Cantor Michael Smolash, Rabbi Marla Hornsten and Noa Tishby
A Voice for Israel
Israeli envoy Noa Tishby shared her story of defending her homeland with Temple Israel. DORON LEVIN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
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ew experiences are more disheartening for a newly minted Jewish college student or young professional than an encounter with anti-Jewish bigotry, which is spreading and becoming more vicious and prominent on campuses and in media, especially social media. As part of a year-long effort to confront antisemitism — often masquerading as anti-Zionism or opposition to Israel or social activism on behalf of the Palestinian cause — the leadership of Temple Israel of West Bloomfield concluded the issue had become so urgent it deserved a bold response. An initial salvo was unleashed on May 16 at an outdoor presentation by Noa Tishby, a strident and engaging Israeliborn actor, producer, writer and passionate defender of her homeland. Tishby, author of A Simple Guide To The Most Misunderstood Country On Earth, urged Temple Israel members and American Jews to “wake up and learn history and facts about Israel and use them to counter the way Israel is being distorted and por-
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trayed and lied about around the world.” The synagogue has purchased nearly 200 of Tishby’s books for religious school and college students. Without understanding who we are and where we came from, Tishby has written, the Jewish people have no hope of one day resolving the Middle East’s troubles. All the while, Israel’s existence and Jewish identity are being delegitimized and undermined in the court of public opinion. Jewish college students are particularly vulnerable to anti-Zionist propaganda because many see themselves as sympathetic to causes that benefit the forgotten and mistreated. To hear from pro-Palestinian groups that Israel, a country Jewish youngsters are taught to love and revere, supposedly oppresses Palestinians is demoralizing. For the moment, she asserts, American Jews — especially the young — aren’t aware how Israel is being successfully demonized by opponents who inaccurately (not to mention, scurrilously) accuse
the country of ethnic cleansing, apartheid, human rights violations, war crimes and other egregious misbehavior. Her book, she says, is an effort to awaken Jews and supporters of Israel and to inspire them to fight against hatred and lies with facts, knowledge and insight. “Why aren’t we pointing out that Israeli Arabs enjoy all the same rights as Jews, that they have a political party which is part of the government, that two Supreme Court justices are Arabs?” she asks rhetorically. “Are we telling people that most of the Palestinians of the West Bank rule themselves, that 89% of Israel’s Arabs say they don’t want to live in a Palestinian state?” Tishby, 44, harbors special contempt for the “Boycott, Divestment, Sanction” (BDS) movement, a global effort to penalize and cripple Israel’s business and economy toward the seemingly virtuous goal of “justice” for the Palestinian people. BDS has been promoted and approved by numerous individuals and groups in the U.S., including the Harvard Crimson newspaper and U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-13th District), who is up for re-election this fall. “BDS represents itself only as a movement for justice,” she says. “It never talks about radical Islam, terrorism or the UN-granted right of the Jews to inhabit their land. Mentioning this would turn off the young liberal Americans the move-
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