The poster showed half a grapefruit, with blood dripping from it.
In French, the text on the poster read: “Israeli fruits have a bitter taste. Resist the occupation of Palestine. Boycott Israeli fruits and vegetables.”
Is the poster anti-Israel or anti-Semitic?
Juniors and seniors at the Jewish Community High School of the Bay grappled with that question last week in a workshop sponsored by Caravan for Democracy, a student division of the Jewish National Fund.
Michael Eglash, a longtime pro-Israel activist from the Midwest who moved to Israel in 1993, conducted several workshops on this topic in a matter of two days at San Francisco’s Hebrew Academy, Oakland’s Temple Sinai, San Francisco State University and the Midrasha program of Contra Costa County.
Eglash is also the co-founder of an organization called Upstart Activist, which is designed to provide students with the tools and knowledge to be better prepared for when they encounter anti-Israel activism on campus. In this presentation, Eglash moderated a discussion in which the students discussed the differences between what was anti-Israel and what was truly anti-Semitic.
He began by asking the students whether they had ever encountered any anti-Semitism, and many of them shared experiences they had had while still in public school.
He then showed various posters that have appeared on college campuses, which ranged from anti-Israel to anti-Semitic.
Eglash offered tips on how to confront anti-Israeli sentiments on campus in a productive way.
“It’s not about convincing the other side,” he said. “It’s about creating educational programs showing different attributes of Israel and trying to promote a different agenda.”
Eglash asked what students would do if a speaker with known views that were anti-Israel was coming to campus to speak.
He advised trying to write an opinion piece in the school paper, rather than trying to get the talk cancelled. He also recommended attending, but being sure to ask difficult questions of the speaker.
Overall, he told the students: “Not everything the Palestinian groups do is out to get us.”
The five workshops in the Bay Area took place due to a grant from the Koret Foundation. That same grant will allow Caravan for Democracy to plan more activities for area high school and college students through June.
The JCHS students were, in general, lukewarm about the presentation.
“I like things to be balanced, and I thought this was going to have an amazingly anti-Palestinian twist,” said Zak Norman of El Sobrante. “But I was pleasantly surprised that he kept the focus on what is true anti-Semitism without slandering the Palestinian point of view.”
Yael Cushman of San Rafael said she didn’t hear much she hadn’t heard before. She said the presentation would be more useful if it dealt with different points of view on a number of topics, not only the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
But Yoni Man of South San Francisco had a positive spin. He said it was useful, because “I just have to educate myself more and more on the subject.”