Written by Megan Brumer
Our longest lecture so far has been about how to teach Israel to others, given by Zeev Ben-Shachar. Through the span of ten hours, split into two, he taught an abridged version of what he would teach in an entire semester.
In the first block we focused on the physical dimension, the representation and presentation of Israel, and the fundamentals of advocacy, how to communicate what is happening in Israel. One of the points that he continually emphasized which stood out to me was that in order to really understand Israel, you need to zoom out and look at the bigger picture. If you only look at a snapshot of a photo, you can't understand what the picture is actually staying. In the same way, if you only look at a small part of Israel, you don't learn what is really happening.
During the second block, we learned about the historical dimension, the history, of Israel. We learned about what gives Israel the right to be a state, and about the issues with regards to refugees and occupation. At the end, he explained the steps to writing a good Israel program and there was one point that stuck out to me, "learn to fail or fail to learn." In order to make a successful program, you have to learn from your mistakes. If you don't learn from your mistakes, then you can't make a fully successful program.
Overall, Zeev Ben-Shachar has given us a basis in order to teach Israel to the people at home, both at camp and at our college campuses. We can now use this information to further our Israel curricula and make sure that we teach Israel in the best way possible.
