Toronto day school students place second in AIPAC contest

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By Lila Sarick, Staff Reporter
 
From left, David Roizenman, Zach Weisleder and Ryan Render pitch their idea for a game at the AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington, D.C.

A team of students from TanenbaumCHAT took second place in a contest to design innovative approaches to pro-Israel advocacy, beating 30 university teams.

The Toronto Jewish day school was the only Canadian team, and the only high school, to enter the competition, which was sponsored by the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation. The final round of judging took place at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference, which was held in Washington, D.C., earlier this month.

Grade 12 students David Roizenman, Ryan Render, Zach Weisleder and Aaron Hirshberg designed a social media game modeled after the popular online trivia game, HQ. The students’ prototype, called ILQ (which stands for Israel Quiz), tests players’ knowledge of general trivia and then moves on to questions about Israeli innovators, sports figures, and culture.

READ: DOV LIPMAN – WHAT CAN WE LEARN ABOUT ISRAEL

“ILQ can change people’s perceptions of Israel,” said Weisleder. “When people see something linked to Israel, if they are anti-Israel, they’re not going to want to open it. This teaches them something about Israel.”

The game has not been developed yet, but the students and their staff advisors, Avital Aharon and Aviva Polonsky, hope to turn it into a reality. They envision a game that will offer prizes and feature entertaining guest hosts.

One of the contest requirements was that students partner with a non-profit organization. The TanenbaumCHAT students worked with Hasbara Fellowships Canada to develop the content for the game and hope to launch a test version in several Toronto schools. Once the concept is fine-tuned, they will apply for funding to develop the app, Roizenman said.

Robert Walker, the national director of Hasbara Fellowships Canada, said the project makes sense in a world in which people are glued to their smartphones.

“Gamification is a very popular trend in business these days. If that can work in the business world, there’s no reason it won’t work when we’re selling Israel,” he said.

This was the first time TanenbaumCHAT has entered the contest. Developing the project was an intensive endeavor, with the students working down to the wire to meet the deadlines. They learned they were finalists only two days before the conference started and hastily booked tickets to arrive in time for the AIPAC Shabbaton.

Gamification is a very popular trend in business these days. If that can work in the business world, there’s no reason it won’t work when we’re selling Israel.
– Robert Walker

Participating in the massive annual policy conference, which attracted 18,000 people, was an eye-opening experience for the students and staff, who heard talks from notable public figures, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley.

Many speakers specifically mentioned the 4,000 students attending the conference. “You could see how impactful the youth are. We’re going to shape pro-Israel culture in North America,” Render said.

The students and staff were also surprised by the number of TanenbaumCHAT alumni they ran into at the conference, many of whom were working as rabbis and community leaders in the United States and Canada. “You can see the foundation CHAT builds in Israeli advocacy and leadership,” Render said.

While it was the school’s first time entering the competition, it won’t be its last. The students say they hope to come back to work with younger students on next year’s entry and to continue developing the app.

TanenbaumCHAT’s strong showing and the AIPAC conference has created a buzz on campus and, ideally, the school will take more students next year, said Polonsky, who teaches Jewish history.

“CHAT is very pro-Israel and the idea there’s another place we can educate students is definitely in the conversation,” she said.

And while it would have been nice to win the contest, that was not the school’s only intention. “We had a goal of promoting pro-Israel thinking outside of the box and getting students and parents excited about Israel. We reached our goal,” said Aharon, the director of educational technology at the school.

Original post: http://www.cjnews.com/news/canada/toronto-day-school-students-place-second-in-aipac-contest

Who we support

Why I’m Optimistic About the Jewish Future in America

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Jewish history teaches us that it takes great leaders to overcome major challenges.

At the turn of the century, Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, founder of Revisionist Zionism Ze’ev Jabotinsky, World Zionist Organization president Chaim Weizmann, Israel’s first female prime minister Golda Meir, and Hadassah founder Henrietta Szold saw growing antisemitism and acted to lay the foundations for an independent Jewish state.

During World War II, Mordechai Anielewicz led Jews to fight Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, at the same time that Peter Bergson (a disciple of Jabotinsky) managed a heroic campaign to form a Jewish army to fight for the allies while raising awareness about the destruction of European Jewry.

