8 | MARCH 28 • 2024
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information is tearing our world
apart. Instead of making me
angry, it makes me sad.
I think of Shelly Shem Tov and
Yarden Gonen, who both spoke
to our group from the Missing
Family & Hostage Forum. The
Shem Tov family established the
forum with other families on Oct.
8 after their son, Omer Shem
Tov, was kidnapped from the
Nova Music Festival. Shelly will
tell her story as many times as it
takes to get her Omer home. We
must never stop. We must keep
talking about all the kidnapped
until they are all home and safe
and all our soldiers are home safe.
The Shem Tov family gives us
all a Good Name for sure, and
we can help them by continuing
to spread the word that they all
must come home. To bear wit-
ness to this extraordinary display
is to assert to the world that this
massacre happened, and we are
waiting for our hostages to come
home. We will not forget. That is
my why.
When we decide to have a
family, we wish for many things
and hope — we get what we wish
for — and if we are lucky, we
get exactly what we never knew
that we always wanted and never
thought was possible. My daugh-
ter, Maya, continues to give me
gifts that I never thought were
possible.
In fall 2021, Maya’s junior year
at Washington University in St.
Louis, she decided to apply to
Birthright Excel for summer 2022.
Thousands of applicants express
interest every year, but there are
only 64 spots in the fellowship
program. Fortunately, Maya was
one of those selected and thus
began her meaningful connec-
tion to Birthright Excel, Israel
and Zionism.
Before Maya’s Birthright Israel
Excel experience, I had been to
Israel on two occasions — a five-
week summer trip in 1981 as a
teenager with Temple Israel of
West Bloomfield and, in 2016, as
a mom with Momentum. Prior
to being selected as an Excel
Fellow, Maya had only been
to Israel once and just for five
days. While we craved to spend
more time there, other vacation
spots closer to home were more
intriguing during those years.
While Maya was living in Israel
as an Excel Fellow in summer
2022, I made sure to go spend
time in Tel Aviv visiting her and
her new friends, seeing old friends
and exploring the city. One of
the highlights of my trip was
dining with Maya and her cohort
listening to the recap of their
experience, getting caught up in
their excitement and learning
about their internship experienc-
es, opportunities, and culture that
I never realized existed in our
homeland. Seeing Israel through
the eyes of college students was
joyful and meaningful.
When Oct. 7 happened, the
news affected us to our core.
Our hearts broke for fear of
our friends and family, yet our
immediate visceral reaction was
to get to Israel as soon as possible.
Knowing the battlefield was in
Gaza, an area off limits to Israelis
and tourists, I felt just about as
comfortable going to Israel as I do
when traveling to other locations
outside of the U.S.
When Maya and I, as an inter-
generational Excel family, were
presented with the opportunity
by Excel leadership to participate
in the Birthright Excel Mission
to Israel, we did not hesitate.
Our people are there, and Israel
needs us just like we need Israel.
Without Israel, our existence as a
people is in danger.
I truly believe that the
Birthright Excel experience was
and continues to be a central
element of my daughter’s life.
Maya and her cohort of Excel
Fellows are contemplating what
they can do with this special gift
to enhance their relationship
with Israel and to develop leader-
ship roles for their future. These
amazing Birthright Excel Fellows
are proud to be Jewish Zionists
and step into leadership roles to
support Israel’s next chapter.
I’m so happy that my daughter
is part of this amazing group, and
I encourage all those who are eli-
gible to take the opportunity of a
lifetime with a 10-day Birthright
Israel trip this summer. Without
question, the time has actually
never been better. I encourage
each of you to find your why.
Am Yisrael Chai.
Karen Simon grew up in West
Bloomfield. Her parents were founding
members of Temple Israel. She and her
daughter, Maya, returned recently from a
special, first-of-its-kind intergenerational
mission to Israel which took place in
early February and was organized by
Birthright Israel.
Israel, the dark forces outside the
university, and the unidentified
“donors.” It doesn’t take a genius
to figure out who are meant by
the outside dark forces and the
meddling donors. There was no
mention of the well-documented
harassment of Jews, the physical
disruption of Jewish meetings,
lectures, classes, vandalism of
posters and extremist rhetoric
calling for the extermination of
Israel.
WE ARE NOT ALONE
I left the AEN zoom Town Hall
feeling energized despite all the
bad news because I felt that we
are not alone, and we are not
powerless. We can organize,
educate and engage in civil dis-
cussions against the historical
ignorance and demagogic manip-
ulation. Apartheid, white settler
colonialism and genocide all have
objective meanings and historical
contexts that simplistic slogans
that cannot lead to precise under-
standing. BDS, Justice for Peace
in Palestine and similar groups
use the understandable compas-
sion for the suffering civilians
in Gaza — used by Hamas as
human shields — to relitigate the
establishment of Israel in 1947-
50.
Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran do
not hide their goal of destroying
Jewish Israel, but other advocates
for the Palestinians conceal what
they want with seemingly rea-
sonable calls for an immediate
ceasefire and an end to the war
without Hamas being defeated.
The slogan about “from the
river to the sea” illustrates that
proposals for a one-state solution
with the right of return are not
innocent positions but constitute
a path to violent conflict.
One anecdote to conclude. At
a Jewish Studies conference in
Southampton, England, in 2005,
only a few weeks after the “7/7”
terrorist bombings in London
that killed 56 and injured 784, a
colleague and I tried to persuade
a graduate student that Israel was
not an apartheid state.
Not a conference participant,
he refused to believe that the
Knesset had Arab and Muslim
members. We urged him to look
it up on his own, but he was
unyielding in his conviction. As
an intelligent graduate student, he
had to know we were not making
up these facts, but his worldview
depended on a demonic Israel. I
thought he was an outlier in 2005,
but now I am not so sure.
Dr. Michael Scrivener is Wayne State
Distinguished Professor of English,
Emeritus. He now lives in Matawan,
New Jersey.
PURELY COMMENTARY
FINDING HOPE continued from page 7
HAMAS AND ACADEMIA continued from page 7