ICC National Leadership Summit: Students Gather to Discuss Going Back to Campus This Fall

From Aug. 4 through 6, The  Israel on Campus Coalition, a nonprofit organization that supports pro-Israel students on college campuses throughout the United States, held its annual National Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C. It featured talks from ICC’s CEO Jacob Baime; outspoken ICC fellows Tessa Veksler of UC-Santa Barbara and Eyal Yakoby from UPenn; Naftali Bennett, former prime minister of Israel; Hen Mazzig, co-founder and senior fellow at the Tel Aviv Institute and Loay Alshareef, an Arab social media influencer who promotes coexistence. Noa Kirel, an Israeli musician, and Matisyahu performed together in a “Harmony and Hope” concert. 

The National Leadership Summit gave students the opportunity to gather in solidarity after a year of antisemitic, anti-Zionist protests on college campuses across the U.S. One student, Jonah Nazarian, a sophomore business economics major at UCLA who became involved in ICC during his spring semester, said, “Meeting students from across the nation who are also fighting antisemitism on their campuses was both reassuring and empowering. On a practical level, the conference provided us with the tools to present a united front on a national scale. Hearing from speakers like Naftali Bennett, Einat Wilf and Aviva Klompas was particularly inspiring, giving us a wealth of knowledge to draw upon in our efforts to combat anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism on campus.”

Nazarian, a child of Iranian immigrants, experienced antisemitism firsthand at UCLA during the encampments there. At the time, he was running for student government, and like all the candidates, he had an A-frame on Bruin Walk, the main campus thoroughfare. 

“On the night the police disbanded the encampment, my sign was removed from its location and vandalized,” he said. “Pro-Palestinian vandals wrote ‘F— Zionism,’ drew red lines across my forehead, depict a bloody nose, and defaced the A-frame in other ways. On the reverse side, they wrote ‘Free Palestine.’ This attack was particularly jarring because I had not made any political statements, either publicly or privately, during my entire campaign. It was a clear act of Jew hatred and a call to violence against Jews, thinly veiled as anti-Zionism.”

Another student who attended the summit, Shani Menna, a senior human biology major at UC-San Diego, was tabling on campus to educate her fellow students on Israel this year. One passerby told her to go back to where she came from.

“The student proceeded to tell me that all the Jews came from Europe,” she said. “I responded by extending my arm and saying, ‘Where do you think I came from?’ I am both Ashkenazi and Mizrahi, but here, my Iraqi genes served as a lesson to this ignorant student.”

Despite this jarring interaction on campus, Menna continues to be a proud ICC fellow and vocal supporter of the state of Israel.

“Beyond the instant feeling of belonging once I land in Ben Gurion, I, like every Jew in the world, have biological ties to this country,” she said. “The country is filled with history both within the land itself and the people that walk it. It is impossible to understand the story of the Jewish people without knowing the history of the land of Israel. The existence of Israel is nothing short of a miracle, and its transformation into a center of innovation despite constant threats is remarkable.”

The ICC summit included talks like “Fighting The War Online” from David Rebel, a digital influencer, “The Wartime Media Landscape” with Avi Mayer, former editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post and Melissa Weiss, executive editor of Jewish Insider and “Free Speech vs Free Hate?: The Campus Debate Over Hamas” with Alyza Lewin, president, Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and Miriam Elman, executive director, Academic Engagement Network. 

One moment from the summit that stuck out to Menna was when Weiss interviewed Mazzig during  the “Fighting the Information War” session and he told the audience, “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.” 

“I looked around to see the students around me struck by the simplicity of his quote. This is what Jewish students have been experiencing on campus for years and at a heightened level post Oct. 7,” she said. “Hen’s quote emphasized the purpose of this conference: To take back our campus, and we do that by ‘having a seat at the table’ and advocating for our community.”

Knowing that ICC and other pro-Israel students have their back, both students are hopeful that returning to school this semester will be different. 

“I am not particularly worried for myself,” Menna said. “I know that my loud pride in my identity in itself is a threat to the pro-Hamas students.”

“We’ll be the ones stirring up headlines, celebrating Israel and Judaism on every single campus.”
– Jonah Nazarian

For Nazarian “While there’s definitely some concern, especially knowing that SJP has been planning for the fall all summer, after attending NLS, I’m more eager than ever to return to campus. The support of such a large network of committed and driven Zionists, who share the same cause as so many student leaders at UCLA, fills me with hope for the year ahead. I’m confident that the events of last year that plagued our campuses won’t have the same impact now. Rather, we’ll be the ones stirring up headlines, celebrating Israel and Judaism on every single campus.”