A few years later, Col. Mickey Marcus, a tough Brooklyn street kid who built a strong reputation as an American military leader in WWII, left his home in America to help save Israel in 1948 and become its first modern general.
Today, the Jewish people face a new set of challenges.

Antisemitism is on the rise on the Right and on the Left. In the US alone, antisemitic incidents rose 67% in 2017 compared to 2016 – and in Europe, increases in antisemitic messages in media and social media has fostered a reality in which only half of Jews feel safe wearing visible signs of their Jewishness. A poll released in February 2017 by the Jewish Federation of San Francisco found that only 21% of millennials in their community are very emotionally attached to Israel, and only 26% think it is very important to be Jewish, reflecting disturbing trends we saw in the 2013 Pew Survey of Jewish Americans and other research studies.

The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, which seeks to eradicate the State of Israel, is being waged around the world. It is working to divide the State of Israel from the Jewish family around the world, transforming from the glue that unites the Jewish American community into a wedge that separates it.

These extreme challenges demand action. They demand great leadership from us the Jewish people in the Diaspora.

The Jewish American community needs to identify, encourage and support heroes of our time: our Mordechai Anielewicz, our Ben-Gurion, our Henrietta Szold, our Mickey Marcus and our Golda Meir. We need leaders who will ensure the Jewish future in America by engaging and inspiring the next generation to be courageous Zionist leaders, fight antisemitism and support the Jewish people in America and the Jewish homeland, which will always be in Israel.

I have great hope and optimism that these high-caliber leaders will emerge. This is because I meet them every day.
In my work as a pro-Israel philanthropist and activist, I meet with the next generation of pro-Israel activists – passionate, innovative and incredibly hard-working leaders – who are rising to meet the challenges of our time.

I see these leaders in the young people who return home from Birthright, energized by their new connection to Israel, with a new understanding about the necessity of instilling a strong Jewish identity in their children.

I see them in Israeli-American Council, where young Israeli-Americans are being activated as a living bridge between America and Israel, as they work to strengthen our American Jewish community.

I see them in the teenagers participating in the Tzofim and B’nei Akiva youth groups – many of whom eventually make aliya and serve in the IDF.

This month, I will see them in Washington among the hundreds of college students that the Milstein Family Foundation brings to the AIPAC Policy Conference.

These are the people who will shape the Jewish future.

Our job is to give them the platform to develop and the tools to succeed. All of us must support and empower the next generation of leaders with pride, courage, and resources. Why? If you are proud of your Jewish identity and heritage, you will be willing to fight and defend it. When you understand the history of your people, then you understand why it is so important for us to defend your community.

The task of being a great leader is not easy: leaders face isolation, ridicule and tough decisions. For instance, Jabotinsky was often condemned for his efforts to create a separate Jewish nation. But great leaders are necessary. We must invest in them, cultivate them and support them. This is how we support the next Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, and Henrietta Szold. This is how the next generation will be stronger than the last. And this is how the Jewish future will be secured.

The author is an Israeli-American philanthropist, national chairman of the Israeli-American Council, real estate entrepreneur and president of the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation.

Original Article published in The Jerusalem Post

You Can Now Experience Israeli Tour Spots On Virtual Reality

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If you haven’t had the opportunity to visit major Israeli tour spots, you can now experience some of them through virtual reality tours on the Virtually Israel 2.0 website.

A project of the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation and the MERONA Leadership Foundation, Virtually Israel 2.0 features the following videos:

Philanthropist Adam Milstein told the Journal in a phone interview that the idea for virtual reality videos came about three years ago, when virtual reality was becoming “very, very popular” and was clearly where the future is headed. They initially produced two virtual reality videos two years ago and they were very well-received among various Jewish organizations.

“We wanted to give people a much wider variety,” said Milstein. “We wanted to give them all the different things in Israel that will interest Jews and non-Jews, so we’re giving them a lot of tourist attractions.”

Milstein explained that they had a team of volunteers that went to those specific areas in Israel that took footage and pictures of the tourist sites from different angles in order to create the virtual reality videos. He added that more videos could be on the way.

“Based on our success, we’ll do more things that people feel we didn’t cover in the first ones,” said Milstein.

Milstein hopes that the videos cause people to understand the truth about Israel.

