After more than a year of pandemic silence, Taglit-Birthright Israel participants have returned with all the gusto of young adults who have waited out the year of coronavirus restrictions with visions of Israel dancing in their heads.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter
Take Conor Mullaney, who applied for a Birthright Israel trip months ago with little hope of going at the time.
"I'd been looking forward to being in Israel for a very long time," said Mullaney, a third-year finance student at the University of Maryland's Global Campus who arrived on May 24 with the very first Birthright Israel group to set foot on Israeli soil since the pandemic shut the program down more than a year ago.
"Even though I've read a lot on Israeli politics and history, never having been here until now, I didn't fully understand how it all fits together," he said. "Being here has changed my life and the way I see the world." It also included holding the bar mitzvah he'd never had at the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City with his new friends cheering him on.
Or take his fellow Birthright traveler Sami Marshak, an aspiring attorney who after the Birthright experience will be starting a summer internship with a Tel Aviv-based international law firm. While the Rutgers University junior visited Israel years ago with family, she noted that "it's extremely cool being here with friends."
Jack Berkey, who was busy exploring the country with friends from his school, the University of Michigan, said: "I came with zero expectations of what I will experience," he said. "I've always wanted to come but with COVID, it wasn't happening last year. So when I heard I could come on Birthright this spring, I thought, 'This is my chance; I'm not going to miss out on it.'"
These three young adults were indeed fortunate to secure a spot; some 6,000 applicants are now qualified and looking forward to going, reports Birthright's vice president of Global Marketing Noa Bauer. Most of these are expected to be able to enjoy Birthright this summer, with another 20,000 waiting in the wings for winter, spring, and beyond.
When they go, they'll join the whopping 750,000 young adults aged 18 to 32 from 68 countries who have experienced the unforgettable sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of Israel through a free Birthright trip over the last 21 years.
A recent Pew Research Center study of American Jews found that while just under half of Jewish adults have been to Israel, among those aged 25 to 34, over a quarter reported having been on a Birthright trip.
According to Bauer, more than a third of young Jewish adults have been on a Birthright trip, "which makes it a potent force for influencing how an entire generation feels about both Israel and their Jewish identity. And now, after more than a year of isolation, they're so happy to be free to come and explore at a time when Israel is back to life and more exciting than ever."
Professor and social psychologist Len Saxe, who directs the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University and has been following how college students have dealt with pandemic isolation this past year, says the time is ripe for them to go.
"For this generation coming off the loneliness and emotional challenges of COVID, the hunger to engage with peers makes this a propitious moment to go to Israel and an important moment in our history for young Jews to establish personal relationships with their peers, including the young Israelis they get to know on the trip."
That's because only face-to-face contact works for establishing bonds, he maintains.
"Online works only if you've already formed the relationship in person, and grow and deepen it on the phone and online."
Scott and Amy Jaffee's involvement in Birthright began five years ago when their oldest son returned from his trip. "We saw how energized and inspired he was when he got back, including the rapport he had with his Israeli peers and the beginning of understanding what a young Israeli's life is like."
Amy, who now serves as co-chair of Birthright Israel Foundation's Long Island Leadership Cabinet, said that "we began thinking about all the Jewish kids who need to go to Israel but can't afford it, and we wanted to pay it forward."
'An important time to strengthen Jewish identity'
The rise in antisemitic acts in the last few months, including but not limited to anti-Israel pressure from college campuses to social media to online hate has not escaped the notice of Birthright participants.
"We've had our fair share of pro-Palestinian rhetoric on campus," said Marshak, noting one professor who had said Israel was an apartheid state and the Jews have no historical right to the land. "The media also influences what people think, including all of us who came here questioning our beliefs and not knowing how to feel about Israel," she said.
"Despite Israel's problems, here I see Jews of different politics and religious views all feeling the same way about the rise in antisemitism, the importance of Israel, and the fear that history could repeat itself," she said.
Berkey, too, had heard anti-Israel positions at his school: "I've heard a lot about Israel, and it wasn't necessarily positive, but I refused to believe any of it until I could come with an open mind and see it for myself."
The Jaffees recall meeting one young woman who'd bad-mouthed Israel on the flight over – an attitude that lasted until she got off the plane. 'She said as soon as she arrived, she began questioning her own assumptions and wound up falling in love with Israel and the idea of being Jewish," says Scott Jaffee. "This kind of transformation was something we wanted to be a part of."
Rabbi Shlomo Gestetner, who directs the Mayanot Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, one of Birthright's providers, said: "The rise of antisemitism in Europe and now in the United States makes this such an important time to strengthen Jewish identity. And the only lasting way to do that is to come to the land filled with Jewish history, where you can hear our ancient language spoken on the street and walk on the same 2,000-year-old stones our ancestors walked on."
'The sense of unity that I never expected'
Many a Birthright participant has reported that those few days in Israel truly strengthened their connection to the Jewish people and Israel, says Barry Shrage, former president of Boston's Combined Jewish Philanthropies, who now teaches at the Brandeis Hornstein Program in Jewish Professional Leadership.
"It's a transformational experience, and though we know you can't get back what you lost, so the kids who should have gone this past year might go later or we may have missed them altogether, but now is a particularly important moment to go.
"Here I see Jews of different politics and religious views all feeling the same way about the importance of Israel," they said.
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!
In a time of "woke anti-Israel and antisemitic propaganda, fighting it with information and advocacy can go only so deep, and facts can and will be distorted by our enemies," continued Shrage. "The only thing that really works is getting to know their brothers and sisters in Israel and truly understanding the heart of the Israelis. You can't educate someone to love and identify with the Jewish people and Israel. Falling in love has to be experiential, and Birthright is the best way we have of giving them that experience."
Bauer added that "just getting them here and showing them the real Israel is the single most powerful way to fight BDS [boycott, divestment, and sanctions] attacks. And though they're not necessarily going to wave the Israeli flag on campus when they get back, they have a much better chance of questioning the hate they could face from a place of deep connection after having seen firsthand what the Israelis are made of and what they're dealing with."
Bauer says when they do hear accusations, former Birthright participants tend to "pick up the phone and call their Israeli friends and ask them what's really going on over here."
While zipping up his backpack as the plane touched down at Ben-Gurion International Airport, Berkey said: "I've always identified Jewishly, but this is my chance to find out what that really means."
Upon arriving at Israel's national cemetery on Jerusalem's Mount Herzl, Marshak said: "I wasn't really expecting much, but we saw a bunch of soldiers mourning over one grave, and everyone in my group just stopped and mourned with them, staying for the prayer. It really felt like one of us had died.
"I know I'll always remember that moment – the sense of unity that I never expected and never felt before. You never know how things will affect or change you. But I guess after this, I'm feeling more open to new experiences shaping me and my understanding of things," she said.
Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.
