Campuses throughout the country are becoming increasingly hostile to Jewish students and to the truth: anti-Israel activists have been smearing pro-Israel Jewish students as being racist, CUNY Law School recently featured a graduation speaker who called for violence against Jews, and student governments across the United States are increasingly voting on anti-Israel agendas and releasing hostile anti-Israel letters that obfuscate facts and distort reality.
That’s just a sampling of the toxic rhetoric and behavior that anti-Israel student groups and professors with a nefarious agenda have been inflicting on students who support Israel. They are part and parcel in the campaign to demonize, delegitimize and isolate the tiny country and its vocal supporters.
Israel is the West’s most reliable ally and the freest country in the Middle East, so the war to damage it is an assault against Western countries and enlightened values.
One such group stands out in having members on the front lines to defend the truth from this corrosive campaign. I had the pleasure of speaking with Ilan Sinelnikov about Students Supporting Israel (SSI), the advocacy organization that he co-founded ten years ago, with Valeria Chazin, when he was a freshman at the University of Minnesota. The inspiration came after Sinelnikov attended some events during the mendaciously named “Israel Apartheid Week” to see firsthand the plethora of misinformation being spewed against Israel.
Soon after that week, Chazin and Sinelnikov registered a student club at their university. Following two years of growth on campus Ilan and Valeria attended a conference in Chicago hosted by the Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest. That’s where they met other students from the region, including from Illinois and Indiana, who shared the same concerns and who then brought the concept of Students Supporting Israel (SSI) to their campuses. And thus, the seeds of this effective grassroot organization started to grow. And grow, they did. In ten years, they now operate on nearly 200 campuses, throughout the United States, Canada, Argentina and Israel.
Next month, SSI will be going on their sixth year hosting their own conference in which they will gather students and professionals to learn from and support one another. The theme of this year’s conference, marking the organization’s 10th anniversary, is “A Decade of Activism.”
(There is still some space available for the all-expenses-paid three-day convention in which travel costs are heavily subsidized.)
Attendees will be able to meet from close to 100 other students who’ve been dealing with variations of the anti-Jewish/anti-Israel bigotry that’s been permeating academia. Non-Jewish Zionists are an integral part of the event and of SSI, reflecting one of the values of the organization's three tenets: 1) SSI is not a Jewish club but one that is equally welcoming to non-Jews, 2) SSI aims to be proactive 3) SSI aims to keep their support for Israel visible.
Conference attendees will be treated to interactions with outstanding thought leaders and trend setters: the Consul General of Israel in Atlanta, Anat Sultan-Dadon; Jewish National Fund-USA CEO Russell Robinson; constitutional and international law specialist, Professor Eugene Kontorovich and more. Perhaps the most familiar face among the elite group of speakers will be that of social media personality and creative Israel advocate, Hananya Naftali. Students will also get to listen to student panels and to SSI alumni panels as well as to representatives from Stand with Us (SWU), the Jewish National Fund (JNF), the Israeli American Council (IAC) and the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey. There will be role playing and simulations so that attendees will be better equipped to handle intense circumstances that too often take place on campuses.
Not all students who are deeply concerned or affected by campus antisemitism and anti-Israel activities are activists. Nonetheless, Students Supporting Israel is for them too, as it provides a space in which the targets of such hostilities, or students who are simply aware of the toxic vibe on their campus, can simply support one another. He does encourage students to tap into their inner strength to do what they can do, as in real life, “we can’t so easily retreat into safe spaces.”
Students Supporting Israel (as well as Christians United for Israel's (CUFI)) on Campus groups, are pro-Israel organizations that work with students as a registered entity on campuses. In being registered, they are able to book rooms inside campus buildings for special events, invite outside speakers, book a table from where to hand out fliers and provide information about their work, and to have an advisor.
This young organization has already accomplished a lot. In staying true to being proactive, they’ve managed to get 24 thoughtful resolutions passed, including those accepting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, on various campuses. The flagship school hosting this year’s conference, Kennesaw State University, where this year's conference will be held, is among those that have passed a resolution adopting the IHRA definition.
One of SSI’s most recent and successful campaigns has been in rolling out their “Palestine Apartheid Week,” which places the war against Israel in an honest perspective by illustrating, with some of the same theatrics used to thwart the truth, how oppressive the Palestinian Authority is and how the Islamic terrorist groups who control the Palestinian Arab street are responsible for their suffering and responsible for the lack of peace in the region. By adhering to the truth and educating others effectively, slowly but surely, SSI is helping to reclaim the conversation on campus.
Is SSI the remedy to the current wave of hate and misinformation? Sinelnikov paraphrased a quote that he has internalized. “We don’t need to win, but we can’t ever lose.”
Ilan Sinelnikov is the co-founder of Students Supporting Israel. Follow him @ilan_sinelnikov and SSI @SSI_Movement and check out their website at https://www.ssimovement.org/
Faith Quintero is the author of Loaded Blessings, a family saga that alternates between Inquisition era Spain and modern-day Israel. It’s among the Federalist’s top books of 2019 list and a Montaigne Medal finalist for the Eric Hoffer awards. The Montaigne Medal is an additional distinction, awarded to "the most thought-provoking books."