Editor’s Note: This article was updated to include the proper spelling of Nimrod Rogel’s name.
Thousands of people from all around the world convened in Denver this past weekend to attend the annual Jewish National Fund Global Conference for Israel. This year’s conference took place at the Colorado Convention Center and consisted of four days of programming that included panel discussions, workshops and summits for both high school and college students.
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The conference was organized before the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, but organizers tightened security in the lead-up to the event, citing a rise in antisemitism over the past two months, said Stefan Oberman, director of communications at JNF.
Entrances to the convention center were locked and guarded by Denver Police Department officers. Police and security were also posted inside the Hyatt Regency Denver, where attendees went through a security screening before entering the convention center through a fenced corridor across 14th Street.
Protesters in support of Palestine gathered in the streets outside the convention center to denounce the conference and condemn Colorado Gov. Jared Polis for his support of Israel.
Polis addressed attendees alongside Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan at the opening plenary Thursday, Nov. 30, as demonstrators banged on the exterior windows of the convention center.
Protests organized by several Colorado-based groups took place in Denver all weekend and were the largest demonstrations since Oct. 7. Several people were arrested for shutting down a street in Denver.
Israeli citizen and CEO of Project Wadi Attir — a sustainable farming initiative — Nimrod Rogel attended the conference and said that it is strange to be somewhere where they aren’t under the physical threat of the war.
“It’s a very big change of atmosphere because I live 20 kilometers from Gaza,” Rogel said. “My house has been literally shaking for two months.”
Rogel attended the conference without his family, who he said stayed at home in Israel.
“I feel like it is so hard to talk to people because they don’t want to have conversations with you. I’ve tried with close friends who have posted blatant misinformation. I’ll swipe up and be like, ‘Hey, as your friend and as a close friend, this hurts me; this hurts my community.’” -Zoe Mardiks, University of Colorado Boulder student
The conference held a college summit Friday that drew in students from across the country and internationally. The summit was meant to be a place for Jewish students to connect with their community while learning about Israel, Oberman said.
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“We feel there’s never been a more important time to have informed people on college campuses,” Oberman said. “What’s interesting to me is that at our conference, you’ve got people who are Jewish (and) who are not Jewish and on both sides of politics. It doesn’t matter if they’re Democrat, Republican or somewhere in between.”
The summit allowed students from different college campuses to come together and share their experiences. Students discussed facing violence and threats on campus because of their Jewish identity, highlighting that some campuses have seen a greater rise in violence than others.
“It’s kind of been, in the grand scheme of things, very weak compared to other colleges where you have Jewish kids literally being assaulted because they’re Jewish,” University of Colorado Boulder student Zoe Mardiks said.
Despite not facing violence on campus, the situation has still been challenging for students like Mardiks, who said she struggles with the pressure of it all.
“I feel it is, in some aspects, kind of isolating just to see people on social media post blatant misinformation,” Mardiks said. “It just makes you feel very isolated.”
The sudden influx of anti-Zionism on campus has completely changed the campus experience for Jewish student leaders, CU student Jake Stone said. Stone served as the JNF College Summit chair at the conference this year.
“It all kind of switched on all at once, and it was a bit of a mad panic and a mad scramble trying to put out as many fires as possible,” Stone said.
Dealing with misinformation and antisemitism on campus has been the most challenging thing, Mardiks said.
“I feel like it is so hard to talk to people because they don’t want to have conversations with you,” Mardiks said. “I’ve tried with close friends who have posted blatant misinformation. I’ll swipe up and be like, ‘Hey, as your friend and as a close friend, this hurts me; this hurts my community.’”
Students attending the conference said they’ve had to deal with threats entering and exiting the convention center.
“Last night, on our way to the opening ceremony, someone literally told us to go back to Auschwitz,” Mardiks said. “It’s very hard not to interact with those types of people because you want to protect your Jewish community and Jewish values.”
Reach Hannah Parcells at news@collegian.com or on Twitter @HannahParcells.
