See the original post on Times of Israel

This piece was co-written by Adam Milstein and Marc A. Greendorfer. A version of it previously appeared in the Huffington Post.

The Israeli people and the global pro-Israel community are waking up to the seriousness of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement, which has gained increasing traction at universities, academic associations, municipalities, churches, unions, pension funds, and investment portfolios in America and around the globe. Many are realizing that this Movement poses a serious threat to the Jewish state, the Jewish people, the American people and Western Civilization.

Yet, as we mobilize our effective response, it’s important to recognize that BDS is nothing new. Arab boycotts of Jewish interests in the British Mandate of Palestine started as early as 1922, more than twenty years before the establishment of a Jewish state in 1948. Restrictions were added in 1933, 1934 and 1936. An official, organized boycott of the Jewish community in Palestine, adopted by the Arab League in December 1945, persisted against Israel after it was founded, with the goal of isolating the Jewish state from the international community. Through the years, this boycott spread like a virus across the globe, resulting in institutionalized discrimination against Israeli goods and businesses. It is clear that those behind the BDS Movement have simply put old wine in a new bottle.

Furthermore, Arab anti-Israel and anti-American boycotts have been a part of life in the U.S. since the early 1970s – and past experience in fighting these anti-Semitic movements can, and should, guide our response in the present.

The effects of the Arab League Boycott in America were disruptive and outrageous, causing energy shortages, gas lines, rationing, economic stagflation and discrimination against Jewish Americans. The 1973 oil boycott alone cost the American economy billions of dollars, and turned American businesses and consumers into unwilling participants in an anti-Semitic campaign against Israel and the Jewish people.

In 1977, U.S. Congress voted overwhelmingly to approve legislation to protect American interests, making it a criminal offense to comply with the Arab League Boycott and imposing fines on American companies that did so. The U.S. Department of Commerce opened an office to oversee and implement the law, and many states followed the federal legislation with their own anti-boycott laws, which did help reduce the effects of the Arab League Boycott in the United States.

However, those behind the Arab League Boycott continued to search for opportunities to circumvent the law. In 2001, at the U.N.’s “Conference on Racism” held in Durban, South Africa, they found one, hijacking the conference’s agenda to force through a series of racist declarations attacking Israel. As the conference drew to a close, the Arab League met to formally call for a resumption of its boycott, which became the framework for what we know as the BDS Movement.

In truth, the latest boycott is even more dangerous than the original, as those behind BDS have learned from previous failures. BDS has effectively branded itself as a human rights movement, hiding its true intentions from the public –  the destruction of Israel, the demonization of the Jewish people and the erosion of the values essential to our Western Civilization –  and obscuring the role of the extremists, terrorists, and radicals behind the Movement.

The BDS Movement has effectively moved around the general language of existing American anti-boycott laws, claiming that these laws only apply to activities directly connected to the “Arab League Boycott” name. The pro-Israel community must reject this false dichotomy and vigilantly watch to make sure that federal, state, and local agencies are enforcing existing anti-boycott laws.

We must also enact new laws that specifically close any purported loopholes that BDS’ supporters exploit. This was recently accomplished at the U.S. federal level, when Representative Peter Roskam’s anti-BDS language was included in the Trade Promotion Authority passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama. The American Congress may also consider anti-discrimination measures to combat the BDS Movement, as it promotes hatred and discrimination against Jewish Americans and other pro-Israel supporters, especially on college campuses.

BDS threatens a return to the same kind of economic and social turmoil that the Arab League Boycott created within the United States in the 1970s. We, as Americans, have to stop BDS in its tracks before the Movement gains any more traction. The future of Israel, America, Europe – and indeed, all of Western Civilization – is at stake.

Adam Milstein 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. Follow Adam on Twitter @AdamMilstein and @AdamMilsteinIAC.

Follow Adam Milstein on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AdamMilstein

This piece was co-written by Adam Milstein and Marc A. Greendorfer.

