Summer is over.  Students have returned to campus.  A new academic year has begun.

As we gear up for the year ahead, we at the Maccabee Task force have some exciting news to announce.  We’re doubling our operations from 40 to 80 campuses.

We’ve spent the summer preparing for this surge.  We hired an excellent group of new field coordinators and directors.  And we trained them so that they can hit the ground running.  As I write, our teams are already on campuses across the US and Canada meeting with student activists and allies to formulate strategies for the coming year.

When we invest in a campus, we do so in a deep and transformative way.  Together with our local partners we will formulate a comprehensive action plan for each of our 80 campuses.  Most of these action plans will contain 20 or more initiatives designed to penetrate and shift the campus conversation about Israel.  In addition, each of our campuses will be offered their own trip to Israel on which 3 to 5 pro-Israel students will accompany 15 to 20 top campus leaders and influencers.  And each of these campuses will receive an MTF grant sufficient to support these activities.

This year’s action plans will benefit from last year’s efforts.  Each semester we learn an enormous amount from the best teacher there is: experience.  We learn from each success.  We learn even more from each failure.  As we sit with our campus partners we’ll be offering them a new-and-improved list of strategies that have already proven effective out there in the field.  We’ll also be able to provide each partner with an updated list of best practices for executing these strategies with excellence.  And, as always, we’ll be funding new ideas on each of our campuses to ensure we have a pipeline of innovations to draw upon next year.

We’re excited for the year to come.  We look forward to reporting great progress and continued improvement.  We welcome your ideas, suggestions and criticism as the year unfolds.  And we hope to earn your continued support.

David Brog
Executive Director