How to talk your teenager into traveling to Israel

So you want to send your teenager to Israel for the summer.

But Danny was really looking forward to practicing with his new grunge band in your garage. Debbie can only think of returning to camp, where she spent a blissful summer discovering that age-old ritual, the camp romance. Matthew has no desire to visit a place he says is full of religious people. And Leah wants to spend her summer volunteering to help the homeless, informing you, "I will not set foot into that oppressive country."

What is a parent supposed to do?

Emphasizing the "Jewish homeland" aspect will only get you so far, said Rabbi Arthur Vernon, director of educational development for the Jewish Education Service of North America, a New York-based organization that offers support for communities and organizations with Israel programs.

Acknowledging that his view differs from the usual Jewish communal one, Vernon suggests pushing a more universal approach, such as Israel as the origin of Western civilization, the cradle of the world's three great religions.

"You can't reach Jewish kids today with a narrow communal, parochial message. That's not where the kids are at, and it's not where their parents are at, either," he said.

Israel should be looked at as a place with something for everyone, Vernon suggests. If your teen is interested in the environment, art or archaeology, he or she can find these interests in Israel.

"Israel needs to be presented as a modern miracle of nation-building and society-building and economy-building and people-building," he said.

Unfortunately, he said, many teens -- and often their parents -- have misperceptions of Israel that range from seeing it as a Third World country consisting of mostly camels and sand to viewing it as a place where the only thing people do all day is pray. Other youths who are socially aware, like the hypothetical Leah above, might not want to go because they see Israel as an unjust society.

"These are the images of Israel that we're dealing with," Vernon said. The tasks of parents and educators is to "explain that it's a part of the world that is different and complicated, but that it's worth seeing, because look how good things really are there. "

Paul Reichenbach, director of Israel programs for the Reform movement's Union of American Hebrew Congregations, takes a different approach.

Reichenbach suggests that the curriculum in synagogue classes must be altered so that a trip to Israel is seen as a transforming experience in terms of Jewish identity. Citing a statistic that 75 percent of all Jewish youth have a bar or bat mitzvah, Reichenbach said it is up to the synagogues to teach youths that an Israel trip is the next rite of passage.

"But we're never going to get them to consider it unless there are positive messages, engaging messages, sent about the people, the history and the culture that are an integral part of the Jewish learning experience."

That is all the more crucial, Reichenbach said, because events such as the Holocaust, Israel's birth and the Six-Day War simply don't resonate in the same way with today's youth as they did for older generations.

The Internet could also be a good way for teens to get turned on to Israel if they punch up the right address.

Alisa Schwartz is a Boston-based consultant for the Israel Experience Web site.

The site offers a search engine so that youths can check out the different programs available, according to their interests.

The Web site can be found at http://www.israelexperience.org/ie_new

By "helping Jewish kids connect with their world," Schwartz said, "we're trying to bring Israel into their daily lives."