“Israel is not a war zone. It’s not a place of the conflict between the Palestinian and the Israeli,” said Milstein. “It’s a place of peace and prosperity and happiness and innovation, a place that anybody should go and enjoy. We’re showing Israel the way it is, the real colors, we don’t let the media contaminate the image that we have on Israel.”

“The main takeaway is we’re using innovation to tell the truth about Israel.”

The videos are all available on 2D and can be seen in 3D on platforms like Google Cardboard.

Original post: Jewish Journal

BY AARON BANDLER | PUBLISHED JAN 31, 2018

Milstein Family Foundation, MERONA Leadership Foundation Significantly Expands Virtual Reality Video Program to Showcase Israel’s Most Popular Destinations

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A revamped website will allow people anywhere in the world to experience a variety of sites in Israel

LOS ANGELES–(BUSINESS WIRE)–This week, the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation, in partnership with MERONA Leadership Foundation, launched Virtually Israel 2.0—quintupling the number of free Virtual Reality (VR) videos of Israel’s most popular sites—in response to enthusiastic support from a variety of viewers across the country. The launch is highly anticipated after a video teasing the expansion of the program went viral.

Virtually Israel helps bring Israel to life for anyone who wants to explore Israel, anywhere in the world.

Through cutting-edge technology, Virtually Israel helps bring Israel to life for anyone, anywhere in the world, who wants to explore the country. This one-of-a-kind free Virtual Reality experience showcases historic and lesser-known attractions across Israel—from Jerusalem’s Old City and the Tower of David to Tel Aviv’s beaches and startup offices.

“People love this experience because it shows the beauty of Israel,” philanthropist Adam Milstein said. “Through this amazing technology, people can experience the Jewish State without even leaving their living room. I am very proud to expand this program and ‘bring’ more people virtually to Israel.”

The 360-degree videos are hosted on YouTube and Facebook and can be viewed in 2D on any platform, and in 3D using VR viewers such as Google Cardboard or Samsung VR gear. The YouTube videos can be viewed in 4k (the highest resolution possible), and the Milstein Family Foundation also partners with a variety of groups around the world, that are interested in screening the videos at maximum resolution.

There are 11 videos available: Beaches, Bible Lands Museum, Dead Sea Scrolls, Independence Hall, Jerusalem & the Dead Sea, Sarona Market, Startup Nation, Taglit Innovation Center, Tel Aviv & Jaffa, Tel Aviv Balloon Ride and Tower of David Museum.

About the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation: The MFF works to safeguard and strengthen the Jewish People and the Jewish State by igniting Jewish pride and courage in the next generation, providing pro-Israel Americans with knowledge and expertise to advocate for the State of Israel, and bolstering the critical U.S.-Israel Alliance. Learn more at http://milsteinff.org/.

About MERONA Campus: MERONA Leadership Foundation’s mission is to support pro-Israel activists of all backgrounds, on campuses and beyond, by providing programming, professional guidance and funding for student-led initiatives while collaborating with pro-Israel nonprofits and engaging pro-Israel community leaders.

Contacts

For Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation
Media Contact
Nathan Miller or Rachel Bracker
310-571-8264
[email protected] / [email protected]

Original pst on Businesswire: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180122006605/en/Milstein-Family-Foundation-MERONA-Leadership-Foundation-Significantly 

Pride and Courage: Gifts for our Children in 2018

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This month, we recounted the heroic story of the Maccabees, the Jewish rebel group that lived in the Land of Israel in the second century BCE, which makes clear that we must have pride, courage, and passion to fight for our survival and freedom as a people.

During the time of the Maccabees, the Land of Israel was dominated by Greek armies. Many Jews, especially the cosmopolitan elite, sought to assimilate into the Greek culture as a road to political and economic power.

The Maccabees – a small group of Jews determined to protect their Jewish identity and homeland – used their wits, courage, and determination to defeat the Greeks and establish a free Jewish nation in our homeland, notwithstanding their tiny numbers and inferior weapons.

Today, in the face of existential challenges, how can we find inspiration in the Maccabees’ example? How do we redouble our commitment to strengthen and secure the future of the Jewish People and the State of Israel? During this season of giving, what are the most important gifts that we can give to each other – so that future generations will live in freedom, security, and prosperity?

With these questions lingering in my mind this holiday season, I have put together a list of the eight most important gifts that we must give in every Jewish family in 2018 so that our people will continue to thrive.

