This week, I had the opportunity to interview Racheli Marom, the University of Arizona’s Hillel Fellow, about her experiences as part of UA’s Jewish community.

How did you end up as the University of Arizona Hillel’s Israel Fellow?

I was about to finish school at the Hebrew University, and I was looking for something interesting to do right after school. I was checking into options related to informal education connected to Jewish education, and then I saw this opportunity and thought I’d give it a try. I wasn’t even thinking about coming to the States. I had thought about finding a community in Europe, actually. But then after I went through the long process of interviewing, they recommended that I go to a university in the States. So I learned about Hillel, and this is basically how I got here. As it turned out, it was a perfect match.

In what ways do you think college is different in the United States than in Israel?

First of all, let’s start with the students. In Israel, people start school as undergraduates around the same time that people start graduate school here. A very common time for people to start school in Israel is between the ages of 23 to 25, because they go to the army, they work and save money, and then they take trips to different places around the world. So by the time they get to university, students are in a different phase of life than in the United States. Here, it’s an immediate continuation from high school. So for freshmen, it’s like high school, but much cooler because they have the independence to do what they want. The maturity level is very different.

What do you feel most interests the students you’ve met regarding Israel? What are they most curious about?

More cultural stuff, as opposed to politics. Nightlife, clubs, music, cool stuff to do in Israel. If something big happens, like the war in Lebanon, people would like to talk about that sometimes. I’m talking about the University of Arizona students that I meet; it could be different from university to university. I think that this university specifically is not a very political place generally, and this also affects how most people view Israel. People are interested in going to Israel on birthright or studying abroad in Israel, and they are very interested in the experiential point of view.

On many college campuses today, Zionism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are important and highly debated issues. How have you found the political climate on this campus related to these issues?

I think that the UA is not a political campus. I think students are generally apathetic in terms of politics, not just in regard to Israel, but also in terms of internal politics. You can see more political activity now because of the elections, but generally politics are not that big. From what I’ve seen last year, most of what I would call the anti-Israel activities on campus weren’t initiated by students, but rather by certain authorities at the university, especially professors. I think that there are also students here who are politically active against Israel, but not too many. Once in a while there is a rally or something like that, but it is generally very low-key, often involving the same group of students over and over. I don’t think they attract much interest beyond this immediate group of students. Generally I think the situation here is pretty good.

What upcoming events are you currently planning that you are particularly excited about?

For next semester, we are putting together Israel Week. Every day, from Friday night until the following Thursday night, we will feature a different big event, and all the events are going to be really wonderful and unique. Even though it was my initiative, I really wanted students to be involved. We didn’t see so many students proactive in terms of organizing Israel-related events. We have a few student groups, but it wasn’t happening on a very large scale. So I sent e-mails to Hillel and to everyone I know saying I wanted to put a committee together, and right now we have a committee of 18 people. Many of them are people who weren’t involved before but wanted to get involved somehow. It’s a very talented group of people, and they’re all very excited about it. We meet twice a week, and every time we meet, I leave the room thinking, “Wow, this is incredible.� These people really want to see Israel events on campus, and they think that Israel should be on the map. When I leave the room after these really good meetings, where everyone is really into getting out and doing things, I feel like that’s something. The planning is going on right now, and Israel Week will take place during the last week of February. It has been a great experience for me and for all of the students involved.

Despite the devastation the Holocaust wrought upon the Jewish people, Rabbi Israel Becker of the Orthodox congregation Chofetz Chayim says that inspiration can be found in the catastrophe. A son of Holocaust survivors, Rabbi Becker challenged students gathered at Hillel to think about how the dwindling number of living survivors would want future generations to remember their stories. Relating several stories in which Jewish faith persisted amidst unprecedented destruction, Becker said that the survival of the Jewish people is a testament to the strength and tenacity of the Jewish community, which was able to emerge from the Holocaust as a veritable force in culture and politics. Particularly powerful in its expression of Jewish faith was the story of an underground synagogue found at the Theriesenstadt concentration camp, which had walls inscripted with the words, “and in spite of all this, we have not forgotten Your name.” He also related a story in which the faith of the famous Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal was shaken by an incident in which a fellow concentration camp inmate was found lending other inmates a prayer book in exchange for bread rations. When Wiesenthal expressed his outrage at the man’s behavior, a rabbi pointed out the incredible commitment to Judaism demonstrated by the inmates’ willingness to give up their rations for the sake of a prayer book. Becker added that Hitler himself affirmed the Jews’ contribution to society by writing in his autobiography, Mein Kampf, that “I free humanity from the shackles of the soul; from the degrading suffering caused by the false vision called conscience and ethics. The Jews have inflicted two wounds on mankind: circumcision on its body and conscience on its soul.” From this quote, Rabbi Becker concluded that “the Nazis showed us in technicolor what a world without Torah is.”

