The problem with Birthright Israel

We've all heard the accolades for Birthright Israel: young adults who take the free 10-day trip to Israel come back jazzed about the Jewish state, are more likely to engage in Jewish life post-trip and are more likely to marry Jews.

We've also heard about the controversy: that Birthright is just propaganda for Israeli policies, that it doesn't screen its applicants well enough and ends up with the occasional messianic "Jew" or Palestinian activist, etc.

But in an op-ed published today on eJewishPhilanthropy.com, Stephen Muss notes another, more insidious problem with Birthright: It's discouraging younger teens from going to Israel with their peers on high school programs, and the Israeli government's enthusiastic financial support for the program (at the expense of high school programs) may actually be hurting its cause.

Muss is chairman of the Alexander Muss High School in Israel program, in which my brother took part after he graduated from high school in 2005. He and I went to a Jewish day school that graduates its senior class in January, then sends them to Israel for the rest of the school year. (When I graduated, my class went to Israel on a Ramah program.)

According to Birthright's rules, neither my brother nor I are eligible for Birthright. To be eligible you cannot have gone on a prior Israel trip with your peers. (Family trips are okay.)

What's the problem with this? Well, obviously, parents would rather send their children on a free trip than pay thousands for a high school trip. "Who can ever argue with free?" Muss writes.

Muss posits that by subsidizing Birthright so heavily, Jewish philanthropists and the Israeli government are missing out on the opportunity to subsidize high school trips, which arguably do better at creating Jewish identity at an earlier age than Birthright.

I found myself nodding my head (okay, metaphorically) the entire time I read Muss' op-ed. The problem, of course, is that Birthright does do excellent work. It's impossible to make a good argument against the program entirely. After all, it's better to go to Israel in your 20s than not at all, right? Not everyone can afford the thousands of dollars needed to send their teen to Israel. For young adults who would not otherwise get to go to Israel with their peers, it's undeniably a good thing, and there is no shortage of people whose lives have been changed by Birthright.

On the other hand, it's hard to make the argument that making young adults wait until they're 18 and have graduated from high school to go to Israel is better than sending them when they're in their crucial formative pre-college years - and that financially supporting Birthright over other programs makes sense.

"Nothing, and I mean nothing, can compare with an education trip to Israel during the high school years, when identity formation is most acute," Muss writes. Going into college with a solid Jewish and pro-Israel background is critical, especially these days, when anti-Israel sentiment is running rampant on campuses around the country. By making people wait until they are in college, and often out of college (Birthright eligibility goes up to 26!), Birthright misses out on that most important window of identity-building.

It does seem that Birthright is impacting the enrollment in high school programs. Muss notes that in 2000, around 20,000 teens went to Israel on high school programs. Birthright was founded that same year. Today, only around 12,000 to 15,000 high school students go to Israel on peer programs.

And why not? For families who are on the fence - who might be able to afford a high school program, but it would take sacrifice - it does seem far more tempting just to have their kids wait and go on Birthright when they're older. I can't say I wouldn't do the same thing.

I'm not writing this (nor, I suspect, is Muss) to make people who can't afford (or can only afford with great difficulty) a high school Israel program feel guilty. Nor am I saying that Birthright shouldn't be supported to the extent it is. What I do think is that the Israeli government and Jewish philanthropists should invest far more heavily in high school programs, and spend even half the energy they spend promoting Birthright on promoting high school programs.

Birthright is very fashionable and gets a lot of press, but there are other very deserving programs out there. Birthright is only 10 days. I spent over three months in Israel when I was a teen, and I knew that I had only scratched the surface of what the country had to offer. We need to give more people the opportunity to experience more of Israel at a younger age.

High school Israel programs are not cheap. And they'll probably never be free. But with some additional financial support, they can become accessible to thousands more families, and give many more teens the Jewish and Zionist passion they need to propel them into Israel advocacy and religious discovery in college and beyond.

Comments

Leave a Comment

In order to post a comment, you must first log in.
Are you looking for user registration? Or have you forgotten your password?