Gift one: Pride

There is nothing more powerful than understanding who you are and taking pride in where you come from.

If we can’t instill Jewish pride in our next generation, there will no one left to carry on our tradition and face our future challenges.

Every day, I feel incredibly fortunate to be a Jew – to come from a tradition that is the original source of the Western values, and to be a part of a people who, while tiny in numbers, have accomplished extraordinary things in so many fields.

I am proud to be connected to Israel, our Jewish homeland, a country that became independent against all odds and serves as a beacon of light and innovation, making the rest of the world a better place. Through education, community involvement, and family heritage, we must foster a sense of pride in being Jewish and a pride in the State of Israel, in our children and grandchildren.

Gift two: Courage

The State of Israel, the Jewish People, and the Jewish faith have only survived because relatively few Jews were willing to stand up and fight for what they believed in when our Jewish homeland, our people, our traditions and our values were threatened. It’s not always easy or convenient to be a proud Jew or to be a supporter of Israel. Yet, we need the courage and conviction to stand up and speak out against those that threaten the future of the Jewish state.

Gift three: Persistence

Alongside courage, the Jewish People also need to be consistent and persistent. It’s not enough to stand up once; we need to cultivate a next generation that has the strength and will to stand up, again and again, and fight against our detractors. Whether you are building a business, working toward a degree, raising a family, or advocating for your community, the ability to work hard and keep going strong in the face of adversity may be the single most valuable skill.

Gift four: Knowledge

Over the course of centuries wandering as a small and stateless people, we learned to invest in the greatest resource: knowledge. The Jews have prioritized education above all else. Today we must continue this investment, imparting the knowledge that not only gives our children the ability to thrive in 21st-century careers, but also that grounds them in Jewish wisdom, provides a moral center and makes them committed to family and community.

Gift five: Innovation

The Jewish propensity to innovate has driven inventions ranging from ethical monotheism to the Theory of Relativity to Waze. This has been the secret sauce of Jewish survival, allowing us to adapt and succeed in a wide range of cultures, countries, and eras. Empowering our children to think outside the box will be critical for their success in our modern information era, and for the survival of our communal institutions, which must adapt to remain relevant for the next generation.

Gift six: Belief in the Impossible

Although we are less than 0.2 percent of mankind, the Jewish People have been able to accomplish extraordinary things because of our belief that the impossible could be achieved. From Joshua’s conquest of the land to the Maccabees overcoming the Greeks, to the newly formed State of Israel defeating six Arab armies in 1948, we have held the belief that the impossible can be achieved against all odds. We must empower our children with this perspective, as they go out to fight for their dreams and contribute solutions to the challenges facing Jews worldwide.

Gift seven: Brotherhood

In the Talmud, it says that each member of the Jewish People is responsible for the rest. During challenging times, the proud and committed Jews always knew how to unite and support one another. In response to the many threats facing the State of Israel, the Israeli people join together as one united family that cares for and protects each other. We are infinitely stronger when we are united – religious and secular, in Israel and in the Diaspora, old and young.

Gift eight: Passion

Discovering and channeling your passion in life to make a difference in the world is the key to personal fulfillment. If you don’t make each day matter and don’t have the passion for how you spend your time and resources, you don’t have much at all. Each and every day, I strive to give my children and grandchildren the encouragement to discover their passion and purpose, and the support to channel that passion into careers, families, leadership, community and the country in which we all live.

As we look to begin anew in 2018, let us give and inspire all eight of these gifts – and many more – to enrich the lives of our young generations, strengthen our families and secure our common future. In doing so, together we can write a new chapter in the ancient story of the Jewish people.

The author is an Israeli-American philanthropist, chairman of the Israeli-American Council, real estate entrepreneur and president of the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation.

Original article featured in The Huffington Post

Israeli Americans can be the glue that builds a stronger Jewish community

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The Israeli-American Council’s Fourth Annual National Conference in Washington, D.C., held last month felt like a long-overdue family reunion. Enveloping warmth and a powerful sense of togetherness, the love for Israel was infectious, radiating to and from all the participants.

In the corridors of the Washington Convention Center, teenagers spoke with unique pride about their hybrid Israeli-American identity, rooted in the idea that they are deeply connected to their home in America while maintaining a strong affinity to their Jewish homeland in Israel.

