February 11, 2005/Adar 12 5765, Volume 57, No. 24
Birthright trip builds Jewish identityValley participants learn heritage
RACHEL POMERANCE
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 Rebecca Cohn, left, and Heather Miller enjoy a camel ride at Chan Sharayot while on a recent birthright israel trip with Hillel at ASU. Photo courtesy of Heather Miller |
Findings from the study, conducted by independent researchers at Brandeis University, were released Dec. 15 at a conference in Herzliya, Israel. The full report has yet to be released.
"It changes Jewish identity," Leonard Saxe, co-author of the study and director of the Maurice and Marilyn Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies, says of birthright.
Before going on birthright, participants typically are less engaged with Judaism and Israel than those who participate in other Israel programs, who often have strong Jewish backgrounds.
That may not be surprising, since birthright is open only to those who have never been on a peer trip to Israel, a segment that is likely to include youth less interested in Jewish identity.
Afterward, however, birthright participants show levels of identification similar to those who go on other programs, Saxe says.
"You can talk about a Jewish state until you're blue in the face," says Rabbi Barton Lee, executive director of Hillel at Arizona State University in Tempe. "But being there is an incredible experience.
"You can tell people that Jews have something in common, but when you're in a room packed with 3,500 kids from all over the world, singing Israeli songs ... you can feel it in your gut."
Birthright alumni may not become more religiously observant, but they are more likely to take Jewish studies courses at college and return to Israel on other programs, paving the way for increased Jewish commitment.
Lee believes that the trip inspires participants to really recognize "the great diversity which is in fact Jewish tradition.
"Very few kids that I've gone with leave these experiences unchanged," he says. Lee returned from a birthright trip Jan. 18.
"Students come back and say 'Wow, I've never had a drink with a rabbi before,'" Lee continues. And it's over those late night drinks that the students really open up, asking Jewish questions they never had an opportunity to ask before, he says.
The study comes as birthright israel kicks off its sixth year amid ongoing struggles for funding.
The general consensus in the community is one of widespread support for birthright israel, but funding constraints have been cited as an impediment to the program's success.
Begun in late 1999 as a five-year pilot project to strengthen the identity of young Jews, the $210 million program was to be funded evenly by three partners: a group of 14 philanthropists, the Israeli government and world Jewish communities, primarily the North American Jewish federation system.
But the intifada, which began in late 2000, drained Israel's resources and scared off some would-be participants.
"Many of them, especially in the last two to three years, didn't go when they were 17, because of security concerns," says Eitan Ben-Ami, director of The Israel Center in Phoenix.
In the end, more than $150 million was invested in birthright its first five years, with the lion's share - $71.6 million - coming from philanthropists.
Israel contributed more than $35 million and world Jewish communities donated more than $44 million, says Sandy Cardin, executive director of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, one of the philanthropists involved.
Many of the philanthropists, most notably Michael Steinhardt, have voiced outrage over the failure of other funding partners to pony up.
But Cardin has faith: "All the partners in the program are committed to doing their best to share the cost," he says.
Some 70,000 youth have taken part in birthright, and the program has pumped some $110 million into the Israeli economy, according to birthright officials.
In year six, birthright is receiving $10 million from the Israeli government, $12 million from philanthropists and $10 million from the federation system, half of which is being provided by its overseas partner, the Jewish Agency for Israel, says Jeffrey Solomon, president of the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies, which contribute to birthright.
Funding is secure for the more than 15,000 young people expected to visit Israel on birthright in 2005, Solomon says.
The program is expected to continue indefinitely, he says, but enrollment depends on funding - and there's not enough space for everyone who wants to go.
"At a time when everybody is decrying the sad reality of how many young Jews are disaffected, to turn away thousands who want to go to Israel, to connect to Israel and to connect to their Jewish selves is very unfortunate," Solomon says. "As long as there's one kid on a waiting list, the status is not as good as it should be."
Solomon, who says he hadn't seen the newest study, says the challenge would be to communicate its message to birthright's funding partners.
But students who do go on the trip express appreciation. According to Lee, students on the recent trip with Hillel got the opportunity to hear Steinhardt and Lynn Schusterman speak while at the Knesset. Though the group was supposed to be leaving, a student asked Lee if it would be all right to go shake hands with the philanthropists - several students followed, thanking them for their efforts in the birthright program.
Among the report's findings, 35 percent of participants and 39 percent of non-participants - who applied for the trip but didn't go for one reason or another - said they felt very connected to Israel before birthright.
"Israel can bring you to a whole new world," says Aaron Sheinbein, a 25-year-old Phoenix resident who recently went on a birthright trip with the National Jewish Council for Disabilities. "I was overwhelmed at how many people all around the world are Jewish."
Sheinbein says he met so many different people that he didn't want to leave the Jewish state. In fact, once he got home he bought a tzitzit - "I saw everyone (in Israel) wearing them," he says.
"It's unlike anything seen in the evaluation literature of educational programs," Saxe told the Herzliya conference.
In a Brandeis study three years ago, there wasn't enough evidence to judge behavioral changes. But now there is such evidence, Saxe says, noting that many student leaders of Hillel: the Foundation for Jewish Life on Campus are birthright alumni.
In addition, he noted, many birthright alumni later return to Israel on study-abroad or other programs.
"We know that many of these people would not have been in these programs were it not for birthright," he said. The program "has significant effects, and it has fairly large effects."
For many young Jews, Jewishness may rank low among the identities they feel, Saxe said. But birthright "pushes it up on the list so that it becomes much more important, much more central," he says.
Still, it will take years to determine the program's long-term impact: In 10 to 20 years, behaviors such as marrying a Jew or raising Jewish kids will offer more insight, Saxe says.
Lee also says that many students who participated in birthright programs began to realize the importance of being in a Jewish relationship.
"You can see that Jews are really pretty cool and that romantic efforts with other Jews is not such a difficult or impossible thing," he says.
But, Lee says, romantic relationships aside, birthright is "an exceedingly powerful experience.
"I think birthright is a magnificent project," he says, "which simply changes the life and the identity and the pride of being Jewish in literally thousands of kids."