My Birthright Experience

This morning, I want to talk to you about a program called Birthright Israel – a ten-day free trip to Israel for young Jews between the ages 18 and 26. I just returned from traveling for a few days with a Birthright bus that included many participants who grew up at Park Avenue Synagogue, and for which much of the funding came from members of our community.

I have never felt so old in my life! The first night at dinner I sat at a table of twenty-somethings, some of whom I discovered were from my home town of Los Angeles. I overheard that some of them even went to the same High School as I did, and as Jews tend to do in these situations, I initiated a game of Jewish geography. One of the participants perked up and innocently asked if perhaps I had graduated the same year as his father – also a graduate of that high school. It was a dagger through the heart. Imagine how crestfallen I was when I realized that in the eyes of these college students, I was not a big brother and certainly not a peer, but a co-conspirator in that dreaded project known as their parent’s generation.

Given my outsider status, I decided to think about what Birthright, called Taglit in Israel, is all about. Through the audacious vision and philanthropy of its founders, Birthright – now in its thirteenth “Bar Mitzvah” year – has sent about 300,000 young Jews to Israel…at no cost to them. About 80% come from North America, but Jews from over 50 countries are represented among the 30-40,000 students who go every year. Significantly, every Birthright bus also includes young Israelis – now numbering about 50,000 – who travel across Israel with the group.

I readily admit that I was initially skeptical of the entire project. Why in the world should the Jewish world prioritize a ten-day boondoggle? In a world of diminishing resources, does it really reflect Jewish values to pay for a party for thousands of kids, many of whom have shown absolutely no sign of Jewish involvement? And why in the world should it be free? For many, but certainly not all of the participants, the $3000 price tag is not an insurmountable barrier of entry. And perhaps most of all, what exactly is the yield on this investment? I love Israel engagement as much as anyone I know, and my passport attests to that fact, but how exactly does sending young adults to Israel serve to bolster the future of Diaspora Jewry?

Before I give you my answer, you should know that others have had the same concerns. Last year, Brandeis University published a longitudinal study of Birthright meant to research these very questions. Among the results, the study showed that Birthright alumni feel more connected to Israel and more conversant about Israel than non-participants of the same age. Moreover, Birthright alumni attached a higher importance to marrying someone Jewish, raising Jewish children and building a Jewish home than non-participants.

All this is important, but having just returned from a trip, I think the secret of Birthright is more profound than its influence on marital choice or the ability to speak with confidence about the geopolitics of the Middle East. The power of Birthright is that it unabashedly tells a generation of disaffected Jews, “Come as you are!” The whole point of the trip is that there are no barriers to entry. Rich/poor, tall/short, Ivy League/City College, religious/secular – come as you are, we will take you! And once on the trip you will experience something that you have never experienced in your life – being immersed in a group whose sole shared characteristic is being Jewish. The audacity of Birthright is that can be understood as as an effort aimed at bending the arc of modern Jewish history. For the last two hundred years or so, the story of the Jewish people has been a tale of Jews desperately trying to balance the competing tensions of being rooted in their particular history and yet fully participating in modern society, members of a unique and chosen people but also part of a shared humanity, citizens of our country all the while connected to a land called Israel. It is a subject that fills libraries, and it is a balancing act that plays out anecdotally in all our daily lives. We send our kids to secular schools and Hebrew Schools, summer camps that aren’t Jewish per se, but Jewish enough. We ask of our children to experience campus life, engage with a diverse humanity and think critically about everything, but when you come back home, please do so with a Jew so that you can perpetuate an ancient tradition. I could give a million examples; they all reflect the same condition. To be a modern Jew is a balancing act, and it is a disorienting and exhausting one to say the least.

