December 9, 2009
Rob Goldberg, Hillel Vice President of External Affairs, reports back to the Coalition on the results of the Blocking Iran Task Force.
Exam Time at the ICC
It’s finals time. Anyone who has gone through the experience of opening a bluebook (for the older generation; for more recent students, perhaps, an iBook) knows the simultaneous anxiety and thrill that result from being asked to contemplate a question and respond intelligently, in an hour and a half period, with a comprehensive analysis on a subject matter that has occupied thoughts and attention for months, if not years. Everyone is aware that a grade, a judgment on a semester’s worth of work, and future ramifications are on the line … but try to relax, no pressure.
Events at the ICC’s Fall Consultation, which we convened on Thursday, December 3, were similarly anxiety-provoking and thrilling. Looking ahead as a Coalition to the coming winter semester, we asked ourselves: what will the next six months bring for the environment regarding Israel, both in Israel’s region as well as in the tone and focus of debate on campus? Even more importantly: what can we, as a Coalition of pro-Israel organizations, do in the next six months to educate and empower activists on campus to confront those looming challenges?
As with any exam, the questions were difficult and required skillful and creative responses. To address those questions, the Coalition partners in attendance divided into four working task forces: promoting Israel and Israel’s legitimacy on campus; increasing opportunities for study abroad and other long-term programs; expanding outreach to the fraternity and sorority system; and joining students to the broader community effort to block Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons. The Coalition asked those four groups to meet for an hour and a half and to then report back on specific, measurable, achievable goals that task forces would commit to achieving in the next six months. Given that mandate—and as to be expected—the discussions were as vigorous and animated as they were constructive and positive.
Other columns from the ICC staff describe the task forces regarding Israel’s legitimacy, study abroad, and Greek outreach. Without minimizing the impressive effort of any of those groups, I want to report on and commend the work of the task force on Iran, for which I served as the ICC staff professional. Under the leadership and vision of the task force’s co-chairs, Jonathan Kessler of AIPAC and Carolyn Greene of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and with the participation of representatives from Hillel, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the American Jewish Committee, and the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, the task force set among its goals to explore establishing and empowering a national student council on Iran. Through that council and other mechanisms, the task force set as its objectives to engage students and to position the campus as an asset to enhance the broader community effort to block Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons. Those bold initiatives, arrived at by a broad coalition of those willing and engaged within the pro-Israel community to effect change on campuses, have the potential to excite, energize, and engage student leaders in the most immediate and pressing issue affecting the character of Israel’s future existence. Without lapsing too much into hyperbole, I believe it is the type of effort that has the potential to define a generation, and I eagerly anticipate working with the task force and reporting on its progress in the coming months.
Having witnessed and participated in the Iran task force, and having heard the reports from the other task forces afterward, I couldn’t help but feel gratified and inspired by the hard work and dedication evinced by our Coalition partners. Their commitment—not just in helping to set the task forces’ goals and direction at the Consultation, but, even more importantly, in seeing those objectives carried out in the coming months—is what will determine our future success. It’s too early for a final grade for the coming semester, but with the dedication that our Coalition partners demonstrated on December 3, I feel good about our prospects.
Stephen Kuperberg
Executive Director