Message from National Director
Sometimes I still can’t believe that I am Hasbara Fellowships Canada’s National Director.
When I was a student at the University of Ottawa in 2003, in the lead-up to the founding of Israel Apartheid Week and the BDS (Boycott Divestment Sanctions) movement against Israel, Hasbara Fellowships Canada was there for me, and it changed my life. Not only did it provide the most intensive training, education and resources that I could imagine, but on a more fundamental level, it made me care in the first place. I grew up in Richmond Hill, and it wasn’t my plan to become a pro-Israel student activist. But looking back nearly 15 years later, I have immense gratitude to Hasbara Fellowships Canada for helping me see that a major problem existed, and that I had to be a part of the solution.
And today, spending my days working with our Campus Advisor Ariella Daniels (An alumni extraordinaire herself), working with the best and brightest student leaders, empowering, training and guiding them on campus, helping them to proactively tell Israel’s story in the face of a vicious anti-Israel movement, well, there’s nothing I’d rather do.
Today, we have nearly 40 current Hasbara Fellows on campuses across Canada, in addition to our Social Media and Campus Media Interns. These students, given the most cutting-edge and intensive training available, are at the forefront of a very serious situation which will have an impact for generations to come.
Like many hundreds of others across Canada, I owe an incredible amount to this organization that put students first, and empowers us to be ambassadors for Israel on campus today, and pro-Israel leaders for the rest of our lives. It is a privilege to help change the world, campus by campus, student leader by student leader.
When I was a student at the University of Ottawa in 2003, in the lead-up to the founding of Israel Apartheid Week and the BDS (Boycott Divestment Sanctions) movement against Israel, Hasbara Fellowships Canada was there for me, and it changed my life. Not only did it provide the most intensive training, education and resources that I could imagine, but on a more fundamental level, it made me care in the first place. I grew up in Richmond Hill, and it wasn’t my plan to become a pro-Israel student activist. But looking back nearly 15 years later, I have immense gratitude to Hasbara Fellowships Canada for helping me see that a major problem existed, and that I had to be a part of the solution.
And today, spending my days working with our Campus Advisor Ariella Daniels (An alumni extraordinaire herself), working with the best and brightest student leaders, empowering, training and guiding them on campus, helping them to proactively tell Israel’s story in the face of a vicious anti-Israel movement, well, there’s nothing I’d rather do.
Today, we have nearly 40 current Hasbara Fellows on campuses across Canada, in addition to our Social Media and Campus Media Interns. These students, given the most cutting-edge and intensive training available, are at the forefront of a very serious situation which will have an impact for generations to come.
Like many hundreds of others across Canada, I owe an incredible amount to this organization that put students first, and empowers us to be ambassadors for Israel on campus today, and pro-Israel leaders for the rest of our lives. It is a privilege to help change the world, campus by campus, student leader by student leader.
