Youth on a mission to smash BDS

BENJI SHULMAN

The Diller Teen Fellowship is designed to support youth leaders in the Jewish community. It promotes the ideals of leadership and Jewish peoplehood to Jewish high school pupils. Following the programme, Diller teens need to apply the skills they have learnt to create projects to benefit the community.

Says Tradonsky, “I went on the March of the Living in 2015, and was incredibly affected by the trip.” He realised that education could be a key to helping non-Jews to understand the Jewish community and, particularly, the importance of Israel. He was also very aware of the importance of South Africa in the fight against BDS.

 “It was a three or four-year process,” he says. After a couple of false starts, he approached Nicci Raz from the South African Zionist Federation which hosts the Diller programme to find the best way to put together an education programme to Israel. He also began raising funds for the trip. “Throughout Grade 11 and matric, I was meeting businessmen and women, dealing with their PAs in between classes,” he says.

He partnered with the South African Israel Forum to send five top Christian university activists on a tour of Israel. The South Africans joined a tour bus of American students from across the country.

Masego Meyer, a medical student and part of the Anglican Students Society at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), was on Tradonsky’s tour. “The culture is dynamic; from the vibrant nightlife of Tel Aviv to the very religious atmosphere of some parts of Jerusalem,” he says.

Like him, others found that the country was not what they expected. “What I remember is when we were by the Gaza Strip, how scared I was standing there, and when we went to Yad Vashem, it just showed that there’s so much that we don’t know about Israel, yet we are so quick to reach conclusions,” said Sechy Maropola, who is doing her International Relations Honours at Wits.

This sentiment was echoed by Said Dzhavhelo Ndou, a third-year Bachelor of Accounting Science student at Wits, and chairperson of the Christian Action Fellowship. “Israel is very rich in history and its history is interesting from a political, economic, and religious point of view. Its history has great significance in understanding and appreciating the current complex political climate. Ideally every Christian should visit Israel,” he says.