 Israel continues to be a focus on each of the Philadelphia campuses. In addition to travel opportunities, falafel nights, and cultural events, students have the opportunity to experience, first-hand, Israeli culture and history.
On November 10th and 11th, the Israel Center of Hillel of Greater Philadelphia hosted Neil Lazarus, an internationally acclaimed expert in the field of Middle East relations, Israel advocacy and effective communication training. Mr. Lazarus is a full time key note speaker who has trained a new generation of Israeli diplomats and student leadership worldwide. While in Philadelphia, he spent time on four different campuses. At Temple and Drexel University, Lazarus spoke about Israel in the media and at both Haverford College and the University of Pennsylvania he spoke about Israeli politics. He also prepared Penn students for the screening of "Occupation 101" sponsored by Students for Justice in Palestine, set to take place the following day. Mr. Lazarus was engaging and the students, many of which were new to Israel programming on campus, were moved by his presentation. On November 20th, students had the rare opportunity to hear from and meet Philippe Karsenty. Back in 2004, Karsenty was sued for libel by the French television network, France 2, after accusing the network of having broadcast staged footage of the reported killing of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy, Muhammad al-Durrah, during a gun battle in the Gaza Strip in 2000. France 2 won its case in October 2006, but the judgment was overturned by the Paris Court of Appeal in May 2008. A business man and founder of Media-Ratings, a media watchdog, Philli pe Karsenty spoke about the process of challenging the defects and inconsistencies in France 2's story. Mr. Karsenty spoke for two hours to students and community members providing his account of the events. Karsenty encouraged students to ask questions and provided information in order to rectify the image of Israel portrayed by this event. In the first week of December, Drexel and Temple Students for Israel hosted an Israeli Krav Maga (Israeli martial arts) expert to teach basic techniques. Krav Maga is a military hand-to-hand combat system developed in Israel and emphasizes maximum threat neutralization in a "real life" context. It came to prominence following its adoption by various Israeli Security Forces. Over 30 students attended and it was a successful introduction to the cultural face of Israel.
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