Should I go to Israel? Any Birthright experiences?

In My Humble Opinion
21

Then you have more “Jewish” education than I do… :slight_smile:

Welcome to the club… believe me, even fully-qualified hereditary Jews (like me) can be complete atheists – and sometimes anti-theists. And yet I still love the place and feel connected to it; go figure…

Shouldn’t be a problem – you may find that some of your co-travelers and possibly some of the local guides share at least some of your views. Debate, don’t argue; be polite about it; and you’ll be fine. Also, since you seem to have strong ideas about the conflict, don’t you owe it to yourself to experience the situation (almost) first hand and educate yourself further about what it really looks like on the ground?

22

Unless your views are that all the Israelis should pack up and leave all the land to the Palestinians, or that the Palestinians would be justified in killing them all, your views are probably more mainstream among Jews than you think. Remember, most of us in the US are liberal Democrats, and while we do support Israel’s right to exist, that doesn’t mean we support everything Israel does. Sort of like how we don’t support everything the US does, but we don’t think the US should cease to exist.

23

Just a side question:

Suppose I actually had the time to do this and was unethical enough to take something to which I’m not entitled. I’m not at all Jewish, no Jewish relatives anywhere in my tree. But what would stop me from saying I had dead Jewish grandparents, concocting a plausible backstory, and taking a free vacation?

Aside from my own morals, I mean. I would NEVER steal a free trip.

24

I submitted mine just now too. They changed the way they accept deposits though. Did you have to sign up for their Payoneer debit card in order to send in your deposit? I’m not sure how I feel about that, but it is a free trip…

25

From Birthright Israel’s FAQ

26

Man, I found another trip itinerary that I really would love to do. Unfortunately, my parents might have a few questions I’m not ready to handle about why I want to go on a Gay/Lesbian trip.

Out of curiosity, do they require some sort of proof of Jewishness at some point in the application process? If so, what?

27

Yes. There will be two interviews. The first one is to screen out the obviously ineligible (50 years old; Catholic; already went on a Birthright trip) and the second one is to screen out the dangerous people. The second one is also the make-sure-you’re-Jewish one.

It’s usually conducted at the airport while you’re standing there with your bags. A polite dude with a tie will ask you some questions. The first question will probably be something like, “What is your background in Judaism?” If you say you’ve been strict Orthodox all your life, the second question will be asked in Hebrew. If you answer the first question with “I was raised Jewish but haven’t really practiced since my Bat Mitzvah,” the second question might be something like “What was your Torah portion?”

For me, I said I went to Reform Sunday school all my life and the guy asked me if I knew any Hebrew. I said, “of course!”

He said: “Like what?”

Immediately, every Hebrew word I’d ever learned disappeared out of my head, which isn’t saying much. “Er… um… uh” I explained, as he regarded me steadily. I finally came up with “Shevet b’vakah shah! Hey!” [“Everybody be quiet! Hey!” - often screamed crowds of rowdy Jewlets].

The guy thought that was funny and asked me if I knew anyone on the trip. I said yes, my sister who is right over there. He rolled his eyes and sent me over to interview with her.

In a nutshell: they don’t care if you’re not terribly observant. Their goal, remember, is to increase pro-Israel sentiment in the world. Their target audience is people who might be susceptible to greater sympathy to a Jewish homeland: Jews, semi-Jews, sorta-Jews, kinda-Jews, and barely-Jews.
Oh and RickJay - Two words: Jewish Guilt. And also probably IDF Intelligence, who probably knew more about me when I went than I did.

I also want to reiterate what Anne Neville said. If you go, you’ll be surprised at how many people you’ll meet who share your political views, Israelis and Americans alike. As long as you believe that the state has a right to exist (an attitude evident in your willingness to work on a kibbutz), and you are polite, you should be accepted with open arms.

28

Okay, I did a search on you to figure out what your controversial stance on Israel was, and I found this thread from almost five years ago:

I’m jealous of my Jewish friends

In that thread you say that while you have rejected the religious aspect of Judaism (a fine choice IMO), you regret that you no longer have access to the community. Obviously your outlook has changed since you were sixteen, since you now consider “Cultural Judaism” to be “absolute bunk.”

What I’m wondering is this: is this really a change? It’s fine if it is. People grow up and change their opinions and there’s nothing wrong with that.

But if it’s not a change, then that means you consider the community and the culture of Judaism to be discrete entities. I would urge you to rethink this philosophy, and would redouble my endorsement of a trip to Israel post haste.

Of course, if this goes beyond the scope of what you wanted to discuss in this thread, you should just ignore my post. :smiley:

29

Yeah, I signed up for the debit card thing. It is kind of a weird way to do it, but free is free…

30

That is EL AL security, not Birthright. They ask those questions to everyone using their airlines, not just the Birthright group. If they find you suspicious they will give you a special color tag on your luggage that will send you through more security checks.