Groups of Jewish-American and Israeli-American young professionals exchanged business cards and then headed to a packed dance floor, moving and shaking the steel floors of the convention center to the beat of Israeli music. A young Jewish couple —  the man from New York, the woman from Tel Aviv — joined with their 2-year-old and hundreds of other young families in a circle with picture books in Hebrew and English.

Groups singing Israeli songs blended with panel discussions about what it means to be Israeli and Jewish in America, centered around the idea that we were connected by the Israeliness in our character and the love for Israel in our heart. Many echoed the sentiment that Israeli Americans and Jewish Americans are one family, need each other and complement each other.

This sense of unity extended to the event’s political conversations. The politicians at the conference held views that spanned the ideological spectrum. They shared these radically different views on stage – in very frank conversations. All received thundering applause from the mixed crowd. In the many conference sessions and events, it was clear that Israeliness is a unifying force that can overcome political disagreements.

We live during a time of growing gaps and serious challenges in the Jewish community — both inside American Jewry and between Israel and the Diaspora. How do we address a declining Jewish population in the face of assimilation? How do we overcome divides among our different denominations, political orientations, ethnic backgrounds and geographic centers? How do we ensure that Israel is not a wedge that divides our community, but rather the glue that holds us together and strengthens us?

The nearly 3,000 participants in the Washington conference suggested the role that Israeli Americans can and do play as important partners for American Jewish institutions in addressing these questions and as bridge builders to the State of Israel and its people.

There are three unique value propositions that Israeli Americans — and groups like ours that represent them — can bring to the table for the Jewish community.

The first is our Israeliness, a character and multifaceted quality that brings together many aspects of our identity: Jewish values, the Hebrew language, Israeli culture, pride in our history and heritage, the unique accomplishments of the Jewish people and the State of Israel, and above all, a belief that “All the people of Israel are responsible for one another.”

Through Israeliness, our community is bringing new people into our communal conversations and re-engaging others from a wide variety of backgrounds. We understand the importance of Israel not just as a vibrant country and proud culture, but as a crucial part of our spiritual beliefs as Jews. We speak Hebrew at home and at shul — the same language with two unique and intertwined purposes. Our community offers new ways to engage with Israel and Judaism itself.

The second value proposition is our deep love for Israel, rooted in personal experience and an appreciation that it is not just the homeland of the Jewish people, but a source of our pride, common history, culture, courage, and strength. We recognize that Israel isn’t perfect but accept and support it without any preconditions.

As a result, Israeli Americans are uniquely equipped to advocate for Israel. The Israeli-American Council, for example, has worked to advocate for laws that keep states like California, Nevada, and Texas from allowing taxpayer funds to support groups that discriminate against Israelis with economic boycotts. In partnership with existing organizations like AIPAC and Jewish federations, the Israeli-American Coalition for Action and the Israeli-American community have acted to advance bipartisan support for the Taylor Force Act, the Israel Anti-Boycott Act and other important pieces of legislation.

The third value proposition is our willingness and ability to think outside the box. Israeli Americans have much to learn from the American Diaspora community about how Jewish culture and community can flourish outside of a Jewish state. Yet we are also contributing fresh perspectives that have brought a range of programs to American Jewish life – initiatives that are engaging not only Israeli Americans but also Jewish Americans of all ages.

By uniting Israeli Americans and partnering with existing Jewish-American institutions, we believe that we can strengthen the American communities we live in and build their connection to Israel. Our vision for the coming decades is optimistic: Where some see challenges and gaps, we see promise and opportunity to reignite Jewish life, re-inspire Jewish pride, and courage, and re-imagine our existing institutions so that they serve the next generation in our community.

By working together as one big Jewish family, Israeli Americans and Jewish Americans of all backgrounds can forge the future we desire.

(Adam Milstein is a co-founder and the chairman of the board of the Israeli-American Council.) 

Original post: JTA

Milstein Meme Competition Showcases Winning Memes

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The Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation is bringing pro-Israel memes to the world.

LOS ANGELES (PRWEB) DECEMBER 18, 2017

The Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation today announced the winners of their second competition for the pro-Israel memes. The Milstein Meme Competition brought together hundreds of meme-lovers from around the world – from U.S. and Israel, to Egypt and South Africa, to Germany, Romania, Kenya, and Denmark.