In recent years, the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement has gained increasing traction at universities, academic associations, municipalities, churches, unions, pension funds, and investment portfolios in America and around the globe. The pro-Israel community is now waking up to the seriousness of the danger that this movement poses to the Jewish state, the Jewish people, the American people and the U.S.

Yet, as we mobilize our community to action, it's important to recognize that BDS is nothing new. Those behind this campaign have simply put old wine in a new bottle. Anti-Israel and anti-American boycotts initiated in the Middle East have been a part of American life since the early 1970s – and past experience in fighting these anti-Semitic Movements should guide our response in the present.

Arab boycotts of Jewish interests in the Land of Israel started as early as 1922, more than two decades before the establishment of a Jewish state in 1948. Arabs who violated this boycott were physically attacked by their brethren. Increasingly restrictive boycotts were instituted in 1933, 1934 and 1936. An official organized boycott of the Jewish community in Palestine was adopted by the Arab League in December 1945, and persisted against Israel after its founding, with the goal of isolating the Jewish state from the international community. Through the years, this boycott spread like a virus across the globe, resulting in institutionalized discrimination against Israeli goods and businesses.

The effects of the Arab League boycott in America were as disruptive as they were outrageous, causing energy shortages, gas lines, rationing, economic stagflation and discrimination against Jewish Americans. The 1973 oil boycott by the Arab Middle East countries not only cost the American economy billions of dollars, it turned American businesses and consumers into unwilling participants in an anti-Semitic campaign to destroy Israel and demonize the Jewish people.

In 1977, U.S. Congress overwhelmingly approved legislation to protect American interests, making it a criminal offense to adhere to the Arab League boycott and imposing fines on American companies that were found to be complying with it. An office was opened in the U.S. Department of Commerce to conduct surveillance and implement the law. A large number of states followed the federal legislation with their own anti-boycott laws, which were generally successful in dramatically reducing the effects of the Arab League Boycott in the United States.

Those behind the Arab League's Boycott campaign continued to search for a way to circumvent anti-boycott laws. They found this avenue in 2001 at the UN's "Conference on Racism" held in Durban, South Africa, hijacking the conference's agenda to force through a series of racist declarations attacking Israel. At the conclusion of the conference, the Arab League met to formally call for a resumption of its boycott, which became the framework for the subsequent organization of the BDS Movement.

In many ways, the latest boycott is even more toxic than the original, as those behind BDS have learned the lessons of the Arab League's failures. BDS has effectively branded itself as a human rights movement, hiding from the public its true intentions – the destruction of Israel, the demonization of the Jewish people and the erosion of the values at the heart of America's way of life — and obscuring the role of extremists, terrorists, and radicals in driving its agenda.

The BDS Movement has effectively exploited the general language of existing anti-boycott laws, claiming that these laws only apply to activities directly connected to the Arab League boycott by name. The pro-Israel community must begin to draw the unmistakable connection between these two efforts, ensuring that Federal, State, and Local agencies are enforcing existing anti-boycott laws.

Yet, this is not enough. New laws should be enacted that specifically address BDS and close any purported loopholes that BDS supporters exploit. Recently, this was accomplished at the federal level, when Representative Peter Roskam's anti-BDS language was included in the Trade Promotion Authority passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama. Congress may also consider utilizing anti-discrimination measures to combat the BDS movement, which promotes hatred and discrimination against Jewish Americans and other pro-Israel supporters, especially on college campuses.

We can also work at an organizational level to fight BDS. The United Auto Workers (UAW) union recently nullified a resolution adopted by a local UC chapter that endorsed BDS. The union explicitly dismissed BDS supporters' claims that it was a human rights movement, stating that "…despite semantical claims to the contrary, [BDS] can easily be construed as academic and cultural discrimination…" and the UAW deemed BDS support to be a program of "…discrimination and vilification against Israelis and UAW members who are of Jewish lineage…"

BDS threatens a return to the same kind of economic and social turmoil that the Arab League boycott created within the United States in the 1970s. We, as Americans, have to stop BDS in its tracks before it's too late. The future of Israel – and America – is at stake.