Former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, spoke at the Student Union on Monday about his thoughts regarding this summer’s Israel-Lebanon War.
In the event co-sponsored by Hillel and the Department of Judaic Studies, Yaalon placed the conflict within the framework of a larger ideological struggle between Western civilization — of which he considers Israel to be a part — and Islamic militancy as represented by Israel’s foes like Hezbollah. “There is no longer merely an Israeli-Arab conflict or an Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” he continued, citing Samuel P. Huntington’s theory of a Clash of Civilizations. Rather than a territorial dispute, he asserted that the root cause of violence between Israel and its neighbors is that “there are too many countries that are reluctant to recognise Israel’s right to exist as an independent Jewish state.” According to Yaalon, the changes that have shaped the dynamics of the current conflict have their roots in the 1970s, citing the 1973 Yom Kippur War as the last time Israel was confronted by a conventional armed force and Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution as the end of an era marked by secular Arab nationalism.
The talk was followed by a question-and-answer session, in which students asked for Yaalon’s thoughts on Israel’s handling of this summer’s conflict with Hezbollah and how Israel should proceed in its dealings with militant organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas. While Yaalon said that he believed this summer’s campaign was “not considered a successful one” for Israel, the primary problem was “mismanagement at the highest levels” and not with IDF soldiers on the ground. He ended the discussion by reiterating the need to view the larger picture and to address the spread of anti-Israel ideologies. “The production of suicide bombers,” Yaalon concluded, “begins in the kindergarten,” and militancy toward Israel can be changed “only by pressuring states to undertake programs of educational reform”.

On Monday, October 16, former Israeli Defense Force Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon, will be speaking on the University of Arizona campus. The event will take place at noon in the North Ballroom in the Student Union.
For those who will be unable to attend the first event, Moshe Yaalon will speak again at 7 PM that evening, at Temple Emmanu-El at 225 N. Country Club. In order to attend the evening lecture, registration is required; contact Jennifer Fink at 577-9393 x119 or jfink -at- jfsa.
Both events are free and open to the public.

Gathering amidst an intense Arizona thunderstorm, a crowd of roughly 50 students held a vigil behind the Student Union Thursday evening for the victims of the ongoing genocide in Darfur. The vigil commemorated the end of DarfurFast, a day-long fast to raise money for the area’s refugees.
More than 500 other schools held similar programming, Students Taking Action Now—Darfur (STAND).
Tiffany Tom, an organizer with STAND, told CampusJ the purpose of DarfurFast was not only to raise money for the refugees, but to provide “recognition of those who have lost all, even their lives.� Students broke the fast together with pizza and snacks, listened to prayers for Darfur from members of several faiths, and viewed a short documentary, Witnessing Darfur. Afterward, they lingered to light candles in honor of the victims, sign a petition urging Congress to pay attention to the tragedy, and look at a photo collage of scenes from the region.
Within the last three years, experts estimate that between 50,000 to 400,000 people have died as a result of attacks by government-sponsored Janjaweed militias, as well as starvation and disease. Approximately 2.5 million people have been displaced, and many survivors bear the physical and emotional scars of torture and rape. United States leaders George W. Bush, Colin Powell, and others have labeled the situation a “genocide.�
Many students involved with the campaign to raise awareness about Darfur come from a Jewish background, and many say that their involvement stems from their proximity to the Holocaust, whether through relatives or through their Jewish education.
Bryan Scott Fassman, a sophomore majoring in Sociology and Criminal Justice, told CampusJ that “ever since World War II, the world vowed to make sure the Holocaust would never happen again, to Jews or otherwise, and the world has failed.�
Illana Hearshen, a graduate student in the College of Public Health, echoed the sentiment. “Jews have seen what happened to our people,� she told CampusJ, noting, “We say it should never happen again, yet it is.�
Although STAND has only gained official recognition as a student club at UA this fall, the organization has been on campus for two years, funding events out of members’ pockets. They sold green “Save Darfur” bracelets, helped organize a Save Darfur rally on April 30, 2006, and helped out with YWCA workshops to raise awareness on Darfur through Hotel Rwanda workshops, which culminated in a campus visit by Paul Rusesabagina, upon whose experience Hotel Rwanda is based.