The winners included several memes that emphasized the love and pride of Jewish people in their eternal homeland, the state of Israel, such as the 2nd Prize Winner, Eric Fihman, whose Wonder Woman meme connected celebrity Gal Gadot to the “wonder of Israel,” the Capital City of Jerusalem.

Others emphasized the hypocrisy of Israel’s critics, including 1st Prize Winner Justin Feldman’s meme about Linda Sarsour and 2nd Prize Winner Elad Pereg’s meme highlighting the absurdity of describing Jews as colonialists in Israel.

“We received a wide range of unique and creative memes, which were funny, entertaining and often moving,” philanthropreneur Adam Milstein said. “This is only the second meme competition, but I am really impressed with the quality and quantity of memes we received, which are now available as a resource to be shared on the social media channels of our partner organizations and for the entire pro-Israel community. Our foundation is proud to initiate projects like this that encourage ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking, and bring together Israel advocates around the world.”

The contest opened to submissions on Nov. 27, the voting period began Dec. 1 and both submissions and voting closed on Dec. 8. Each participant was allowed to submit up to three memes, and the public voted on memes by clicking Facebook “reacts” — like, love, haha, sad, wow or angry.

The final winners were chosen by a panel of several star pro-Israel college and high school student activists that were hand-picked by our partner organizations. A total of $2,000 was awarded to the 18 contest winners, which received the highest number of votes, and won because they were deemed to be the most creative and original memes by the judging panel.

The Milstein Family Foundation partnered with 18 Jewish and pro-Israel organizations to sponsor the contest. To see all the submitted memes, go to http://www.milsteinmemes.org.

About the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation: The MFF works to safeguard and strengthen the Jewish People and the Jewish State by igniting Jewish pride in the next generation, providing pro-Israel Americans with knowledge and expertise to advocate for the State of Israel, and bolstering the critical U.S.-Israel Alliance. Learn more at: http://milsteinff.org/

Milstein Meme Competition Launches Today

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The Milstein Family Foundation will award cash prizes to meme creators who show the fun and funny side of pro-Israel activism by creating entertaining and shareable images.

Milstein Meme Competition Logo

The Milstein Meme Competition will give a chance for hundreds of pro-Israel meme creators to show off their skills and win cash prizes.

This contest is a fun and funny way for us to express our love and support for Israel. Our panelists are young people who are the foremost authorities in making and sharing memes.

LOS ANGELES (PRWEB) NOVEMBER 28, 2017

The Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation began accepting submissions to its worldwide competition for the pro-Israel memes today. The second Milstein Meme Competition will give a chance for hundreds of pro-Israel meme creators to show off their skills and win cash prizes totaling $2,000.

Whether funny, dramatic or poignant, memes are a cultural touchstone for Millennials and Gen Z. The contest will solicit image macros, one of the most popular forms of internet memes, which are images, websites or hashtags that spread virally over social media, often with slight variations. The contest will add to the pro-Israel “meme stash” generated by the first Milstein Meme Competition, which in 14 days had more than 110 people from a dozen countries on six continents submit over 300 memes, which received over 16,000 votes during the weeklong voting period.

“This contest is a fun and funny way for us to express our love and support for Israel,” philanthropist Adam Milstein said. “Our panelists are young people who are the foremost authorities in making and sharing memes.”

The contest’s public voting period will begin on Dec. 1. Each participant can submit up to three memes. The public voting will take the form of Facebook “reacts” — like, love, haha, sad, wow or angry. Both submissions and voting will end on Dec. 8 at midnight Eastern Standard Time.

After the period of public voting, the final winners will be chosen by a panel of 10 college and high school student pro-Israel activists. Cash prizes will be awarded to one first-place winner, two second-place winners, five third-place winners, and 10 runners-up. Winners will be determined by a group of student judges who were selected by the Milstein Meme Competition’s partner organizations. All of the winners will be announced Dec. 14.

“I saw how successful this competition was this summer and I am excited to be part of this impactful campaign,” said contest judge Melanie Ross, a student at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “I am looking forward to seeing a lot of creative ways to not only promote Israel as a fun and exciting place but to spread some light streaming from the pro-Israel community, showing that being pro-Israel doesn’t always mean dealing with cold politics.”

The Milstein Family Foundation partnered with more than a dozen Jewish and pro-Israel organizations to sponsor the contest. To sign up or vote, go to milsteinmemes.org.

