Shalit campaign goes postal

THE deluge of petitions urging the United Nations to step up its efforts to secure the release of Gilad Shalit continued to flow into The AJN‘s offices last week.

Less than a fortnight after The AJN launched its campaign, almost 2500 letters have been received, many with multiple signatures.

Sydney’s Moriah College and Melbourne’s Mount Scopus Memorial College each returned hundreds of letters signed by their secondary students, while Sydney’s Emmanuel College and Academy BJE also sent in bundles.

Sandy Koonin, the head of Hebrew at Moriah’s high school, said students in the middle and high schools completed a lesson about Israel Defence Forces soldier Shalit’s situation to ensure they fully understood the campaign before signing the letter. More than 350 responded.

“Kids were very happy to sign and very interested to learn more about it and do something to help him get free,” Koonin said. “Most of the kids had heard about him and they knew he was in captivity but they didn’t really know what had actually happened. We all hope the letters help.”

More than 250 secondary students at Mount Scopus College also answered the call.
“I am pleased that our students, thousands of miles away, feel a strong bond between themselves and Israel and are prepared to act on this,” Mount Scopus director of Jewish studies and Hebrew Avi Cohen told The AJN. “Our consistent message to students throughout the Gilad Shalit campaign is that we, as Jews, have a shared responsibility for our brethren wherever they might be in the world.

“Most importantly, we try to impress on students the fact that even though they live in Melbourne, and even though they are only school students, they can still make a difference.”

Older members of the community have also rallied behind the campaign. Melbourne’s Jewish Holocaust Centre and Biz 120, a seniors club for Sydney’s Russian Jewish community returned piles of letters, while 67 residents at Sydney’s Montefiore Home collectively signed one copy of the letter

The initiative, marking the fourth anniversary of the young Israeli soldier’s kidnapping by Hamas, has also gone international, after two Jewish newspapers overseas picked up on the story and decided to urge their readers to do likewise. Individual responses from the US and UK have also been received at The AJN‘s Melbourne office.

Every day since the launch, hundreds of letters have poured into the office from across Australia. Later this month, the letters will be personally delivered to the United Nations headquarters in New York.

DALIA SABLE