But the summer after her freshman year of college, the San Francisco native landed an internship in the communications department of AIPAC’s Washington headquarters as a part of its Political Leadership Development Program.
Last month, Bernstein, 21, now a senior at UCLA, was given the Duke Rudman award at AIPAC’s recent policy conference, which honors one outstanding student activist a year.
Bernstein attended Brandeis Hillel Day School and Lick-Wilmerding High School in San Francisco, where her parents, Peter and Linda Bernstein, are members of Congregation Beth Sholom.
According to Bernstein, the Bureau of Jewish Education’s teen trip propelled her on her path of pro-Israel advocacy. She returned to Israel two summers after that, and also spent 2000-2001, her junior year, at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
“Unexpectedly, the 12 months of my program overlapped with the first nine months of the current intifada, and the contents of my course work and events transpiring around the country were nearly indistinguishable,” she said in her award-acceptance speech in Washington. “I heard a car bomb explode in the Russian Compound. I watched the tanks roll into position along the Jerusalem-Modi’in Highway.”
While the political science major’s pro-Israel activism on campus had begun before she went abroad, returning to campus in this new climate gave all Middle East activists a new sense of urgency.
“How do we promote solidarity among Jewish students on campus who hold vastly different views of the situation?” she asked. “How do we confront our professors who subtly and overtly insert anti-Israel rhetoric into our classrooms? How do we interact with the Arab-American students that live on our dorm floor?”
As a leader of Bruins for Israel, the pro-Israel group at UCLA, Bernstein monitored what was happening at U.C. Berkeley. The atmosphere at UCLA was not as hostile, she said, but Jewish students there still had their own challenges.
“The discourse this year has been pretty intelligent and peaceful, with quite a lot of dialogue, not yelling,” she said.
Nevertheless, she sees pro-Israel activists on campus as waging two major battles, internal and external.
On the internal front, Jewish opinion on Israel is polarized. Many Jewish students who oppose the policies of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon are likely to give up on Israel altogether. “Israel has ceased to serve as the center of positive Jewish identity for many Jewish students,” said Bernstein.
Externally, the greatest need is to influence public opinion, Bernstein believes. “An aim of pro-Israel advocacy is to influence campus leaders, and the campus political environment,” she said. “Student-union members are our future civic leaders; student journalists are our future newspaper editors. Students form and refine many of their political ideas at the university level, and it is important for the long-run security of Israel to educate the next generation of leaders.”
AIPAC certainly sees Bernstein as one of the next generation of leaders.
“She is an inspiration to many other students at UCLA; we have seen the effect she has had,” said Rachel Murov, acting director of AIPAC’s Political Leadership Development Program.
“She has helped make Bruins for Israel…a premier group on campus. With Julie’s guidance and leadership, Bruins for Israel has responded to vicious anti-Israel attacks on campus, has educated the UCLA campus community about the U.S.-Israel relationship, has formed relationships with lay leaders in Los Angeles, has volunteered on various political campaigns, has brought strong delegations to policy conference, and has been an overall example of what pro-Israel activism is all about.”
Bernstein is still in the process of educating herself. In the fall, she will enter a doctoral program in political science at Columbia University, with plans to focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She hopes to become a professor and then perhaps go into diplomacy.
“Professionally and personally, Israel will always be in every facet of my life,” she said.
In the immediate future, she plans to put her award money from AIPAC, $1,000, to good use. This summer, she will study Arabic at U.C. Berkeley.