CEO Roz Rothstein told JNS that the pro-Israel gathering is “nourishing” for young Jews: “They are facing so much hostility. They need to be in this room. They need to be at this conference.”
By Izzy Salant | Jewish News Syndicate | March 4, 2025
When StandWithUs founder and CEO Roz Rothstein founded the pro-Israel nonprofit more than two decades ago, she never could have imagined the organization it is today.
“A reporter asked me: Did you know 23, 24 years ago this is what it would become?” she said. “No, we just knew something had to be done.”
Rothstein spoke as she addressed 650 college and high school students, faculty and staff from around the world who gathered at the Hilton Los Angeles Airport for the StandWithUs International Conference from Feb. 27 to March 2. Attendees represented the United States, Canada, Israel, the United Kingdom, Australia and even the Congo.
Rothstein told JNS that this year’s conference was the largest it has ever been, filling the venue. The event featured the largest attendance in StandWithUs conference history and cost an estimated $1 million to hold, Rothstein said, adding that “it’s worth it.”
Being together “is nourishing for them in this moment,” she told JNS. “They’re facing so much hostility. They need to be in this room. They need to be at this conference.”
Speakers ranged from actors, comedians and influencers to officials, journalists and advocates, including Peter Paltchik, the Israeli flag-bearer at the 2024 Olympic Summer Games. The conference’s theme was, not surprisingly, “Israel in Focus.”
Israel advocate and influencer Zach Sage Fox said in an address that “our brothers and sisters weren’t just attacked” in the Hamas-led massacre of 1,200 people in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, “we were.” He was referring to all Jews, everywhere. Fox also led panel sessions for students about combating online antisemitism and content creation.
American singer, songwriter and pianist John Ondrasik, also known as “Five for Fighting,” received this year’s “Guardian of Israel” award.
Before performing to the crowd, the Los Angeles native acknowledged what young people have been going through since Oct. 7, saying “Jewish students on our campuses feel abandoned. And they have been. But know that 80% of America has your back. You and Israel are frankly saving the world.”
‘People wearing ski masks attacked us’
Michael Kaminsky, a junior at DePaul University in Chicago, wore a baseball hat, white shirt and black sling around his arm.
“On Nov. 6, 2024, myself and another student, who was also an IDF reservist, were tabling for Israel,” he told JNS at the time. “We do this every single week. And two people wearing ski masks physically attacked us.”
It left him with injuries that required surgery, he told JNS, while adding that the other student who was assaulted that day no longer attends in-person classes for fear of his safety.
Kaminsky is a StandWithUs Emerson Fellow, a “one-year program that trains, educates and empowers student leaders on college campuses around the world.”
He said he joined the organization because there was no Israel voice at DePaul and “no one to fight for the Jewish community on campus.”
Josh Weiner of the Chicago Jewish Alliance, which helped advocate on behalf of the Jewish students assaulted, told JNS that when the organization attempted to meet with DePaul to combat Jew-hatred, the university canceled their meeting two hours before it was supposed to take place while Kaminsky was still under anesthesia.
“StandWithUs has been there since day one,” Kaminsky told JNS. “I was an Emerson Fellow when I was attacked, and I am an Emerson Fellow now.”
‘Education is the way to solve this conflict’
Eli Sanchez and Jaden Penhaskashi, also Emerson Fellows, are third-year students at the University of California, Los Angeles. Both sit on the board of the school’s Israel group, Bruins for Israel. During the height of anti-Israel protests and encampments on college campuses last spring, Jewish students were blocked from entering parts of campus—an act a federal judge stated was “unimaginable” and “abhorrent.”
They told JNS that recently, activity has quieted down because “people are tired of the noise.”
They are also finding that people were more willing to engage with them; for example, the organization painted a mural on resilience, inviting others to contribute. And after the Los Angeles wildfires devastated the community, they saw people come together, Jewish and non-Jewish alike.
Penhaskashi has been part of StandWithUs since high school and ended up recruiting Sanchez. He told JNS that he joined the organization because his father fled from Iran in the 1980s during the revolution, and “Israel is the place that accepted him with open arms.” The organization has helped him channel his passion for Israel.
“StandWithUs is the place that taught me Israel isn’t perfect, but why it’s still worth defending,” Penhaskashi told JNS.
On the other side of the country at Brown University—an Ivy League school in Rhode Island that has seen its fair share of anti-Israel sentiment, including protests and an encampment in the spring of 2024—the administration agreed to hear arguments to pass a BDS resolution against the Jewish state to appease campus protesters.
Victoria Zang, a junior studying public health and a StandWithUs Emerson Fellow, helped make sure it didn’t pass. Through advocacy with her fellow students and resources from StandWithUs, Jewish students were able to make their case to the board, ultimately resulting in the resolution’s failure.
“What I love about StandWithUs is that it’s an educational organization,” she told JNS. “That’s what I come here to find. A lot of things you can Google, you can read in the news, but I think StandWithUs—bringing everybody in one room together with such intelligent people—is the most important thing.”
“I believe education is the way to solve this conflict,” Zang told JNS.
During the closing plenary, philanthropist Steve Emerson (the fellowship is named after him) said of the fellows: “With all of you, there’s incredible hope for the future.”
‘This is our power’
Rothstein told JNS that a new aspect of the conference this year was inviting members of different tracks within StandWithUs not directly affiliated with schools and campuses. This includes the Community Track, which allows community members to take part in sessions and advocacy; and RabbisUNITED, geared to help Zionist members of the rabbinate educate their congregants in new ways that “match the current challenges,” Rothstein told JNS.
Workshops and sessions were directed toward each of the two sectors so that participants could adapt the information for their local communities.
One of the sessions featured Lorin Khizran (who also spoke at the conference), an Israeli Druze whose father is a career commander in the Israel Defense Forces and who served as a nurse during the terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. That morning, she told the session, she answered the phone frantically as her father called at 7:21 a.m., something he never did.
“I know you just woke up,” he said to her. But “there’s a war happening.”
Khizran is a graduate of the global StandWithUs Israel Fellowship and now works for the organization in London. She joined the organization because she discovered that she can still save lives “in different ways,” through advocacy and public speaking.
“Facts, knowledge—this is our power,” she said to the session. “This is something StandWithUs gave me.”
Liora Berkstein, StandWithUs associate director of national events, told JNS that seeing these communities come together, the different generations bonding, makes her know the organization is doing crucial work.
“Younger and alike, we’re connecting,” she told JNS. “That gives me hope … that Jewish strength and resilience will never die down.”
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