About the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation: The Milstein Family Foundation works to safeguard and strengthen the Jewish People and the Jewish State by igniting Jewish pride in the next generation, providing pro-Israel Americans with knowledge and expertise to advocate for the State of Israel, and bolstering the critical U.S.-Israel Alliance. Learn more at: http://milsteinff.org/

Ascending Israeli-American group seeks to be the ‘glue,’ not the ‘wedge,’ for US Jewry

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As Jewish communal organizations throughout the U.S. struggle to maintain membership levels and hefty annual budgets, a rapidly growing group with the energy of a well-funded Israeli start-up is challenging the Jewish communal world and its relationship to the state of Israel.

Earlier this month, the Israeli-American Council (IAC) hosted its fourth annual national conference at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center—the D.C. venue known well to many pro-Israel Jewish and Christian advocates for hosting the larger annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and Christians United for Israel (CUFI) conferences. While IAC’s 2,700 participants are dwarfed by the numbers that attend the AIPAC and CUFI gatherings, it is IAC’s rapid growth that has major Jewish organizations and philanthropists, as well as the Israeli government, taking notice.

IAC caters to the nearly 1-million-strong population of Israelis that have emigrated to the U.S.—many of them in the 1990s. It is a population that came to America primarily seeking financial opportunities, but like many immigrant communities, the majority of Israelis living in the U.S. never stopped speaking their native language, Hebrew, and never stopped loving their mother country.

For the Israeli-born co-founder and chairman of IAC, Adam Milstein, the organization seeks to take advantage of the best qualities that Israelis have to offer, and use them to strengthen the Israeli-American relationship.

“The focus of this organization and this convention is about the identity of the Israeli community living in the United States. Most of the lectures are about our identity, what is unique about us, all the benefits we are giving to the American people, to the American economy,” Milstein told JNS.org.

Regarding IAC’s rapid growth, Milstein said, “I think we have two secrets. One is our character, our ‘Israeliness,’ which means that we are very similar to the character of the people in Israel.  We have the same culture, we have the same language. We are proud Jews. We have special values of family and friendship, and we are willing to stand up for each other.”

“The second thing that is unique about us is our love for the state of Israel,” said Milstein. “We are not only accepting Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people, but we view Israel as the source of our history, the source of our culture and the source of our strength. And we accept and support Israel without any preconditions.”

During the past several years, members of the American Jewish community have become increasingly critical of Israeli policies. This past year, U.S. Jewry has taken issue with Israeli social and domestic policies as they relate to issues of religious observance.

In particular, the Israeli government’s insistence on only officially recognizing conversions performed by Orthodox rabbis, and the government’s unwillingness to change the access point to an egalitarian prayer section at the Western Wall plaza, have recently become wedge issues for many Jewish Americans.

The American Jewish community may well be at a crossroads with the state of Israel, and detractors of Israeli policies in America—including Jewish communal leaders and clergy—tend to be vocal with their criticism. The growing rift is an issue that both the state of Israel and the U.S. Jewish communal structure are struggling to solve.

“It is very important to understand. Any organization that is taking Israel, and instead of making Israel the glue is making it the wedge, they are losing everything. Basically, they are making us fight each other, and weakening the Jewish community. By doing that, they are actually increasing anti-Semitism,” Milstein said.

Referring to the open dialogue, where many Jewish organizations suggest that criticizing Israel is actually a form of support, Milstein contends, “Once you allow Israeli detractors into your big tent or into your small tent, it’s over.”

“What we believe as an organization is exactly the antidote,” Milstein counters. “What we believe is that Israel is in our heart. Israel is not perfect, and nobody claims that it is, but we support the state of Israel officially. We encourage, we cherish the state of Israel, and we believe the source of power of the Jewish people is the state of Israel.”

Due to this unflinching support, the IAC has been surprised to see growth also come from Jewish Americans who were not born in Israel.

“We are able now to attract a lot of Jewish Americans,” said Milstein. “We are the pro-Israel family community in the United States. We welcome anyone who is pro-Israel into our home.”

The American Jewish community has seen stagnating growth, and rampant assimilation, while the Israeli Jewish community is growing rapidly due to low intermarriage rates, exceptionally high birthrates and immigration from Jewish communities around the world—which outpaces the emigration that has made the IAC possible.

