Advocating for the true Israel
“ISRAEL is in two different yet parallel battlefields – one is the need to protect our borders physically but at the same time we must protect Israel’s right to exist as a country for the Jewish people,” Israeli advocate and guest of the Zionist Council of New South Wales (ZCNSW) Aaron Taub said.
“ISRAEL is in two different yet parallel battlefields – one is the need to protect our borders physically but at the same time we must protect Israel’s right to exist as a country for the Jewish people,” Israeli advocate and guest of the Zionist Council of New South Wales (ZCNSW) Aaron Taub said.
“They are both extremely important battles and if we lose one of them, we lose both.”
Taub, who visited Australia with his father – former Israeli ambassador to the UK Daniel Taub – travels the world as an advocate for Israel, showing people that the “apartheid” country portrayed in the media is not the real Israel.
“There is a church across the road from my house in Jerusalem,” Taub told The AJN this week.
“I walk through the Christian and Armenian quarter on my way to the Western Wall and it’s beautiful … All we can do is give each and every person the ability to make their own decision, and make sure that their decision is unbiased and based on the truth.”
Taub served as a paratrooper in the Israeli Defence Forces, and then as an officer in charge of a sniper team in the Counterterrorism Unit. After his discharge, he began working for a venture capitalist firm that invests in Israeli start-ups. “Every day, I see a small glimpse of the future,” he said. “Israelis really are making the world a better place.”
Danielle Edelman, also an Israeli advocate and guest of ZCNSW, is one of those people working tirelessly to improve quality of life for others.
The former medical clown and Zionist camp education officer is set to take up a new role in a pilot project called Kehilat Bona.
“At some point, I just realised that I love working with people and that I wanted to work on project management for social endeavours,” Edelman explained. “Anyone can be a social entrepreneur.”
Kehilat Bona aims to improve the quality of life in a neglected Jerusalem neighbourhood through renovations, installing community gardens, encouraging community mingling, coordinating volunteers and creating interactions between neighbourhood organisations.
Edelman, who will join the project when she returns to Israel, wants to spread the message that anyone can be a social entrepreneur and change the world.
YAEL BRENDER
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