Aish HaTorah, using the name of one of its many subsidiaries and shadow organizations, makes a film on Islamic terror. Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against The West did not find normal distribution. (It did air on Fox News awhile back and I gave the film some free PR related to those airings.) So it is being distributed in part by the Hasbara Fellowships, another part of Aish HaTorah. All this is fine with with me, except for how Aish is handling that distribution according to the New York Times:
…When a Middle East discussion group organized a showing at New York University recently, it found that the distributors of “Obsession” were requiring those in attendance to register at IsraelActivism.com, and that digital pictures of the events be sent to Hasbara Fellowships, a group set up to counter anti-Israel sentiment on college campuses.
“If people have to give their names over to Hasbara Fellowships at the door, that doesn’t have the effect of stimulating open dialogue,” said Jordan J. Dunn, president of the Middle East Dialogue Group of New York University, which mixes Jews and Muslims. “Rather, it intimidates people and stifles dissent.”…
What it also does is give Aish HaTorah a huge list of college-age Jews they can target with haredi missionary propaganda which, no doubt, is a major goal.
Steven I. Weiss is quoted in the Times article this way:
Steven I. Weiss, editor and publisher of CampusJ.com, an Internet site that covers Jewish news on campuses, said he was surprised by the Jewish skepticism to the film at N.Y.U. “Were a Jewish leader from virtually any significant organization to walk in on that discussion,” he said, “they’d be very surprised and displeased. This is the opposite of the change they’ve been looking for in campus rhetoric.”
Perhaps, SIW, it is the Aish missionary machine that spawned a chunk of that skepticism.
In a tangential note, my friend Arie Zmora is the focus of the lead story on Campus J today. Serendipity, no doubt. And only like maybe three degrees of separation.