Adam Milstein 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. Follow Adam on Twitter @AdamMilstein and @AdamMilsteinIAC.

The Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation is proud to partner with Students Supporting Israel (SSI), a grassroots pro-Israel campus movement. It has many chapters across the United States and Canada, and is committed to promoting a better understanding of Israel as a member of the family of nations, with a fundamental right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state, within secure borders. The Director of SSI — Valeria Chazin — shares how the partnership between the Milstein Family Foundation and SSI has changed lives. You can read her post below.

The partnership between SSI and the Milstein Family Foundation (MFF) illuminates the wide-ranging benefits of collaboration in the pro-Israel space. The MFF has provided critical funding for many of SSI’s activities, enabling us to spread a positive message about Israel to thousands of students on campuses nationwide. The Foundation also provided grants to SSI student leaders to attend the AIPAC policy conference as Milstein Fellows, and a generous matching grant to SSI’s fundraising campaign on Jewcer.com, which helped SSI reach its online fundraising goal for the year.

However, it's not only the shared goals and financial support that makes the partnership between SSI and the Milstein Family Foundation a successful one. It is also the connections that the Foundation has provided between SSI and otherorganizations, like JIMENA: Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa, a unique organization that tells the story of Jews who were expelled from their homes in Arab countries and Iran. Working with JIMENA, SSI has been able to introduce the story of these Jewish refugees to college students as part of more than a dozen joint events on campuses this fall semester, highlighting the fact that the refugee issue is not one-sided.

The MFF also brought us together with BlueStar, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering the next generation of Isarel advocates. We invited BlueStar's founder, Jonathan Carey, to speak at our first national conference, held in Minneapolis in August 2015. Mr. Carey gave a thought-provoking speech about teh importance of not being afraid to ask hard questions, and taught us the right way of doing so. The theme was a perfect fit for SSI's message of changing the anture of Israel advocacy from reactive to proactive. 

In all of our work together, both of our organizations keep in mind that the ultimate beneficiaries are our students and Israel. When the goal is clear, it is easier to find a way to get there, and the partnership between the organizations proves itself over and over as both meaningful and productive.

To learn more about the philanthropic work of Adam Milstein and the Milstein Family Foundation, visit http://milsteinff.org. Also – check out Adam Milstein and the Milstein Family Foundation on Facebook!

TalkIsrael, a revolutionary new app recently released by the Israeli- Council (IAC), American is the first of its kind to make finding, reading, and sharing pro-Israel content as easy as playing CandyCrush.

Users create customized news feeds on the app, choosing from topics about Israel like “science,” “culture,” “Iran,” “food,” or “sports.” The system then measures each user’s level of engagement with each piece of content so that, over time, the app automatically populates the feed with articles that are most appealing.

To determine what a user really likes, content is broken down and analyzed into approximately 50 components, including the topic, sentiment, and type of content.

Then, it’s just a two-click process to share the content on Facebook, Twitter, email, or SMS.

The goal is to make advocating for Israel easier, and to get Israel chatter out of the echo chamber of existing supporters and in front of the eyes of a broader public – one of the biggest challenges that pro-Israel advocates face. The system’s algorithms and analyses will help organizations, and the developers, to understand which pieces of content are reaching beyond well-established audiences.

“TalkIsrael is a platform for collaboration designed to bring the entire pro-Israel community together,” said Adam Milstein, President of the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation, and the National Chairman of the IAC. “To put it simply, this tool will allow the pro-Israel community to advocate on social media faster, smarter, and more effectively.”

The app’s content is aggregated from dozens of sources, using their Rich Site Summary (RSS) feeds and social media channels. Partners include the Times of Israel, ISRAEL21c, The Daily Beast, Forbes, and more than a dozen pro-Israel organizations. Many more partners are expected to sign on in the coming months.

