ENGAGING WITH A

WORK IN PROGRESS:

AN INTERVIEW WITH SHARON ASHLEY

I n November 2010, Hillel announced the formation of a new Center for Israel Engagement to meaningfully engage more students with Israel and to enhance their understanding and connection to the Jewish State. In August, we spoke with Sharon Ashley, Director of the Center for Israel Engagement, to learn more about the goals, outlook and direction of the Center.

CONTACT: How does the approach of the Center for Israel Engagement differ from Hillel’s past approach to Israel engagement?
Sharon Ashley: Hillel is now looking at Israel in a more holistic way. The mandate of the Center is education, engagement and advocacy. We still believe we need to elevate the conversation in the advocacy sphere, but there was a realization that not all students are interested in straight-up, traditional advocacy. So the mandate is to bring a fuller, more textured Israel experience to students and to find new avenues of meaning for them to engage with Israel in ways that have personal resonance. Israel is a dynamic, exciting place, but it’s also a messy, noisy place. All of that needs to come into the package of what Israel is. Israel is a work in progress, and I would love students to be engaged with that work in progress.

Israel is a dynamic, exciting place, but it’s also a messy, noisy place. All of that needs to come into the package of what Israel is. Israel is a work in progress, and I would love students to be engaged with that work in progress.

I will add that I think that education and engagement are precursors to advocacy. My goal for the Center for Israel Engagement is to weave Israel more naturally into the conversation in Hillel and in the wider campus culture. Any time you do that, you are positioning Israel in a much more positive way, and therefore you’re acting as advocates for Israel. It’s a softer advocacy perhaps — this doesn’t invalidate the need for serious proactive initiatives about issues such as delegitimization — but it means we’re thinking about Israel all the time and not just responding to crises, and not just on Yom Ha’atzmaut or on Falafel Night. It means that Israel is going to be a more natural part of how we experience Jewish life.

How do you plan to innovate beyond the traditional sphere of advocacy?
We’re creating two signature programs: Focus:Israel, a year-long Israel course that will bring the content and texture of Israel to 24 Hillel professionals across the country, and <Centers for Excellence, in which we’ve selected four campuses, after a highly competitive process, to serve as campus laboratories for superlative, innovative and creative Israel programming and as benchmarks of what staff and students should be doing in order to drive Hillel’s Israel agenda. And we’re not just talking about Israel, but working with Israelis. We’ve placed 50 Israel fellows on campus who bring a living, breathing Israel to students in new and different ways.

Beyond that, the Talk Israel tent initiative is a new program launching this semester. Twenty campuses are putting up tents for two days in September to engage in civil discussion about the challenges Israel faces with the looming Palestinian UN vote and the changing Middle East landscape — what it means for Israel and what it means for students who have questions and not answers. It’s a venue where we welcome the conversation, because the Center for Israel Engagement aims to educate not only the serious student leaders on Israel, but also students who don’t always feel welcome in the conversation because they don’t know enough or they think differently or they have questions. They’re still welcome.

In the recent past, campus discussions and debates on these issues have often devolved into shouting matches. How do you hope to accomplish respectful and civil discussion?
There can’t be a bouncer at the door, but the rules of the tent are civil dialogue. It’s not a Hyde Park moment. It’s not for soapbox pamphleteering and advocating, but for civil conversation. University codes of conduct will be posted in the tents. Hillel staff knows how to engage students in conversation and can ensure that when it gets too heated, it tones down, stops or veers to another direction. So if someone comes and says “I don’t support Israel,” he or she is going to have to listen to someone who says Israel is in the family of nations and isn’t going anywhere. Neither one is allowed to yell at the other, and we’ll have trained facilitators on the premises to manage the conversations and keep them civil.

The point is not to engage in polemics but rather to wonder about what the challenges mean — and not necessarily to determine the answers to Israel’s pressing questions right now. We will talk about the political situation, what is the Hamas Charter, what is the Palestinian UN Resolution if we can get it, what is the Declaration of Independence of Israel, that Israel strives to be a shining democracy in the Middle East — but there are still going to be questions. This is Hillel’s attempt to take back the space. To say it isn’t about the noise, let’s have a conversation.

What do you say to people who will argue that with the Hamas Charter, and saying that Israel is striving to be a democracy, they’re Hasbarah tents? There will be more documents than those. But I will be bringing primary sources for people to read and determine what their position on the issue is. I am not bringing advocacy materials to the table. I am not saying Side A is good and Side B is bad, and this is why. There are certain facts out there. We need to understand them, to contextualize them and to figure out what they mean in the context of 2011. Not every document is a Hasbarah document. Some documents are just facts that you need to figure out what to do with. Nothing is going away in the Middle East. This is a moving story and we need to figure out how to approach it. This is what Israel is doing as well. It’s trying to figure out how to deal with the challenges it faces.

So if B’tselem wants to include materials?
It is not an advocacy tent for the left or the right. So if you are a partisan organization of either side, this is not the moment for you. You are welcome to sit around and talk, but not to argue your case.

I will say another thing. Hillel believes in a viable Jewish state that is a member of the family of nations. We have guidelines that explain that we are unabashedly pro-Israel in that sense. Having said all that, there are still going to be students who have questions. So this isn’t a tent that says if you want a one-state solution you get to throw your weight around saying that. But I don’t want to stifle conversation before it begins. I want to welcome students who say, “I support Israel, I just don’t understand it.” I want to give them a venue as well.

My goal is not to alienate people. I can’t guarantee that, but that is my goal. I do feel that the conversation has been stilted so far. I think that people aren’t necessarily able to have questions for fear of alienating somebody or being alienated. I’m hoping that that’s not going to be the case here.

What will the Center for Israel Engagement say to students who might feel that Israel is not a part of their Judaism, and they would prefer that the main Jewish student organization not touch it?
I don’t think any of us — and I’ve lived in Israel for over 30 years — I don’t think we have it all mapped out yet, necessarily. I would like to offer a new way of thinking about Israel to students who say “I have no connection to Israel.” They can turn it down in the end. I don’t want to force them to love Israel. But I do want to bring it to them in new and interesting ways so they can know what they’re turning down. I’m not sure they do yet.

I think in 1948 something changed in the Jewish experience. There’s been a distancing of American Jews from Israel over time, and it’s not just because left-wing students don’t agree with Israel’s policies. It’s because they don’t connect to it. They’re disengaged. I would like to engage those students in conversation. What I would say to them would be: “My politics are not important, but I’ve been living in Israel for a long time, and every time I vote I don’t necessarily get the government or politician I want, but I still believe in Israel. Israel is a work in progress, and all these years later, I am still excited about being part of a country that is still evolving.” That is something I think students can be a part of as well, they just need to find the way it resonates for them.

There are a lot of things wrong with America, but students don’t turn off from America. I’m not trying to pretend Israel doesn’t have warts. Israel has warts. But if you look at any person or any country, it is a combination of good and bad. I believe that Israel can be seen through a wider lens as well. And that’s my role, to bring that wider lens to the campus. ■

Sharon Ashley is Director of Hillel’s Center for Israel Engagement.