The “Judea and Samaria: Every Jew’s Story” campaign is picking up steam. Practical tools to help impart the message will be provided this Sunday.
The campaign, started some two months ago by the Yesha Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria, emphasizes the Jewish Nation's historic, cultural and religious ties to the Biblical areas of Judea and Samaria.
The campaign highlights themes such as the Maccabees, King David, the Matriarch Rachel and Joseph and his brothers in dramatic photographs, with a smiling child in historic Biblical garb, on billboards throughout the country. Short radio skits also are featured, and additional activities, signs, bumper stickers and more features are planned.
This coming Sunday, at 2:30 PM in Heichal Shlomo (58 King George St. in Jerusalem), students of 12th grade and higher are “invited to receive practical tools that will help you persuade those around you of the importance of the Jewish settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria.”
The afternoon program includes:
- a presentation by the Drori-Shlomi public relations firm about publicity and marketing
- a talk by Yakir Segev, one of the heads of the campaign, on future directions for the “Every Jew’s Story”
- The Art of Explaining and Persuading, by the Debate Company
- What exactly is Every Jew’s Story? by Rabbi Shlomo Aviner
Eitan Dor-Shav, who helped design the campaign, recently explained that the operative assumption of the Yesha leadership has long been “that you can't persuade the public of an ideological message, such as the indelible historical Biblical link between our nation and Judea/Samaria. Instead, the feeling was, we should simply ‘use’ the Kassams against Sderot as proof that we must never quit Yesha.”
However, he continued, “Yesha Council head Danny Dayan and I have been toying, ever since Annapolis, with the idea that we need this 'strategy change' not just as a long-term educational goal, but rather as part of Yesha's routine media and PR policy."
The campaign’s website - www.jstory.co.il - includes a page with the story of each Biblical incident featured in the campaign, an explanation of its connection to the Land of Israel, and links to more in-depth articles on questions related to the subject matter. For instance, the page on Jacob and his vision of angels ascending and descending the ladder, which took place in Beit El, includes articles on the long-standing fraternal tensions between Jacob and Esau, the "theft" of the latter's blessing by the former, the exact location of the ladder, and more. The website has not yet been translated into English.
