Public Opinion: The Eighth Front of Israel’s War for Survival
For more than a year, Israel has been engaged in in a struggle for survival against Iran and its terror proxy forces on seven fronts. Yet, there is an eighth front of this war: the battle for public opinion to maintain American support for Israel.
The challenge we are facing in the mainstream American media was aptly summed up by New York Times columnist Brett Stephens who described it as follows. Israel’s problem in the American media is a phenomenon that he called, “Getting it right while getting it wrong: the facts may be correct, but the context is missing.”
Since the brutal Hamas attack on October 7th, 2023, the Jewish Federation of St. Joseph Valley, and our community partners, have been doing our part to fill the missing context. To that end, we work in two parallel tracks: information for our Jewish community and information for the non-Jewish community.
Just five days after the Hamas attack, on October 11th, we held a previously scheduled event featuring Middle East expert Dr. Jonathan Schanzer, co-sponsored by the Simon Foundation of Temple Beth-El and our Federation’s Community Relations Committee. Dr. Schanzer’s talk could not have been timelier, and we also turned the event into a gathering for support and community solidarity.
Since then, we have hosted several other speakers.
The South Bend Rotary Club hosted our son Dan Feferman for a briefing via zoom arranged by Anne Feferman and Moshe Kruger. Dan also gave a briefing to our Jewish community in November 2023, along with Israeli-Arab journalist Khaled Abu-Toameh, in an event sponsored by the Community Relations Committee.
In February, we arranged for Yinam Cohen, Israeli Consul General to the Midwest, to speak to a group of students at Holy Cross College. Mr. Cohen also provided a briefing at our Federation on the same visit.
Working in partnership with Temple Beth-El’s Simon Foundation and the Jewish Federation of Northwest Indiana, our Federation co-sponsored a briefing in June featuring South Bend native Dan Goldwin and former Israeli diplomat Ofer Bavli.
Our shaliach, Omer Karavani has given several inspirational speeches at Jewish community events including the solidarity event on October 11th, 2023, the campaign kickoff in 2023, and more recently at the one-year memorial ceremony for the victims of October 7th. All of his speeches have been published in Our Community Newsletter.
At the one-year memorial ceremony for the victims of the war on October 27th planned by our Partnership Committee (P2G), Rabbi Friedland gave a moving talk about his visit to Kibbutz Nir Oz, and Rabbi Kaminsky shared beautiful poetry to commemorate the victims.
Our Federation also hosted two IDF soldiers who fought in Gaza for briefings to the community. In August we hosted Shiloh Tor who serves in the Givati Infantry Brigade, and in October we hosted Noam, an IDF commando.
In our efforts to provide “the missing context” to the non-Jewish community, over the past year I have published two opinion articles in the South Bend Tribune and one in the Observer, the student newspaper of Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s College. Recently, I gave a one-hour talk about the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict at Sunnyside Presbyterian Church.
On October 24th, two of our community members, Megan New and Ina Rosenberg participated in a panel discussion about Antisemitism at the church.
In addition, our shaliach, Omer Karavani has presented “My Israeli Story” to several church groups in the area and he will also be presenting again at Sunnyside Presbyterian Church and Saint Joseph High School.
This spring, Omer Karavani and I will be taking part in Forever Learning Institute with a 5-part course titled, “Understanding Modern Israel: the People, and their Struggle for Survival and Peace.”
Finally, shortly after the war began, our Federation began a collaborative project called “The Missing Context,” co-produced by Steve Lotter and myself. The purpose of this bi-weekly publication that we send to the Jewish community is to provide in-depth insight and analysis on issues surrounding the war from non-partisan experts.
This project provides an opportunity for each of you to take part in the effort to address the challenge of the “missing context” in the American media.
If you see an article or an interview, we publish that you like, I encourage you to consider sharing it with family and friends. Or, if you see an article or interview that you think we should consider using, please send it to me so that we can share.
In the effort to support Israel as it fights a war for its survival on seven fronts, each one of you can become what the military calls, “a force multiplier.” I encourage you to help defend Israel in the eighth front, the battle for public opinion. All you need to do is help provide information and “the missing context.”
Bob Feferman
Director of Community Relations
rfeferman@thejewishfed.org