Most members of the Jewish community are familiar with the Taglit-Birthright programs that offer young American Jews an opportunity to visit Israel for 10 days at no cost. This summer, Birthright is set to register its 200,000 participant on its now famous trips. Two writers at Columbia University have taken a needed pause to evaluate Birthright’s impact on the American Jewish community in the last ten years. The first piece, written by Jordan Hirsch, appears in the latest issue of PresenTense Magazine. Hirsch deftly captures Birthright’s impact on Israel programming in the U.S. and concludes with the modest (and perhaps obvious) suggestion that for Birthright to continue to succeed it must enlarge its network, and strengthen the ties not only between its alumni, but also between those alumni and their Jewish communities. The second piece, by Avi Herring, appears in the latest issue of The Columbia Current, and takes a closer look at Birthright’s program and its effectiveness. Herring’s main argument is that where Birthright truly fails is its inability to advance a compelling reason to its participants to remain part of the Jewish community in the first place. Herring carefully points out that at not quite ten-years-old, Birthright’s level of success may only become clear once its “alumni start to marry, having children, and raise families.”
One thing is clear: Birthright is a phenomenon that has already left its mark on American Jewish communities across the country, and as such, is a worthy topic of discussion for these and other writers.
May 30th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Mazal Tov to birthright
I think Birthright has had some positive and negative effects.
On the one hand, I have met lots of people who have gotten, through birthright, a connection to their Judaism and to the state of Israel that years of Jewish Day School, maybe even Yeshiva, would not be able to provide.
On the other hand, the danger I think has been that people have taken their Israel connection as something they are owed. It’s their “birthright”. In Judaism, rights never had the meaning of “something I am owed without doing anything in return”. Rather, it meant something I am owed in exchange for something else. If someone truly wants a connection to Israel, and Judaism, he needs to invest some time and effort in his growth.
http://www.tzipiyah.com
June 1st, 2008 at 11:54 am
What exactly makes birthright “infamous”?
June 2nd, 2008 at 6:55 am
birthrightisraeal is unmatached at in its success at being a big program, as Herring notes. Now, we have to think about how to make Judaism the “big idea” for alumni–and for that matter, many in the American Jewish community. That’s everyone’s job. Hayim
June 3rd, 2008 at 3:22 pm
STATEMENT:PROPHET MOHAMAD MUST BE PUNKED.GEORGELICIOUS.__________________this is about the-islamic-bak-magic-satanism.every moslem has a bak and he uses it.
prophet mohamad ( bak be upon him) was once asked to report on his favourite phishing & spam.he spontaneously replied that there is something cooking on the net.he said that the islamic bak is being displayed on a network of blogs with a traffic sign like this one:hey ,my fellow moslem. kiss my big toe.Odear.oops & he messed himselffind out more by typing islamicbak,one word ,and get the results from your search engine.excuse me,his mama is coming and i dont want to start something i cant phinish,i mean finish.GEORGE .========is this is 4 real.you bet.Alladin & Sindbad have betrayed us and gave the key of ALI BABA to moslems to dance on our graves in EGYPT
wwww.islamicbak.com,
June 11th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
I agree that it may be too early to gauge Birthrights real impact, but short term, and in particular based on the findings of the studies Birthright itself commissions, it seems to be an extremely expensive experiment producing questionable results. Here is a quote from one of the studies:
“In surveys and interviews, the vast majority of alumni are effusive in describing the impact of the program, and they maintain that the experience was transformative and heightened their motivation to participate in Jewish communal life. Yet, paradoxically, the programs demonstrated impact on actual Jewish behavior is modest and inconsistent.”
In other words, students are wowed by the experience but that is about it not many actually do anything after the program is over.
Check out this link (where the studies are posted) http://www.brandeis.edu/cmjs/constructs/2008March.html and scroll down to After Birthright Israel: Finding and Seeking Young Adult Jewish Community to download and read the full thing.
September 16th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
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