Israel, Gaza & the Jews Makom North American Campus Tour August-December 2014 – Final Report

Overall, nearly 80% of participants felt that the seminar met their expectations to a moderate degree or higher.

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“Thank you so much for offer-ing it -- I am re-turning to cam-pus feeling more empowered!”

- seminar participant

The seminar's goals were for participants to:

Process and unpack the events of summer 2014

Learn new frameworks with which to consider the basic themes at the root of the conflict

Receive practical training to hone their abilities to work with students around these issues

Leave with a heightened sense of confidence in talking about Israel, Gaza, and the Jews

Makom ran 28 seminars

for staff from over 36 campuses

to a total of over 315 participants

In the aftermath of Operation Protective Edge, Makom collaborated with Hillel International to set out on an

extensive North American campus tour, running half-day and (in a few cases) day-long workshops on "Israel, Gaza

and the Jews" for Hillel staff, other Jewish campus professionals and student leaders. These workshops, which were

coordinated and marketed to the field by Hillel International, gave participants a safe space to share their own

feelings and opinions about this summer’s events in Israel; a 4-point tool for talking about any Israel-related

headline in the context of Jewish identity; practice in talking about "just war" theory and "asymmetric warfare"; and

easily graspable strategies to invite and navigate complicated conversations about Israel.

The content of the seminar was resonant: it looked at a topical event from current affairs, and helped participants

dig deeper into the issue to reveal the broader issues underpinning them. In many cases, the seminar helped

participants prepare for tough conversations on campus.

In addition to the campus audiences we reached, there were four regional trainings (in Washington, D.C., Los

Angeles, Miami, and Orlando) for shlichim,

staff from the senior Israel team at Hillel as

well as Federations.

More recently, Makom adapted and took

this seminar on the road to different

countries, including the UK, South Africa,

and Hungary. This report does not include

data from seminars outside North America,

whose results were tabulated separately.

Albany American Jewish U Baruch Binghamton Boston University Brooklyn Brown Indiana U at Bloomington Johns Hopkins Kent State

McGill Orange County Ohio State Ottawa Pittsburgh Rutgers San Francisco Silicon Valley Swarthmore Temple

Tufts UC Berkley UCLA UCSD Université de Montréal University of Florida University of Maryland University of Miami University of Pennsylvania University of Toronto

Campuses reached include:

pretty ambitious for a short 1/2 day seminar!

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In their own words… The MAKOM seminar was….

“What are the most significant things that you learned or experienced during the seminar?”

You don't have to agree with policies and you are allowed to ask the hard questions

Instead of small details, work towards helping the person arrive at their own conclusions by bringing

up better and deeper questions.

I thought the [Makom Matrix] was an incredibly important framework for the conversation.

[Understanding] which people we are targeting and how we get them from point A to point B was an

incredibly useful conversation.

I appreciated dissecting hatikva and figuring out what each of those terms meant and what they

meant for me individually and for different student groups on campus.

Thinking of uncomfortable Israel topics in terms of להיות עם חופשי בארצנו

In a 22-item questionnaire that sought to compare participants' responses before and after the seminar, we

found that there was positive movement as a result of the seminar on nearly every item. The following chart lists

the 5 statements which showed the highest increases between pre and post questionnaires. The numbers

represent the average scores on a 1—5 scale where 1 was “not at all” and 5 was “to a very great extent”.

Given the fact that the seminars ranged in length from day-long to half-days, these results are especially

significant as it can be difficult to achieve any real movement among participants in such a short period of

time. It should also be noted that most of the items with significant positive movement reflect the seminar’s

stated educational goals.

Question PRE POST

I feel confident in having conversations with students about the events in Israel of this past summer 3.59 3.86

I have an understanding of the issues at the root of the Israel-Gaza conflict 3.7 3.94

I feel prepared to have conversations with students about the events in Israel of this past summer 3.61 3.89

I feel that Jews around the world can affect what happens in Israel 3.73 3.95

I feel that I understand what happened in Israel over the summer 3.8 3.99

“…You really provided us a very important toolbox for dealing with very big questions…I have already received so many positive re-sponses from participants and we all agreed that this is a workshop in which everyone should take part.”

- Amir Bavler, Israel Fellow, Hopkins Hillel

76% of those who answered said they wanted

to be added to Makom's mailing list.

“…We all acquired great tools and have taken away a great deal of value. Our Jewish students and broader Ottawa Jewish community appreciate your efforts!”

- Scott Goldstein, Executive Director, Hillel Ottawa

What We Learned:

We hope these seminars

will be the beginning of a

longer term relationship

between Makom and the

campuses. In particular, we

have received substantial

interest in the 4-point tool for talking about Israel (4HQ), and are working to make sure this will lead to a more

substantive training process around this topic.

We found that the participants in many seminars urged for fewer specifics of Gaza and were more keen to

address the general challenge of Israel education on campus. While the immediacy of the conflict was what

attracted campuses' interest, participants made it clear to us that a more general in-depth training in Israel

engagement is a pressing need.

Since most of the workshops were on 4 hours long, there was an

overwhelming sense that participants needed more time to work through

such complex issues. Recruitment and funding for longer retreat-format

training workshops must be sought.

Press: Thanks to The Jewish Agency's marketing department, this initiative

was picked up in the Times of Israel. However, ideally more local press and

media attention could have been coordinated.

Engagement with the Jewish Agency Israel Fellows to Hillel: Though not

every campus we visited was host to a Jewish Agency Israel Fellow to Hillel,

in many of the campuses that had Israel Fellows, the Fellow played a key

role in coordinating the seminar and making it happen. This was especially

impressive given how early in the year the seminars were, and we are very

grateful for their effort.

In addition, with the help of Hillel International, local community Shlichim,

shinshinim, and/or youth movement shlichim were invited and matched to

participate in the seminars (in total, over 30 non-campus shlichim

participated). We look forward to many more – ad hoc and more

strategically planned – opportunities

for training and enriching shlichim.

With heartfelt thanks to Hillel for partnering

in this fruitful, collaborative endeavor.

“…Makom’s thoughtful, deep and nuanced approach to the conflict made a deep impression on our program staff and our Israel student leadership…They left the workshop energized and just two days later jumped on the opportunity to use Makom's exercises and materials in their own group discussions. At a time when emotions are high on campus, Jonny struc-tured a session that brought "more light and less heat" into the room.”

- Rabbi Jeffrey A. Summit, Ph.D. Neubauer Executive Director, Tufts Hillel

Two noteworthy responses to the question

“What would you change about the seminar?” included:

(1) a desire for more general/basic/background information on

the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and

(2) more in-depth training in implementing the Four Hatikvah

Questions beyond the immediate Gaza conflict.

In addition, many respondents felt the seminar was too short

and cited the need for more training, practical applications,

role playing, etc.

What additional topics, issues, materials, or opportunities would help you in your work?

“More professional development so that we can continue learning how to engage our students and have them want to talk and learn more about Israel”

“Providing Hillel professionals and other Jewish communal leaders with [more] op-portunities to talk about Israel among them-selves”

“More MAKOM material”

It was very nice to speak about [the Gaza Conflict] with young Jewish professionals. It was clear that

many of them needed to open up about it. - seminar participant

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