The app was created as a non-profit, and it is free and available on Android and iPhone. It was developed by Dr. Amir Give’on, a former NASA-JPL scientist and the brains behind Jewcer, Daphna Wegner, a former DreamWorks Animation programmer, and Gadi Rouache, an award-winning creative director.

“TalkIsrael harnesses the extraordinary power of technology to determine over time what type of pro-Israel content appeals to each individual user, using that understanding to deliver the stories that they are most likely to share,” said Dr. Give’on.

The app already has thousands of users who share content with others and submit both feedback and content tips directly to the developers.

“Our thesis is that everyone advocates for Israel in their own way,” said Gadi Rouache, calling the app “advocacy for the contemporary advocate; there are many lines along which to connect.”

New features and analytical tools are continually being developed for the app to assist partnering organizations and the users themselves – in the community, on campus, and online. New features will include real-time content push, geo-located content, a dynamic ‘talking points’ section, and much more.

“The TalkIsrael app helps me to stay up to date with Israel and be pro-active in spreading positive messages to my friends and networks,” said Ilan Sinelnikov, Co-Founder and President of Students Supporting Israel. “I know this app will reach a critical mass of advocates and it will help to make an impact. I’m excited to be a part of that process.”

“We want to make learning about Israel more easy, fun, and engaging,” Hadas Sella, executive director of the Milstein Family Foundation, who saw the app’s potential early on in the process. “By getting good content at the right time to the right people we can make a real impact.”

According to its founders, the app is hitting the market just in time. “If there was ever an issue to coalesce around, this is it. We are, together, absolutely more than the sum of our parts, and that’s why TalkIsrael was invented,” said Dr. Give’on.

For Israelis living in America for an extended period of time, locating an embracing community and creating a national identity can be a conundrum for many. Am I an Israeli? Am I an American? How does Judaism play a role in my life? How can I support Israel while living here?  These are just a smattering of questions that ruminate in the minds of Israeli-Americans as they grapple with themselves and their contemporaries for cogent answers.

Enter Adam Milstein, a native born Israeli who arrived in the United States in 1981. Today, this man of boundless energy, passion and commitment to his people, his country and his identity as a Jew and an Israeli-American is at the helm of a nascent organization called the Israeli-American Council.

In a voice reverberating with a palpable enthusiasm, Mr. Milstein told the Jewish Voice in an exclusive interview of his role as co-founder and National Chairman of the Board of the IAC, of the inception of the organization and the widespread impact it has had it galvanizing the Israeli-American community.

"As Israeli-Americans, we can be legitimated, we can have a sense of purpose; we can rise from our slumber and be active," declared Mr. Milstein.

"Today, the IAC is active in 9 different regions across America and that is a far cry from when we began," he recalled.

As a real estate investor, community leader, and active philanthropist, Mr. Milstein has not only given of his time to the IAC but is linked to over 100 organizations. As the President of the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation, his philanthropic work is centered on strengthening the State of Israel and the Jewish People.  Having served in active duty with the Israel Defense Forces during the Yom Kippur War, Mr. Milstein married Gila in 1974 and graduated from the internationally renowned Technion Institute in Haifa in 1978. He earned an MBA from USC in 1981 and embarked on a career in commercial real estate in Southern California.

Mr. Milstein, his wife, their three children and grandchildren reside in Encino and it is in LA that he is a managing partner of Hager Pacific Properties, a private commercial real estate investment firm that owns and manages several million square feet of commercial and industrial real estate throughout the United States. He sits on the boards of the AIPAC National Council, StandWithUs, the Jewish Funders Network, and the Los Angeles Board of Birthright Israel.

"After getting into the real estate business in southern California, my plan was to make enough money to pay back my tuition loans, but it soon became clear that the possibility of a permanent return to Israel was non-reversible," said Mr. Milstein.

Being cognizant of the fact that his future was on these shores, Mr. Milstein wanted to use his newfound success and status as a successful businessman to support Israel and help others.  Today, he spends 80% of his time engaged in his ubiquitous philanthropic endeavors. "To me, philanthropy is like a business. I want to build a special plan and program, become actively involved and work to expand it as much as possible."

