Jacob Clacker and Andrew Stein
(Video: Yaron Brener)
Andrew Stein and Jacob Clacker are visiting Israel as part of a student leadership delegation to directly learn about the atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists on October 7. The delegation aims to reshape the discourse and debunk misinformation prevalent on U.S. campuses and provide an accurate account of the events in Israel.
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"The main goal is to be able to come to Israel and be a part of the Jewish people and then to be able to bring that experience back to campus to strengthen the Jewish community," says Stein.
Stein adds that another goal is "to fix the misinformation that's going on on campus and to be able to bring back facts and personal stories. And try to spread the truth on campus so that people could know what's happening in Israel."
"Another thing we want to bring back to campus is a lot of those personal stories," says Clacker. "They are missing on campus, everybody only talks about statistics, and we want to bring back that human touch to it."
So tell us about your campus, each one from your point of view about the experience since October 7. What has changed?
"I go to the University of Washington in Seattle, which if anybody knows anything about Seattle, it is pretty far on one side of the political spectrum, and antisemitism at the school has been rampant and has been growing a lot. And we see this in relation to October 7," says Clacker.
"There was a lot of joy from the anti-Israel community when on October 8, 9, 10. In the weeks following, people actually celebrated what had happened and antisemitism was allowed. I would also say encouraged by certain members of the administration, even among the Jewish and Israeli studies departments, which have gone into multiple scandals over the last few years. So it's been a very treacherous place to be both Jewish and openly pro-Israel."
Watch the full interview above