Lots of people have heard of Krav Maga, the Israeli personal self defence system. On Monday this week I attended a sort of verbal self defence training session: An Evening of Israel Advocacy. I was invited by someone I wanted to meet and, unfortunately, by the time I’d dealt with my children, I got to the event just after the half time food had all been scoffed.
Nevertheless I did attend the packed second half. The main thrust was to arm the attendees with some helpful methods for countering the anti-Israel kinds of verbal attacks that all of us who are proud of Israel are familiar with. Inon Tagner from www.justisrael.net presented a mixture of debate tips, verbal techniques and stories to back this up. He also called on the audience to participate, debating against him or with suggestions on how to parry particular attacks.
Toward the very end Brian of London, yes moi, stood up and exchanged a little banter with the host. Helping him by playing an Israel hater (I surprised myself by finding this a bit to easy to do) and by spreading a little of the gospel according to Brian. Somehow all these years of writing about Israel and recording countless episodes of Shire Network News seem to have left their mark. Judging by the number of people who came up to me afterwards, I made an impression. Perhaps I should try this public speaking lark more: who knows, one day you’ll even see what I look like!
It was both heart warming and depressing to see so many there. Heartwarming that so many what to learn how to better portray Israel and answer critics, depressing that we have to!
The event took place at a new venue that will be launching itself soon in a trendy part of south Tel Aviv: Lili & Bloom. I’ll keep an eye on it but it’s probably aimed at a slightly younger audience than me!