The way Birthright checks is by common sense and random background checks. I imagine they can eliminate the Goldberg’s and Weinstein’s from their random checks. That and if your counselors find out you are not Jewish they will send you home right away.

31

Oy, I didn’t expect to have that dredged up! ('s fine, though). Mostly what’s changed is I’m not seventeen anymore. That was the first year when I wasn’t going to Hebrew school once a week, which really had been my only connection to the Jewish community. In retrospect, I was mostly angry because I wanted both to have the settled conscience of not associating with any religion, coupled with that sense of community I’d been raised in. I think it can be best said that my opinion has clarified: I now see that I can’t truly accept that there’s such think as a secular Jewish community. Judaism is a religion and (IMO) nothing more, so claiming that it creates a community held together by something other than religion doesn’t logically work.

I don’t want to get too into it, as I don’t want to derail things, but if you’re curious about my (strong) opinions on Israel, feel free to PM or email me.

If being able to get into Israel is dependent on being able to name my bat mitzvah torah portion, I’m pretty screwed. (It was from the book of Numbers, I think? I can still kind of chant what I think are the first couple words of it, though). But if they do a random check, there is a synagogue that has records of me being a bat mitzvah and going through confirmation and being a pain in the ass, so that shouldn’t be an issue.

I talked to my mother today, and she predictably was very happy I’m finally considering it. In her eyes, the biggest question is if I should still try to get into a summer trip or wait until winter. She also said that she and my father would probably be willing to spot me a small amount of cash for spending money if I needed. I think mostly she’s just blown away that I’m even considering doing something with any slight connection to any organized religion, let alone Judaism.

Again, thank you all for the opinions and discussion. It always helps.

32

Blast, missed the edit window.

While we’re here talking about Birthright, a question for those who’ve done it (or really anyone): Almost every trip organizer I’ve looked at boasts “meeting IDF soldiers” as part of the itinerary. I feel like I’m missing something - are these the security folk that accompany all Birthright trips? Are they other but notable soldiers? Aren’t all but the super-Orthodox Israelis soldiers at some point, rather diluting any…I don’t know, glamour or mystery from it?

33

I’ve never been on a Birthright trip (I went on a guided youth tour before they started the program, so I wasn’t eligible), but I think the guards are former soldiers who are now escorting tourists to make a buck. Of course, as you pointed out, (almost*) everybody over the age of 22 is a former soldier, so I suppose they’re advertising the chance to meet current members of the IDF.

*Aside from certain exemptions for the permanently-full-time-yeshiva-learning Ultra Orthodox, Israeli Arabs don’t serve in the IDF. Many more modern Orthodox young women opt to spend an equal amount of time devoted to national service, rather than serving in the army. Also, some people are disqualified for medical reasons. For example, one of my cousins is of the age to be in the IDF now, but wasn’t allowed to serve even in a desk position because he has Crohn’s Disease. He actually appealed the decision, because he really wanted to serve. People who immigrate to Israel when they’re above a certain age or after having a certain number of kids are exempt. I’m sure there are other exemptions that I don’t know about or have forgotten at the moment

34

Yeah, it’s pretty much like meeting a Genuine Authentic American College Student.

They might take you to visit a base, though, or even observe some training. That could be interesting.

35

In our case, the two guards with our bus were with us full-time, from start to finish. They were both women, and I’d estimate in their early 20s, having just gotten out of their IDF tour. Our part of the “meeting IDF soldiers” consisted of picking up a group of eight or so current soldiers who were in tank-driving school (or whatever they call it), and having them on the bus with us for three days or so. They were all 18-20, four of them were women, and all but one were native Israeli. The last was a girl who had emigrated with her family from New York City and chosen to enlist.

36

If it’s El Al doing those security questions, you’re safe. El Al doesn’t want to exclude all people who are not observant Jews or who don’t remember their parsha from Israel. The people they do want to exclude are people with bad intentions toward Israel who pretend to be something they are not in order to get a less rigorous security screening. Just be honest with them.

You may not fly on El Al. When I went to Israel in December, we flew on a new budget airline called Israir. [OTRant]If you have any choice, don’t fly on Israir. Israir sucks smelly goat balls. They transcend the mortal plane to reach new levels of suckitude. They are one long flight in a middle seat for man, one giant vacuum cleaner hose up the wazoo for mankind.[/OTRant] They didn’t ask the kind of security questions that El Al does- I didn’t get any questions about when the last time I went to synagogue was, or anything like that. [OK-just-one-more-bit-of-ranting]This is probably because terrorist groups, while they can recruit people to kill themselves in gruesome ways, can’t find anyone willing to tolerate Israir, even if they would get 72 virgins or whatever afterward.[/OK-just-one-more-bit-of-ranting] There were a couple of what we think were Birthright groups on our flight.