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Ask me More! On Campus Activism by Shana BaAretz Alumnae

campus activism, blue t-shirt

Israel was the first country to set up a field hospital in Japan after the Tsunami.

 

Ask Me More.

 

Israel's pharmaceutical industry fills 1 out of every 6 prescriptions in the U.S.

 

Ask Me More.

 

Your SanDisk flash drive was invented in Israel.

 

Ask Me More.

 

These and other facts about Israel will appear across t-shirts worn on North
American college campuses this fall.  The brainchild of six Nishmat students, the t-shirts will kick off a student-run campaign to initiate positive dialogue about
Israel. 
 
AskMeMore.org, the organization and website created by students in Nishmat’s Shana Ba’Aretz post-high school program, aspires to transform Israel dialogue on  campuses by presenting facts about the Jewish state that go beyond media headlines and political rhetoric.
 
Each AskMeMore t-shirt features a little known Israeli accomplishment, with the bold invitation, "AskMeMore" on the back.  Students wearing the t-shirts are trained to speak about Israel’s accomplishments.  More information is on www.AskMeMore.org.
 
Immersed in a course about the Israeli/Arab conflict and Israel advocacy offered at Nishmat by The David Project, the students, who plan to attend University of Chicago, Barnard College, Princeton and Rutgers Universities, and Stern College for Women, challenged themselves to develop an Israel advocacy project they could bring to their campuses. Once AskMeMore took shape, the organizers shared it with an under-appreciated source of potential Israel advocates: their peers in other post-high school Israel programs. AskMeMore quickly enlisted some 500 students poised to enter university next year. 
 
"I was visiting a university campus in Canada during ‘Israel Apartheid Week’ when tensions escalated between pro-Israel and anti-Israel students,” said Nishmat student Eliana Glogauer. “The response of the Israel advocacy group on campus was to bring in speakers for a panel about how Israel is not an apartheid State.  I thought to myself, wow, too little, too late."   
 
Recalling t-shirt campaigns for Breast Cancer Awareness and Darfur, the Nishmat students decided Israel could use a t-shirt. 
"We wanted a tool that was easy for anyone to use as an advocate for Israel. A t-shirt is a simple and effective way to start dialogue on a mass scale,” said Haviva Korenblit, a Nishmat student from New York.
 
Rabbi Yehoshua Weisberg, Director of Shana Ba’Aretz, said that Nishmat encourages the kind of creativity and leadership exhibited by the AskMeMore.com creators. "We emphasize a strong connection to Torah and the Land of Israel. Our American students live with Israelis, study in Hebrew, and volunteer in the local community. They are immersed in Israeli life and they connect deeply to a living, breathing idea of Zionism. It is only natural that they would want other university students to understand the real Israel, the tiny Jewish homeland that gives so much to the world," said R