Several Georgetown students and professors took part in the 2014 American Israel Public Affairs Committee Policy Conference Sunday through Tuesday, held at the Washington Convention Center.

Despite Monday’s snowstorm, the AIPAC conference amassed over 14,000 delegates in attendance and featured speakers such as Secretary of State John Kerry, Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), Representative Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

AIPAC, a lobbying group that promotes a strong U.S. relationship with Israel, is widely considered to be a strong force in shaping how the U.S government relates to Israel.

About 10 Georgetown students attended the conference and six Georgetown professors led breakout sessions following the major speakers on specialized topics, such as Israeli innovation in missile defense.

“The coolest part about the conference is not just the learning you have in sessions you sit through, but it’s in the relationships you have,” Michail Woods (SFS ’14) said. “Because you have people, from Latinos to African-Americans to evangelical Christians to, obviously, Jews, from all over the United States, and a lot of people come from even overseas to come together for one thing. … We all come together to support a strong U.S.-Israel relationship.”

Additionally, Woods said the conference functioned as a quasi-training session for the next generation’s AIPAC leaders.

“Any organization, to maintain its leadership, it’s like a showcase to say this is what we’re doing, these are the issues we need to be passionate about; and this is essentially why this organization still matters to you and why you should still be a part of it,” Woods said.

Josh Goldberg  (COL ’17) additionally felt the conference allowed attendees a chance to showcase prominent leaders in the field.

“I attended the AIPAC Policy Conference because I am interested in getting a better understanding of U.S.-Israel relations and the ongoing political issues in the Middle East. … I really enjoyed the conference because it was a good opportunity to hear many national speakers and to take advantage of being in a university in the nation’s capital,” Goldberg wrote in an email.

For Goldberg, who attended a breakout session about Middle East Politics, the conference allowed him to get more involved with the issues at hand.

“I hope to get further involved in AIPAC and learn what I can do to help promote U.S.-Israel relations,” Goldberg said.

This winter, AIPAC lobbied Congress to pass sanctions on Iran, although this effort failed.

“One of the main points of the conference, to get a member of Congress and raise awareness for it, is the issue of Iran,” Woods said. “Marrying a radical regime with weapons of mass destruction is a recipe for disaster.”

As a nonprofit, Georgetown cannot contribute money to any PACs, but it can and does provide resources for students to attend conferences such as the AIPAC conference.

“As a rabbi and director of the Jewish Chaplaincy, perhaps my primary role is to nurture and support the development of Jewish students, Judaism and their Jewish identity,” Rabbi Rachel Gartner said. “And for many of our Jewish students, a relationship with Israel is a core part of that identity. And for some, it is not; the focus of their Judaism is on their American-Jewish experience.”

In the past, Georgetown and the Jewish chaplaincy supported student trips ranging from the Jewish Film Festival and seeing Klezmer at the Kennedy Center to more politically oriented events like theAIPAC conference and the J Street conference.

“My approach to the AIPAC conference, to the J Street conference, is to be supportive of any students who come forward and say, ‘Hey, I want to go, but I don’t have the finances’ or, ‘Hey, I want to go, but I don’t know anybody else who’s going, do you know who’s going?’ So I share information and also support them with resources and subsidies,” Gartner said.

The crowd of 14,000, the largest gathering of America’s pro-Israel community, according to AIPAC’swebsite, consisted of approximately 2,200 college students and included about two-thirds of Congress.

“I’m not a big fan of the term pro-Israel or the term anti-Israel,” Gartner said. “Because I think it oversimplifies the range of ways that people can be pro-Israel and, I’m sure, the range of ways that people can be anti-Israel as well.”