BY Ami Isseroff The Birthright (Taglit) program is one of the shining successes of the Zionist movement. Birthright offers free trips to Israel for Jewish young people in the hope that seeing is believing. Though it has probably not been able to fully exploit its potential, there is no doubt that Birthright brings Jewish young people closer to Israel and to their Jewish heritage and closer to an understanding of the achievements and challenges facing Israel.
Birthright trips are offered in a variety of formats by different operators. Israel’s main “selling point” is Israel – its existence and what we have built. Being here conveys the message, and it cannot be replaced by any yardage of propaganda, hours of tedious Hebrew lessons, summer camps or indoctrination. Study data show Birthright can e offer a unique experience to anyone with the slightest Jewish background and selectively enhances attachment to Israel among those who have had the least Jewish background.
The success of the Birthright trips gives the lie to the oft-repeated claim of J-Street and other organizations that Israeli policies are alienating young Jews. If all goes well, in a few years over half of Jewish young people will have gone on Birthright tours. Given the unabashedly Zionist orientation of Birthright, it is hard to imagine participants would even go on the trip if they hated Israel as much as anti-Zionists claim.
Birthright trips are based on consensus Zionism. That is, they do not present a particular political viewpoint within the Zionist consensus.For those who are interested Birthright alumni have set up a Web Site where you can give your definition of Zionism: TakeBack Zionism. This effort is supported by organizations with a spectrum of viewpoints, including the outspokenly dovish Ameinu.
Birthright tours do not extend beyond the green line, and lecturers shy away from divisive political issues. Nonetheless, there is no getting away from the fact that Birthright is a Zionist program with a viewpoint. Participants see “Israel,” not “occupied Palestine” after all, and hear lectures from IDF soldiers, not PLO commandos.
More than its immediate successes, the Birthright program provides a model of how Israel can work with Diaspora charities to support Jewish community life through mutually beneficial cooperation. Of course nobody is forced to go on a Birthright trip and of course any non-Zionist or anti-Zionist is free to offer their own trips to Israel or, for example, the West Bank, Gaza, the Islamic Republic of Iran or Syria.
Birthright’s proven record and success have prompted an increased financial contribution from Israel. It has also spawned at least one parasitic anti-Zionist program, Birthright Unplugged. Birthright Unplugged takes advantage of the free trip and abuses the funding to bring Jewish young people to Israel at the expense of Jewish charities and the Israeli government, and set these people against Israel. Birthright Unplugged has also used the Birthright trips to create propaganda “testimonials” about the alleged oppression of the Palestinians, which they have then exhibited in public places in the USA. Birthright Unplugged is parasitic and dishonest. It was organized to defraud the Birthright organization and take money under false pretenses. It steals money from Zionist charities and Israeli tax payers to create anti-Israel propaganda.
J-Street, which has never lost an opportunity to explain how Zionism and Israel are driving younger people away from Judaism, wanted to do the Birthright Unplugged scam in a big way: They want to be Birthright tour operators. Without bothering to ask anyone, they announced a Birthright trip that they promptly were forced to cancel.
There are various possible itineraries for such tours. Participants might visit Palestinian refugee camps instead of kibbutzim. Rather than fraternizing with Israeli soldiers, participants could be indoctrinated by rocket launching squads of the Gaza Popular Resistance Committees.
Instead of touring the rebuilt Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, J Street Birthright trippers could visit Sheikh Jarrah and hear a lecture about Arabs who were evicted for not paying rent. J Street Birthright tours could be livened up by participation in demonstrations against the “Apartheid Wall” and tours of former Arab villages.
These experiences, projected on the impressionable minds of young people who do not know much about Israel, are bound to be effective, though they may not increase the identification of participants with Israel. All these wonderful experiences would not be paid for by Arab oil money, but by the Israeli tax payer and American Jewish Zionist philanthropists. A scheme as clever and morally blameless as this has not been hatched since the Nazis made the Jews of Holland buy round-trip tickets to Auschwitz.
The cancellation of the J Street Birthright trip produced howls of discontent from anti-Zionists, who insisted for some reason that they have the “moral” right to steal our money and use our funding to spread Israel hate. Cecilie Surasky of Jewish Voice for Peace was furious. Jewish Voice for Peace is outspokenly anti-Zionist, unlike J Street. One can imagine the sort of tour Surasky envisioned.
The movement to steal our money also found an academic defender, who invented a “moral” rationale:
“We need to offer a menu of possibilities that are value-based,” sociologist Steven M. Cohen told Anglo File this week. “J Street offers one such value basis. As long as there is an interest in one or another value-approach to Israel, it behooves Birthright to offer young American Jews that possibility.”
A menu of possibilities? One from Column A and two from Column B? All the “narratives” will be on Dr. Cohen’s menu. Participants in Dr Cohen’s Birthright program will choose if they want a trip based on Zionist values or Fatah values or Hamas values. In any case, the Zionists and the Israelis will pay. Dr. Cohen wants an a la carte all-expenses-paid menu!
“Value based?” Silly me. I thought not stealing was a value (wasn’t there something about that in the 10 commandments?) . I also thought love of one’s people and one’s homeland were values. I guess Dr. Cohen is basing himself on different values.
Cohen is well aware of the value of trips to Israel in promoting attachment to Israel by young people. In a 2007 study he concluded:
[P]romoting trips to Israel may be the most policy-relevant action organized Jews can undertake to stem the erosion in Israel attachment among younger adult Jews. A single trip has clear positive effects on Israel attachment, repeat trips are even more effective and so are trips of longer duration.
Travel to Israel is more essential for securing a pro-Israel identity among young people than it is among their elders.
Of course, trips of the kind J Street might contemplate are not going to increase anyone’s attachment to Israel.
J Street may have understood the moral “value” issue since they are now soliciting funds for their own trip. There is nothing wrong with that of course, but as their circular letter notes:
Trips like this are expensive…
No kidding.
