A new pro-Israel group on campus called Am Yisrael Chai (AYC), meaning The People of Israel Live, aims to introduce a pro-Israel perspective to the campus conversation about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Brian Lissak ’17 said that he and Deena Kleinstein ’19 founded the group mid-way through this fall semester to provide an alternative to the J-Street U, the group that advocates for a two-state solution in Israel and Palestine.

“The only other pro-Israel group on campus (J Street U) has a different political ideology than Deena and I agree with,” Lissak said. “We’re not at all opposed to J Street U, we just wanted to give people another option.”

According to Lissak, AYC’s official mission statement is “to educate and communicate a pro-Israel message to Dickinson students.”

“Now that we finally have a state again after 2000 years of our ancestors praying and crying for it, I think it’s a shame that a lot of Jewish kids know nothing about the modern state of Israel,” said Lissak.

However, Lissak affirmed that the group is educational, not ideological.

“It’s educational on the political side, but our groups not about spreading a specific ideology,” said Lissak. He said that AYC is not exclusively for Jewish students, but those have been the students most interested.

Although AYC is not currently affiliated with a national group, Lissak said he and Kleinstein are considering pursuing national sponsorship, since being part of a larger organization “would give us more structure, broader ideas and funding.”

Lissak explained that the group is very informal, and does not have weekly meetings to not “discourage” people who do not want to make that commitment.

“When we have an event, I’ll just go through my contacts of people who said they’re interested, and send out a text or an email,” he said.

The group has already had one successful event, on Wednesday, Nov. 18 when two prominent Israeli journalists of Walla News and the Jerusalem Post debated Israeli current events. 40 students and faculty attended the event, according to Lissak.

“That was great, and we hope to have more events like that in the future,” he said.

Lissak said he grew up in New York under a reformist Jewish household, with grandparents who lived through the Holocaust and immigrated to the U.S. during and after WWII.

“Some of my family went to New York, but a lot of my family went to Israel and South America…. I am still very connected to my family in Israel,” said Lissak, who plans to serve in the Israeli military sometime after college.

Students who would like to learn more about AYC can email Lissak and Kleinstein at [email protected] or [email protected], or join their Facebook group.