WORDSWAP - Our unique and highly successful Israel education project trains a team of young Israelis from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds in our StandWithUs Israel office – Muslim, Bedouin, Druze, and Jewish (of diverse heritage) arrive for a campus tour of 10 campuses in Ontario and Quebec, high schools in Toronto, and for major community events, as well as visits to synagogues and churches. 

This year, these eight young professionals of the WordSwap team will be visiting Winnipeg for the first time.

Their mission is to engage students in conversations beyond the conflict. Student leaders call this initiative the best Israel advocacy they’ve seen, estimating that we have reached thousands of students with the delegation, who reach out to meet and have conversations with students, offer conversation in English, Hebrew and Arabic.

Wordswap introduces students to the side of Israel they don’t have the opportunity to meet, and may never have known to exist. The tapestry that is Israeli culture is there for them, in person, and they create an apolitical and safe space for discussing Israel beyond propaganda and rhetoric. Past visits have had astounding results on campuses. The members of the WordSwap team are accessible, friendly, and arrive on campuses with free coffee and fortune cookies with facts about Israel to distribute, and they engage students in conversations – reaching the 80% in the middle of the student population who either know nothing about the Israel-Palestine conflict, or have only negative impressions. 

On March 21^st, at the Berney Theatre in Winnipeg, you will have the opportunity to meet and hear from these remarkable young people, who are so passionate about their homeland that they want to share their feelings with Canadians about the coexistence that will lead Israel closer to peace.

And, to see the film, “The Forgotten Refugees”, that tells about the almost one million Jews who were forced to leave their homes and history in Arab lands. Some members of the WordSwap team are representative of these immigrants to Israel – with heritage from those countries that expelled Jews in acts of ethnic cleansing. Israel was the Jewish homeland that gave them refuge.

Tickets, $18, at this link:  https://www.canadahelps.org/en/charities/stand-with-us-canada-or-standwithus-canada/events/winnipeg-the-forgotten-refugees/

Students, Free.