Write On For Israel graduates recognized

Jonas Singer, a 2013 graduate of Millburn High School and a rising junior at Brandeis University, was one of four college students honored with an award of recognition by The Jewish Week of New York for his leadership in the on-campus pro-Israel community.

The awards were given at the Write On For Israel graduation ceremony June 16 at Park Avenue Synagogue in New York. Singer is a 2013 graduate of WOFI, a two-year program sponsored by The Jewish Week and the Community Relations Committee of the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ.

Singer was copresident of the Brandeis-Israel Public Affairs Committee and serves as campus liaison to AIPAC.

“Jonas has worked hard to forge relationships with key influencers on campus, to educate his peers and strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship,” said WOFI director Linda Scherzer, who was scheduled to address the CRC annual meeting in Whippany on June 24. “We…commend Jonas for engaging students and faculty on the issues of deep concern for Israel and the Jewish people.”

Singer credits WOFI for igniting his passion to support Israel and giving him the tools to effectively advocate. This summer, he participated in Hasbara Fellowships in Israel and the Boston-Haifa “Onward Israel” program.

Nine Greater MetroWest high school seniors — Julian Biller, Ella Cooperman, Alex Darvin, Aaron Friedman, Adina Gitomer, Lara Good, Max Kasler, Maya Moritz, and Jonah Yesowitz — were among the 46 WOFI graduates recognized by Scherzer and Jewish Week editor and publisher Gary Rosenblatt. Keynote speaker was Harriet Levin, mother of “lone soldier” Michael Levin — the only American oleh killed in the 2006 war in Lebanon — who remembered her son as a young man infused with Zionism and a deep sense of mission and service to the Jewish state. She told students “to work to make a difference on campus,” as her son did on the battlefield.

Rising juniors may apply for the next Write On For Israel program; go to jfedgmw.org/CRC.

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