Sometimes it takes a personal touch.

That’s how Noa Partuk, an IDF veteran and university graduate, sees her impact as a Campus Israel Fellow at Tanger Hillel, Brooklyn College.

“Through a personal connection with an Israel Fellow like me, Jewish students learn what’s positive in Israel and the challenges Israel faces,” Noa says. “I serve as an educator to help students become more knowledgeable. Personal connection is a long-lasting effect. People may not remember a program. They will remember a person who was there for them.”

Fellows are young Israelis who share their firsthand experience about Israel’s complex society.

Noa served as a communications technician in the IDF, and worked as a soldier with the Gaza disengagement in 2005.

“I saw the conflict in a real way,” she says. “The subject is very complicated and that’s the key point.”

Noa tries to bring this understanding of Israel’s many nuances to the students she meets. And she empowers students to respond to anti-Israel bias on campus, which has heated up with the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Israel Fellows help train students to respond to questions, write op-eds, and engage in one-to-one conversations and on social media.

“I train students to respond in an informative, less emotional way,” Noa says.

With the support of UJA-Federation of New York, together with the Jewish Agency for Israel and Hillel International, Campus Israel Fellows are currently serving the Hillels at Columbia, Baruch, and Stony Book, in addition to Brooklyn College.

“I’m an educator and trying to build an involved community,” Noa adds, “What I’d like students to know about Israel is that it’s such a colorful and diverse place. Personal experience is best, go visit.”