‘Stand With Us’ hosts Dayan in the Five Towns

Ambassador Dani Dayan, Israel’s new consul general in New York, greeted more than 200 friends of Israel last Thursday night in the Lawrence backyard of Yael and Gary Mandel.

Although “Israel is flourishing like never before,” Yael Mandel told the gathering in support of the organization Stand With Us, “we are also living in perilous times.” Citing the anti-Israel Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, she proclaimed that “demonizing Israel is never OK.”

“Israel will defeat this horrendous movement,” Dayan said. “BDS is wrong because it targets the moral party, the justified party, the peace-seeking party in the conflict.”

He said “we are not worried about that band of demogogues and agitators” because   “the American people, across the board, supports Israel, loves Israel.”

“Our unbreakable bond with the United States is based on shared values, a common civilization and a common culture and will last forever,” Dayan said. “And within the American people there is one sector where our bonds go even further, and that is the Jewish community. We are brothers and sisters, a bond that is stronger than any defamation.”

Stand With Us Executive Director Shachar Azani, a former Israeli diplomat, described the importance of nurturing students for lead-ership in the fight for Israel.

Yoni Nirenberg, a graduate of the Rambam Mesivta High School in Lawrence, said that because of the tools he and his fellow students were given as Stand With Us high school interns, “we will insure that Israel’s voice will always be heard on campus.”

Stand With Us New York Managing Director Avi Posnick said that last year, 50 percent of the organization’s interns took leadership positions on campus.

In Dayan’s greetings to his Five Towns audience, he said that “the love that this place exudes toward Israel is amazing.”

“This love ultimately will completely defeat the hatred,” he said. “Love will prevail because love is the right feeling toward Israel.”