Now, just 70 years after the creation of the fledgling state of Israel, there are two Jewish strongholds with similar populations. It is a historical moment that neither the Israeli nor American Jewish communities anticipated coming so quickly, and it has arrived with some tension. Israel’s government has had a difficult time of late explaining and bridging the growing gaps between American and Israeli Jewry.

Sam Grundwerg, Israel’s consul general to Los Angeles, told JNS.org that the IAC is “ensuring that the Israel-American alliance will continue to thrive.”

Grundwerg was a participant on a panel at the IAC conference specifically geared toward bridging the gaps between Jews in Israel and the diaspora. A week later, the consulate co-hosted an event with IAC, featuring an address by Israeli President Reuven Rivlin.

Noting that the IAC “provides important programs” and “keeps the community connected with Israel,” Grundwerg said that the organization “is extremely instrumental to the Israeli-American community nationwide.”

Yet IAC is also pushing its members to participate in the existing Jewish communal structure, in the hopes that the “Israeliness” of IAC participants will positively impact their American-born neighbors.

“We encourage our members to get involved in the federations, in the JCCs, in the schools, in national organizations,” Milstein said. “We have people that are on the board of their federations, we have people that are on the board of Birthright. We definitely encourage synergy in Jewish life and Jewish institutions, with us and with everybody else.”

At the annual conference’s opening plenary, IAC co-founder and CEO Shoham Nicolet told the audience, “I see the power of Israeliness all over the United States of America and in everything the IAC does. We came all the way to DC not to discuss gaps, but to go back to the basics of togetherness. We are here to demonstrate what one family looks like, which transcends religious denomination, political affiliation, and nationality.”

Milstein said of the conference’s growing participation, “You can see the warmth.  Everyone you meet here, they hug you, they say, ‘It’s so great to be here.’ You don’t see this type of excitement and electricity from the Jewish American community.”

Original article in JNS

A Dangerous Deceit

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It seems that anti-Semitic views are increasingly being accepted in mainstream American political discourse.

Anti-Semitism can currently be found among three different groups, two of which recently joined forces. The first is the radical Right, which almost everyone recognizes and denounces. Rooted in traditional Christian anti-Semitism, its legacy stretches from the Spanish Inquisition through the Nazis to the Ku Klux Klan.

The second is radical Islam, which has harbored anti-Semitic beliefs as part of its traditional hatred of infidels, in particular, the Jews, for thousands of years. This hatred took on greater significance with Israel’s founding and as a result of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Finally, modern anti-Semitism can be found among members of the radical Left, which sees Israel as a symbol of American and Western imperialism, aggressive military rule and the violation of human rights.

We do not give adequate attention to the developing alliance between the radical Left and radical Islam – two groups that, despite their seemingly incompatible worldviews, collaborate against Israel and the Jews. This strange alliance can be explained by the theory of intersectionality adopted by many in the far Left. According to this theory, groups that consider themselves neglected and discriminated against must come together to fight against each of those groups’ supposed enemies.

Those who represent radical Islam have succeeded in tying their hatred of Israel to the theory of intersectionality and as a result, have brought anti-Semitic ideas into mainstream discourse.  They present this hatred as concern for Palestinian rights as they depict Israel as a scourge of humanity that must be fought by all those who favor progress. These people are succeeding in their efforts to depict Israeli Jews as white despots, despite the fact that the majority of Israeli Jews did not come from Europe. They see Muslims, and Palestinians in particular, as neglected and oppressed.

The alliance between the radical Left and radical Islam is especially destructive in that it presents those on the Left with a clear choice: Support Israel and be excluded from leftist circles and human rights organizations, or join the anti-Semitic anti-Israel campaign. Is it any wonder, then, that a majority of young American Jews are turning against Israel?

Radical Islamists and radical leftists have succeeded in creating an alternative reality, in which Jews have no right to self-determination and Israel is the world’s greatest violator of human rights.

In most cases, behind the hatred of Israel lies an anti-Semitic ideology in disguise. We must remove anti-Semitism from mainstream discourse and push it back into the shadows.  We must also show people that radical Islam is the enemy, not just of Israel, but of the United States, the West and the radical Left that has adopted it.

Adam Milstein is chairman of the board of the Israeli-American Council.

Originally published in Israel Hayom