About eight years ago, Mr. Milstein and other Israeli philanthropists residing in Los Angeles were approached by the Israel Consul General of the city to see what could be done to unite the 250,000 plus Israelis living there.

"Before we even thought of creating the IAC, we really had to devise ways in which we could reach out to Israelis as none of us knew how to talk to them about ensuring their Jewish and Israeli identity," said Mr. Milstein.

At its infancy, Mr. Milstein was one of six people who agreed to take on this project. "We looked at the IAC as a start up business and lay leaders were there from the beginning. We established a very clear mission. We wanted Israeli-Americans with an array of cultural, social and political events that would really be a catalyst for them to seriously explore both their Jewish and Israeli identities," he said.

He added that, "We really wanted to support Israel from here and we wanted our community to merge into Jewish life."

Mr. Milstein explains the genesis of the Israeli-American label. "We are Americans of Israeli descent so we adopted this identity and everyone felt very good about it."

"Israeliness if you will,” says Mr. Milstein is common to the people of Israel. He adds that it is a love of Israel, its culture, its heritage and the special set of values that each Israeli shares.

Because the IAC's main objective is to find common ground among Israelis living in the United States, Mr. Milstein declared most emphatically, "We don't discriminate. One can be an Orthodox Jew or completely secular and it doesn't matter to us. We are here to export Israeliness to the Jewish community."

The nascent IAC now includes 18,000 families nationwide and as a vital component of American society, they play a major role in social activism, academia, culture and innovation. The IAC’s effectiveness and success as the largest Israeli-American organization is the direct result of its ability to activate, and engage this unique community nationwide. The IAC strives to achieve these goals through programs and events for all ages, as well as by empowering and sponsoring a wide array of non-profit organizations within the Israeli-American community.

For the toddlers and very young children, the IAC has established the Sifriyat Pijama B’America program where Hebrew and Jewish family engagement takes place on a literacy level. The passing on of Jewish values is conducted by mailing free, high-quality Hebrew children's literature and music to families on a monthly basis to children ages 2-8 throughout the United States.

Says Mr. Milstein, "These books are a gift for each family to keep and re-read to their kids. We want the children of Israeli-Americans to understand the heritage of their parents and grandparents, By reading them books in Hebrew and conveying Jewish values, we keep the Hebrew language relevant for them and educate them about their specialness as Jews." IAC Mishelanu is a college campus leadership program that allows Israeli-American students on campus to meet, explore their Israeli-Jewish identity and their connection to the State of Israel. It is a national campus program that provides a “Home” to Israeli-American students in order to strengthen and maintain the identity of the next generation: Culture, Language Heritage and strong connections to Israel.

Today Mishelanu is offered in more than 35 campuses across the US.

Mr. Milstein also speaks of the relevance and impact of the Dor Chadash program. "This is probably one of our most important programs because it is designed for young Israeli-American professionals. It is they who are talking to the community, teaching them about the alarming escalation of anti-Semitism throughout the world, and the protracted battle that we are confronting in the BDS movement."

Because the IAC now has fully functioning programs in Boston, Florida, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New Jersey, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, DC, group members are in a much better position to connect and unite.

Besides mobilizing the community to respond to strategic causes that support US-Israel related initiatives and Zionist education for the second- and third-generation of Israeli-Americans, Mr. Milstein says that one of the gravest dangers that we face today is radical Islam. "I lecture regularly on the nefarious agenda of the BDS movement and I can tell you that radical Islamists are the driving force behind it. We have to come to terms with the fact that radical Islamist leaders have publically stated their intent to eradicate both the United States and Israel."

Issuing a clarion call to front line Jewish activism, Mr. Milstein intoned, "What starts with the Jews does not end with the Jews."

For more information on the Israel-American Council, please visit http://www.israeliamerican.org/.