So when a twenty-something goes on Birthright, consciously or not, she or he experiences something that they have never experienced before: the feeling of being an integrated whole. It is not so different, mind you, than the argument for Jewish camping, except that the bar of entry for Birthright is that much lower. And for a small window of time – ten days to be precise – life makes sense, because being yourself, being Jewish, being proud, connected to the past and at home in the present can all happen at the same time, without contradiction, without any of the qualifiers or excuses or self-justifying gymnastics of Diaspora life up to that point. The quiet truth about Birthright is that it isn’t primarily a trip about hard content or Israel education; it is a trip about Jewish identity. As Maya Angelou once reflected, people may forget what you said or what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. Birthright is able to make its participants feel a certain way. I saw these kids compare the Magen David necklaces they purchased and wore proudly; I saw them put on tefillin on the top of Masada and recite the Shema at the Kotel. I saw it all and I was deeply moved by their raw and honest and comfortable explorations of Jewish identity. And I would be remiss if I did not also point out the effect on the Israelis who joined their new Diaspora friends. For the first time in their lives, these Israelis had contact (of varying kinds) with a person who is a Jew but not an Israeli. When it comes to the Jewish peoplehood conversation, only Birthright can point to such a track record of putting Jewish people together.

There is more. Birthright is intriguing because unlike so many other programs, it invests not in bricks and mortar but in the most valuable resource we have when it comes to the Jewish future: Jews. It is countercultural because it asks people to support the one thing that a donor can not put a plaque on: another Jewish soul. And as our tradition teaches, when a single soul is saved, an entire universe is saved. I do believe that when the story of this era of Jewish history is written, there will be three migrations of Jewry that will be discussed: the exodus of Russian Jews from the FSU, the exodus of the Falashmura from Ethiopia, and Birthright. Each one can be viewed, in all its particulars, as a bold and transformative act of Jewish redemption. In this day and age, when far too many initiatives in the Jewish world feel, as it were, like rearranging the deck chairs, Birthright is one of the very few efforts that have the potential to fundamentally change the playing field.

Why not fully? Why only potentially? Because the truth is that the ultimate test of Birthright does not fall on Birthright but on us – the North American community who receive the post-Birthright alumni. Thus far, the track record both for Birthright and for the communities on the ground has been, to put it generously, rather checkered. Birthright accomplishes all it can in its ten days, and I am proud of our community’s support, but it is really the follow-up that matters. All those kids from Penn and Columbia and SUNY and Georgetown and Bucknell will soon be back on campus, or in their first job, and they will want somewhere to express that yummy feeling they had in Israel. The window of opportunity is open just a crack, and there is a limited chance to open it wide – to act on it, leverage it, build on it – and then it will slam shut and we will all be back to square one.

In short, what is needed is the same sort of philanthropic chutzpah and programmatic gumption on the back end of the Birthright investment. A good starting place is that on my bus, for instance, there were talented Hillel professionals on the trip from two of colleges represented, who are now positioned to build on the shared experience and the newly created relationships. But what is really needed is a partnership between Birthright and the communities on the ground whereby a seamless bridge can be established between trip participants and the Jewish professionals and institutions meant to serve and substantiate their Jewish journeys. I have to believe there is some smart person somewhere who can construct a philanthropic algorithm whereby communal funding is offered in a way that forces partnerships between Birthright and local institutions, funding that not only demands results from the local institutions but also serves to perpetuate the sacred work of Birthright. Would it take a lot of chutzpah, cooperative spirit and money? Of course! But not to do so would render the most exciting effort in Jewish renewal stillborn – and that is not something we should be willing to let happen on our watch.

We are not the first Jewish population to seek renewal by way of Israel. The haftarah this morning, the prophetic vision of Zechariah, tells of a time like ours that anticipates a return to Zion after exile and a restoration of the Jewish spirit that has been muted for far too long in its Diaspora setting. A joyous vision is proclaimed announcing the key to a Jewish renaissance. “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit - declares the Lord of Hosts.” (Zechariah 4:6) It is an “aha” moment of the first degree to realize that the ingredients for the Jewish future are embedded right here – in the souls of every Jew waiting to be stirred. A greater “aha” is the realization that that the key to activating a soul, this birthright, is as simple as being in proximity with others similarly longing for self-expression. Zechariah knew it, Birthright knows it. The only remaining question is whether the rest of the Jewish world can position itself to respond to this insight, gently blowing on the embers kindled some thirteen years ago and building a sustained and vital model of Jewish life able to carry us into the Jewish future.