When Melinda Strauss landed in Ben Gurion Airport last week, a woman she’d never met rushed over to say hello.
"She follows me on social media," Strauss said in an interview with The Times of Israel. "She’s Christian, and she’s excited to be visiting Israel for the first time. I get people coming up to me with things like that all the time."
For Strauss, a cheerful, fast-talking New York—based food-blogger-turned-Jewish-educator with 1.7 million followers across TikTok and Instagram, moments like this have become a regular part of life. Since Hamas
..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, and sparked the two-year Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about
oppressionand
disproportionate response...
war, the Jewish food blog Strauss started 14 years ago has increasingly become a vehicle for her to debunk misinformation about Israel and teach followers about Judaism.
"So many people just don’t know anything about Jews," she says. "We’re a mystery to them."
While Strauss and other pro-Israel influencers like her get plenty of hateful comments online, many of those visiting Israel last week as part of the Israel Up Close delegation of influencers, organized by the Or Ofir Foundation, told The Times of Israel that the rewards of their work far outweigh the downsides.
Or Ofir is an organization working to help develop young Jewish leaders and strengthen connections between Israel and Diaspora communities. It is dedicated to fulfilling the life’s work of Ofir Libstein, an activist and community leader who was killed defending his home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 7. The non-profit’s programs work to connect small Jewish communities around the world, empower elder members of kibbutzim around the Gaza Envelope, and provide leadership training programs, according to its executive director, Ofer Dahan.
"For this delegation, we tried to build a group that is very diverse, with influence in different areas," Dahan said.
The delegation visiting this week is one of several organized with the Foreign Ministry in recent years to showcase Israel’s story for popular online personalities. Members of the trip spoke with The Times of Israel at Jerusalem’s Museum of Tolerance about their lifestyles and challenges of representing Israel to online audiences that aren’t always friendly.
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