Eric Schorr, 22
Pro-Israel Campus Activist.
Assistant Managing Editor
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
When Eric Schorr arrived at Columbia University three years ago, he wasn’t looking to be a Jewish activist. After serving as president of United Synagogue Youth’s Hagesher region in the Greater Philadelphia area and a year in the Nativ College Leadership Program in Israel, he was feeling “burnt out” and wanted to concentrate on his studies. Then came a visit to Israel for winter break, which coincided with Israel’s Operation Cast Lead incursion into Gaza in early 2009.
Schorr had planned to join the Israel Defense Forces — his mother is Israeli — after a semester at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, but friends convinced him not to defer his acceptance to Columbia. Some of his Israeli friends, however, took part in the battle against Hamas.
So when he returned to Morningside Heights to find pro-Palestinian protests on campus denouncing Israel, it was personal.
Before long he was organizing counter-protests with the campus activist group LionPac, and taking on the role of public relations director, publishing a spring op-ed in the campus paper titled “No partner for peace,” which analyzed the Palestinian view of Israel’s birth as a “nakba,” or catastrophe. He was recently elected president of LionPac. “My passion stems from a lot of ability to get up in front of others and speak out. The fact that my mother was born in Haifa and I have dual citizenship is a big part of it. I’m born of two worlds and caught between them.”
Schorr still has plans to serve in the IDF after college, but not in a combat unit. “Nothing is guaranteed, but I’d like to serve in the spokesperson’s unit. Israel needs more Americans speaking on its behalf. We need American student activism infused into the IDF and that’s what I hope to bring.”
Silver tongue: Schorr speaks advanced Arabic, is fluent in Hebrew, proficient in Spanish and also knows a bissel Yiddish. Think tank: He wrote a policy paper on U.S. detention procedures at Guantanamo Bay for Columbia’s Roosevelt Institute, which was published in the spring of 2009.
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Wow! At Camp Ramah, Eric Schorr was my live in for two summers. He's a great guy.
The analysis in Shorr's article that seems to have earned him this spot seems to be based in Shorr's own fear of the "other" rather than an understanding of Nakba. Sure, someone who cares deeply about Israel wants to have a day of celebration on Yom Ha'atzmaut, but Nakba is not inherently about the denigration of Israel. Whether because of the advice of community leaders or fear of violence on their doorsteps, Independence for Israel resulted in the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Try to view the situation from their perspective, how would you respond to someone who spent Yom Hazickaron (Israeli Memorial day) in community wide celebration?
At the very least have the decency to spell the guy's name correctly.
Schorr's article, having read it when it first came out, and now having re-read it, takes issue precisely with the premise of Nakba as a "celebration" or if you so desire "mourning" of the establishment of the State of Israel. In no way is he looking to deny or belittle the actual "catastrophe" that befell the Palestinians at the time; that being the abandonment by surrounding Arab nations who refused to normalize relations, propagated a violent war, ended up losing, and then began politicizing the conflict and manipulating the Palestinian cause. Indeed, if you asked Schorr in person about the '48 war, which I have, he would say that it was inherently a shame that the Arab leadership outwardly rejected UN partition back in 1947, and that subsequent efforts to declare Palestinian statehood were undeservedly denied by political elements in the Arab establishment.
To make your point even further...there are people who "celebrate" Yom Hazikaron in the manner in which you describe. The militant and extremist elements of the Arab world surrounding Israel, namely Hamas, Hizbullah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad to name a few. Furthermore, all one has to do is turn on Palestinian media following a terrorist attack, or seek out the video of Gaza's streets following September 11, 2001, there you shall find your answer on who celebrates and glorifies murder and death. Also, do not take the previously cited examples as generalizations of Palestinian society. "Nakba" as Schorr argues in his Spectator article, has been unduly manipulated, for which he hopes one day will be replaced with Palestinian celebrations of independence rather than painful mourning of the future neighbor's creation.
E.K.
Eli,
If you can only see Nakba as a mourning of the establishment of Israel, then you fall into the same trap as those who can only see Zionism as racism. The loudest proponents of Zionism in 2011 (who often spur crowds of hundreds of thousands in rallies in Israel) may be the most radical, but you and I both know that Zionism - as the belief in the right for the Jewish people to have a home in a land that was once theirs - includes aspirations for coexistence and multiculturalism (e.g. Herzl's Altneuland). At the same time, Nakba may have radical proponents (with their rival rallies of the apparent masses) who chant for the destruction of Israel, but you must remember that a loud voice is not the same as a mainstream belief.
Keeps you guesing
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