Why TFI?

Terps for Israel has been my home for the past two years. This was after my gap year, when Israel had been my home for a year. Coming from a Zionist youth movement, summer camp, and gap year program, Israel has been a deeply personal and important place in my life. TFI became the place where I could keep engaging with this place that was so important to me while I was in college six thousand miles away.

I’ve developed a strong interest in Israeli culture over the years. Pieces of Israeli music, Israeli TV shows, Israeli movies, and Israeli books all rank among my favorites. TFI offers programs to let people enjoy these things too. We’ve had watch parties for Israeli shows and movies. We’re working on organizing a book club to read more Israeli and Israel-centered material. We’re curating a Spotify profile to share new Israeli music with our members and followers.

With such a personal connection to Israel, I care a lot about what happens in its political and social spheres. This isn’t just the conflict, although I definitely have strong feelings about it, and TFI provides a platform for people to explore the conflict in a little more depth and discuss their thoughts with other members. TFI has done deep dives and mock elections to engage students on the Knesset and issues in Israeli government. We’ve also explored major social issues with tabling campaigns and guest speakers, and in such a volatile time as this, I’m looking forward to continuing these conversations.

Independent of our Israel programming, I’ve also made some really close friends in my time with TFI, and I wouldn’t have been able to do that if we didn’t strive to be a community. This is in part through some of our programming, where we have group discussions about the current state of affairs in Israel and encourage people to get personal and share what they think, but it’s also through TFI Shabbat dinners or even just tabling with someone.

At first, TFI was just an organization for me that ran programs that I could go to to keep talking about Israel. But these last few years I’ve been involved, and especially the time I’ve been on board, I’ve really been able to make it my own and have it be my community, I’ve tried hard to make sure we can be that place for so many others.

Written by:

Ben Rosenbaum

President, TFI