Michael Oren at Brandeis
Michael Oren's commencement speech at Brandeis passed relatively quietly on Sunday. There were about 20 protesters - who for the most part clearly did not look like students. But we had someone in the office yesterday who was actually on the stage at the commencement (he got an award) and I want to share with you what he told us Oren said.Oren - who is about my age and was a contemporary at Columbia - said that he has two strong childhood memories. One was watching on TV as IDF paratroopers broke into the Old City of Jerusalem in June 1967. Oren decided that day that he wanted to be a paratrooper. And he became one. (He quips that unlike most paratroopers, he didn't jump out of airplanes very much - he was pushed by two big burly guys).
His second memory was traveling to Washington on a high school class trip and meeting Israel's then-ambassador to the United States, Yitzchak Rabin. Oren decided then that was the job he wanted. And he got it.
Sweet, huh?
The guy who told us the story said he took his 17-year old kid to meet the ambassador after the commencement (at the kid's request).
[Post updated to remove embed of fake program by protesters - thanks to Thermblog for pointing it out].
A transcript of Oren's speech is here.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:13 PM
2 Comments:
You've linked to the MOCK program by the protesters. I've been unable to find a real one with a blurb on Oren.
After all the ruckus, I'm glad it went without incident at Brandeis and Michael Oren got to say what he wanted to say. This is a battle Israel must not give up fighting - for the hearts and minds of the next generation.
To walk away is to allow Israel's adversaries to prevail by default.
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