by Sarit Catz

 

I have a really bad cold. Not the flu, luckily, but the kind of cold where every time you lie down and fall asleep you wake up in a coughing fit. Not wanting to wake my husband up last night, I went down to the den and propped myself up on the sofa with a box of tissues, a bottle of water, and a comforter.

 

Now, when I wake up at night, I can’t fall back to sleep because my mind is always buzzing with things I have to do and things I forgot to do. I have to turn the TV on to something that’s distracting enough so that I stop thinking but not engaging enough so that I stay awake to watch it. I also have to find a channel where the commercials don’t come on so loud they wake me up.

 

Distracting + Not Engaging – Commercials = C-SPAN.

 

Perfect. I fell asleep sitting up, but when I woke up a little later, C-SPAN had let me down. There was actually something on that was interesting. The network was broadcasting an interview with Lela Gilbert, author of the book, Saturday People, Sunday People: Israel Through the Eyes of a Christian Sojourner.

 

Gilbert is an American Christian woman who went to Israel for a visit and never left. In the interview, she expressed her love of Israel and Israelis.

 

The author debunked the ridiculous fallacy that Israel is an apartheid state, relating how Jews, Muslims, and Christians relate to each other every day in Israel. Gilbert talked about the 850,000 Jews who were expelled from Arab countries beginning in 1948. She revealed how residents of southern Israel suffer tremendously because of the rocket attacks from Gaza. She praised the resilient and generous spirit of the Israeli people.

 

It was wonderful to hear a Christian woman discuss Israel. Could you?

 

Did you know that the judge who convicted a former Israeli president, sending him to prison, was an Arab? Did you know how difficult it was for Israel, as a young pioneer state, to absorb a huge influx of refugees? Did you know that a mother in Sderot has 15 seconds to get her children to an air raid shelter when she hears the sirens and sometimes has to ask herself which child she can run to? And, would you tell others if you did?

 

Prepare yourself to do just that at the Step Up for Israel Advocacy Summit on February 3 at the Alex Aidekman Family Jewish Community Campus in Whippany.  From 9 a.m.-1 p.m., hear from experts and activists from virtually all the major pro-Israel advocacy groups. 

 

I know, I know, that’s Super Bowl Sunday. But we’ll have you home in plenty of time for the game. And the summit is FREE.

 

Listen to Itamar Marcus, founder and director of Palestinian Media Watch and one of the foremost authorities on Palestinian ideology and policy. Hear from Michael Curtis, distinguished professor emeritus of political science at Rutgers University and author of Should Israel Exist? A Sovereign Nation Under Attack by the International Community.

 

Learn how to respond to misinformation and false accusations against Israel and discover what YOU can do about them. Join us, bring a friend, bring all your friends. Speak up for Israel with confidence. If a Christian woman from southern California can do it, shouldn’t you be able to?

 

Co-sponsored by the AJC/NJ. You can register online here.

 

Just FYI, for the most part, C-SPAN is not particularly good on Israel. But it is usually boring.