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Year In Israel Is Priceless
By Gil Troy
The Jewish Week
April 15, 2005
At seder time, families inevitably turn to the college seniors at their table to ask the dreaded final-year-in-college question: “So what are you doing next year?” Parents may be sufficiently well trained by their children to avoid the subject; relatives and family friends are less inhibited. Wouldn’t it be great if, as in one of those ridiculous commercials in which two people discover the same cleaning solution, parents and children, deciding to harken to the words of the seder, stood as one singing, “Next year in Jerusalem.”
Law school, medical school or pre-graduate school anxiety can wait. The year after college is a perfect opportunity to live in Israel, the Jewish people’s homeland. And with security stabilized, next year promises to be an extraordinary time for an Israel experience — as every year has proved to be for those who go.
To those of us disgusted with the demonization of Israel, the Nazification of Zionism, the politicization of all things Israeli, the Arafatian oversimplification reducing all discussions of Israel to the Palestinian problem, there is nothing more healing than visiting Israel. As 75,000 18-to-26-year-old birthright israel visitors — and millions of others — have discovered these last few years that Israel is more than what you see on CNN.
Visiting Israel entails engaging Israel in all its multidimensional glory, delighting in an old-new land that counts history by millennia and not decades, experiencing a dynamic culture synthesizing cutting-edge Western values with Jewish traditions and Middle Eastern rhythms, and witnessing one of the youngest liberal democracies improvise sophisticated answers to bedeviling questions about church and state, minority and majority, terrorists and the terrified. Visiting Israel entails inhaling Jerusalem’s spirituality, feeling Tel Aviv’s beat, enjoying a symphony of the senses with the sounds, smells, sights and tastes of this exotic yet also comfortingly familiar land.
The Jewish Agency’s Education Department, along with the Israeli government, has launched Masa, a $100 million-a-year initiative to expand long-term Israel programs. This exciting initiative, building on birthright israel, recognizes great Jewish experiences including day schools, summer camps and free 10-day visits as gateways to sustained programs of studying and living in Israel, ideally for a year.
The Education Department hopes that by 2010, 20,000 young Jews will be participating in semester or yearlong programs, institutionalizing a year in Israel as a natural step in every Jew’s journey to maturity. The Israeli government and the Jewish Agency each will invest $50 million annually to subsidize individuals who wish to grow as Jews and as human beings by spending serious time living in the Jewish state.
Among many Orthodox Jews, the yeshiva year in Israel between high school and college has become the norm. The year has transformed thousands of individuals, as well as the Modern Orthodox community. Through the difficult years of Arafat’s terror, participation in yeshiva programs held much steadier than other Israel experience programs. This stability reflected the Orthodox Jewish establishment’s commitment to the Israel experience, as well as the fact that many of these kids’ parents had spent similar years in Israel and understood the value.
For a program appealing to all Jews, many choices abound, not one standard framework. Masa invites young Jews to taste Israel on their terms, be it studying at a yeshiva, researching at Hebrew University, volunteering on a kibbutz, programming at a high tech firm, saving fish in the Red Sea, working with the poor in the Galilee, helping immigrants acclimate in Jerusalem, or digging through layers of ancient Jewish civilizations in the Judean desert.
This initiative could revolutionize American Jewry. Those of us who experienced Israel during this formative phase in our lives know how enriching and fun the year can be — the lifelong friendships formed, the broadened perspectives, the intensified Jewish consciousness, the expanded universe of Jewish living possibilities. Last summer I spent time in Israel with nearly a dozen friends who had shared my year in Israel with me 25 years ago. Some live in Israel, most live in North America, but none regretted our Israeli “gap” year between high school and college. Thanks partially to that year, all lead more committed Jewish lives — and more honorable and value-oriented lives.
In this age of careerism, note that this unsystematic cross-section of Israel program alumni included some self-made millionaires, and people who have succeeded in entertainment, academia, business and social work. No one’s march to success slowed. Most appreciated that year as essential in making them who they are today as professionals, let alone as Jews and as human beings.
For thousands of years Bashana HaBa’a — Next Year in Jerusalem — was an unrealized hope. For decades, B’shana HaBa’a has risked being an empty vow. This year — for next year — let’s make it a secret password into an inspiring, energizing, mind-transforming, soul-enriching, community-building, world-enhancing sustained Israel experience, whether you’re a college senior or not. n
Gil Troy teaches history at McGill University. His latest book is “Morning in America: How Ronald Reagan Invented the 1980s.”
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