TORONTO ? Sure, it's a little on the small side, but size doesn't matter to Rebecca Cherniak. (
CJN)
The Size Doesn't Matter campaign aims to spread awareness about Israel at Canadian universities. Pictured, from left, are Jake Warren, Rebecca Cherniak, Atara Messinger, Adira Winegust,
Daphne Jackson and Galina Goren of McMaster University's Israel On Campus group.
EDITORIAL: Kudos to our students
Cherniak, chair of Israel affairs and advocacy for the Canadian Federation of Jewish Students (CFJS), helped organize the Size Doesn't Matter campaign, which uses videos, a website and a speaker
series to highlight Israel's accomplishments in medicine, technology, science, business and humanitarian aid. (
The ad campaign can be found on Heebonics at http://www.heebonics.ca)
A centrepiece is the campaign's cheeky first video, which can be viewed on Facebook and YouTube. It shows a Canadian woman telling her Israeli boyfriend, who appears to be naked, that ?it's
small' I don't think I could go there.?
The camera eventually pans to a map of Israel and ends with a website address.
?The video is provocative and risqué. It's meant to achieve a certain goal. The goal is that the video grabs attention and turns heads,? Cherniak said.
?It causes people to be a little bit curious. That leads them to click on the link. once at the website, there's access to a huge amount of resources.?
The campaign, which encompasses 23 Canadian universities and partners with local Hillels and Jewish Student Association groups, was launched before Israeli Apartheid Week, an annual event that
began in Toronto and spread to 40 other cities.
?IAW is a week of intimidation and hateful speakers,? Cherniak said. ?By [launching early], we're not responding, we're able to set the terms'?we create an attitude of positivity.?
The campaign's website and advertising veers from the usual blue and white advocacy posters that typically plaster university walls. Instead, it uses bright colours and provocative images,
including a scantily clad model.
The campaign's website also features pictures from Israel's club scene and areas such as Mount Tabor, in Lower Galilee.
?Students were not satisfied with the way Israel was represented on campus. We took it into our hands to show the Israel that we know. It's a different way of looking at Israel,? said Cherniak,
explaining that, in the past, there were two types of awareness campaigns: soft-core campaigns that featured Israel and the West's ?shared values and falafels' and advocacy campaigns that
responded to anti-Israel sentiments.
?The hard-core advocacy looks reactive. And it is, because you have to respond to lies,? Cherniak said. ?The soft-core campaign looks irrelevant.?
The Size Doesn't Matter campaign aims to combine the two in a light, but thought-provoking way.
The campaign is directed at apathetic students who know little about Israel, Cherniak said.
?This is for the 80 per cent [of students] in the middle, not for students who love Israel or hate Israel, but for the students who can't even point out Israel on the map,? she said.
The website, www.sizedoesntmatter.ca, contains facts about Israel, as well as a list of various pro-Israel speakers and events
at universities across Canada. Its tagline is ?Israel. Small country. Big appetite for peace.?
The campaign's final phase is its speaker series, which delves into topics such as obstacles to peace in the Middle East and minority groups in Israel.
?The speaker series goes a little further. We move [from] the most superficial to the deepest ideas,? she said.
So far, the campaign's video has had about 22,000 views and the website has had around 10,000 hits.
For Deborah Mechanic, a third-year kinesiology student at York University, the video is definitely attention-catching.
?I saw it on Facebook first and was surprised that it was so in your face. The Israel campaigns before weren't that out there,? Mechanic said. ?Even the colours are pretty extreme. It strays from
the usual blue and white, and it kind of brings people in to find out more.?
Mechanic sees the campaign as a good way to learn about Israel.
?It's great for drawing people in to find out more about it' It's pro-Israel, but it's not overwhelming with the blue and white, and it's edgy enough that if someone takes a card or button, they
might actually go to the website,? she said, adding that the campaign was launched at a good time.
