Program Offers American Jews A Glimpse Of Life In Israel

TEL AVIV — It was the first trip to Israel for Marisa Druss, 22, who grew up in West Lake Hills, Texas, and she was brimming with Jewish pride.

"It kind of changes the way you look at your religion and what Israel means to you individually," said Druss, who graduated in May from Texas A&M University and was sitting on the beach earlier this month in Tel Aviv. "It confirms the fact that I want to marry someone Jewish and raise my kids Jewish."

She was in the midst of a 10-day tour of Israel sponsored by Birthright Israel, which takes its name from the Zionist notion that all Jews, no matter their nationality, have the right to call Israel home.

The program, which is offered free to Jews between the ages of 18 and 26 who have never visited Israel in an organized group, is becoming a rite of passage for young American Jews.

The highly structured tour seeks to forge ties between diaspora Jews and Israel, and also to strengthen Jewish identity in countries, such as the United States, where intermarriage among faiths is common.

But critics say the tour presents a one-sided portrait of Israel and misses an opportunity to educate a new generation on the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

This year, 42,000 people are expected to visit Israel on a Birthright tour. Last year, 39,000 visited. Since the program was launched eight years ago, 190,000 young Jews from 53 countries, roughly 70 percent from the United States, have visited Israel on a Birthright tour.

American billionaire philanthropist Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, donated $30 million to Birthright last year and another $35 million this year. This, combined with a current lull in Israeli-Palestinian violence, has significantly boosted the number of participants.

"It has a strategic importance for the state of Israel because in a way it's a completion of the Zionist dream," said Gidi Mark, director of marketing for Birthright Israel. He will take over as chief executive next month. "It's important especially today when we don't have as many new immigrants as we had in the past."

The tours showcase Israel as Jewish, modern and thriving. "We didn't want them coming away with the idea of camels, Orthodox Jews or an island under siege," Mark said.

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The Birthright program doesn't officially promote Jewish immigration to Israel. But when given the opportunity to address Birthright participants, Israeli politicians often encourage them to become citizens under the so-called Law of Return, according to Birthright officials.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made a blunt pitch to 7,500 Birthright participants, mostly from America, at a stadium earlier this summer: "We know you all come from great countries ././. but there is only one place in the world which is ours," Olmert said. "This may not be your parent's agenda or your family's agenda, but it is our agenda: We want you to come back because this country loves you, this country needs you." His words were greeted by tepid applause.

Instead, Birthright is designed to strengthen Israel by putting the Jewish state at the center of worldwide Jewish identity. About 5.3 million Jews live in Israel and roughly the same number live in the United States. About 2.5 million Jews live in other countries.

"In order for the Jewish people to fulfill the promise of their ancestors, the Jews of the diaspora and the Jews of Israel have to come together emotionally," said Charles Bronfman, a Canadian businessman and philanthropist who co-founded Birthright Israel. The program is also supported financially by the state of Israel and Jewish communities outside Israel.

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For many young Jews who grow up as a minority in predominantly Christian countries, the experience of setting foot in a place where Jews constitute the majority can be overwhelming.

"I've never been around so many other people I have something in common with," said Ashley Arkin, 23 [birthday 8/28/84], who lives in Austin. "I really feel welcome here."

She said she has often searched for a sense of belonging in the United States, and after her experience on Birthright said she'd like to move to Israel.

"It's welcoming. If you're Jewish, you're accepted. In the U.S., I guess being Jewish isn't necessarily a proud thing."

Birthright tours are required to visit the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site, as well as at least one site each related to Jewish history, Zionist history and Holocaust commemoration. Some tours include rafting on the Jordan River, an overnight stay on a kibbutz or camping in the Negev Desert.

Tours may visit Israeli Arab communities, but the program does not require such visits, and no tour travels to Palestinian areas for "security reasons," according to Birthright officials. Participants also do not visit Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which are at the center of Israel's long-standing dispute with the Palestinians.

"The conflict bubbles up," said Barry Chazan, a professor emeritus of education at Hebrew University and education director for Birthright Israel. "But it's not a seminar in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ././. The fact that they don't meet the head of the Palestinian Authority doesn't mean they're not experiencing issues of the conflict."

Participants sometimes see the controversial separation barrier from the tour bus, and they are accompanied for half the tour by a handful of young soldiers who often speak frankly about their experiences, Birthright organizers said.

A much smaller, rival program, called Birthright Unplugged, provides another view of Israel. Founded in 2005 as an anti-Zionist alternative to Birthright, it offers a tour of the West Bank that includes a home-stay with a Palestinian refugee family in order to "develop an understanding of daily life under occupation," according to the group's Web site.

The program has never encountered security problems, tour organizers said, except once when Jewish settlers in Hebron threw rocks at a group, said co-founder Hannah Marmelstein. No one was injured.

The organization runs on a budget cobbled together from small donations and the tour is not free. More than half of the 200 participants over the past three years have also completed a Birthright Israel tour, said Marmelstein, who is from Philadelphia, but lives half the year in the Palestinian city of Ramallah.

"The voices that are mostly silenced on this issue are Palestinian, especially in the United States. So we want people to have direct conversations with the Palestinian people," Marmelstein said. "Israel at its core is based on the erasure of Palestinian history, so there's no understanding Israel without hearing from Palestinians about how Israel has affected their lives, their families."

Chazan said such criticism of Birthright was "misplaced."

"It's concerned with Jewish identity and the future of the Jewish people and in that respect it's in an ideological frame," he said.

In interviews with several Birthright participants this summer, some said they would have preferred to learn more about the conflict but did not think it was appropriate to hear from Palestinians.

"I don't think they'd like to meet us," one Texas participant said.

Chazan co-authored a new book, Ten Days of Birthright Israel: A Journey in Young Adult Identity, which includes results of a survey that shows stronger Jewish identity and greater connection to Israel among Birthright participants than diaspora Jews who did not participate in the program.

Birthright officials say another measure of the program's success is the number of similar such tours that have started in recent years: Birthright Armenia, Birthright Italy, Birthright Ireland, and Birthright Palestine, for young Western-born Palestinians who claim a birthright to the same land as many diaspora Jews.