of students to Israel every summer and winter; over 1,800 students from more than 250 campuses have benefited from the information, tools and confidence provided by the program. Hasbara Fellows return to their campuses as strategic thinkers, organizational leaders and innovative advocates, dedicated to the positive portrayal of Israel on campus.