Two soldiers from the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) spoke to an audience of about 40 students in the Public Affairs Center on Sunday, Feb. 24. The Israeli Soldiers’ Stories event was co-sponsored by the University’s chapter of the Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi) fraternity, Wesleyan Students United with Israel, and StandWithUs, an international organization that aims to educate citizens of all backgrounds about Israel and dispel misinformation surrounding the Arab-Israeli conflict.

“StandWithUs is an Israeli education organization,” said New England Campus Coordinator for StandWithUs Lihi Benisty. “We educate proactively, and we watch for anti-Israel trends and respond to them… The idea is that we do proactive and reactive events on campuses, communities, churches, synagogues, [and] high schools.”

Members of the Israeli Soldiers’ Stories program travel to various schools and communities and speak about their experiences in the IDF. Ben, the first speaker on Sunday, served in the Special Forces unit of Maglan. The other speaker, Jossi, served as an international relations noncommissioned officer (NCO) in the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT).

“We had one [story] from a combat soldier who dealt with some Palestinians on the ground and another openly gay soldier who served in the military, and he was talking about that experience. Overall, it was just a really fun event, and I think it was a good thing to have here,” said AEPi President Andrew Cohen ’14.

Benisty noted that there had been concern within the pro-Israel community that only one side of the conflict was presented by Judith Butler in her Feb. 13 lecture. Benisty stated that the Israeli Soldiers’ Stories program helps represent the pro-Israel side of the conflict.

“We have this program of having Israeli soldiers come speak, and the idea is to really humanize this and to really put a human face to the IDF uniform,” Benisty said.

Member of Wesleyan Students United with Israel Rebecca Markell ’14 pointed out that the timing of Butler’s lecture shortly before the Israel Soldiers’ Stories was also fortunate.

“This event probably would have happened without Judith Butler because they were going to different campuses across America, so it doesn’t really depend on that, but we happened to luck out with the timing,” Markell said.

Markell, Aviv Fraiman ’15, and Ron Jacobs ’16 organized the event.

“I emailed StandWithUs, and I said that we’re a group at Wesleyan, we’re starting out, we could use some outside assistance in terms of funding, and I got an email back right away,” Markell said. “She said that they’d be happy to help us with events this semester and for as long as we need it.”

Fraiman contacted Cohen about co-sponsoring the event with AEPi. The Student Budget Committee (SBC) gave the organizers two hundred dollars to help defray the costs of the event.

Organizers of the event said that the presentation was important in order to portray the Israeli perspective in the Arab-Israeli conflict on campus. Fraiman noted that particularly at the University, this perspective is insufficiently expressed.

“We feel that the issue of the Arab-Israeli conflict is one that is very underrepresented on the pro-Israeli side at Wesleyan,” Fraiman said. “It’s very one-sided, and we just wanted to shed light to the other side of the conversation that isn’t really heard, just open peoples’ eyes, bring another diversity of opinion, and we feel that that really accomplished that.”

Markell said that she has observed that members of the University community still do not entirely understand the IDF.

“I find a lot of people at this school have misconceptions about Israel and about Israeli soldiers and about really the army’s role in Israeli society,” Markell said. “And so I thought it was really important that two former soldiers come to campus and talk to people, to whoever wanted to listen and learn about what it’s actually like to be a soldier in the Israeli army and what the IDF actually does.”

Benistry said that the event was successful and that students were respectful of the speakers.

“We were really impressed actually,” she said. “I think that there was a pretty wide variety of opinions in the audience, and I think that it was great that everyone really respected each other’s opinions and…it was nice to see that it wasn’t only Jewish students in the audience, and it was both sides and all sides represented.”

Benisty said that she plans to continue working with students on future events at the University.

Leaders of Wesleyan Students United with Israel and AEPi agreed that the event was successful and the students were respectful.

“I was extremely proud to go to this school after going to this event because these soldiers have had things thrown at them, they’ve had people stand up and scream that they’re monsters and things like that,” Markell said.“Showing different opinions in a polite way and really asking and trying to understand another opinion is the way to go, and I was really happy that Wesleyan students took this opportunity.”