Birthright Israel

This is the first time in 11 days that I have had both access to a computer and the time and energy to use it. It seems both that the time has flown by and also that I've done so much that I could have been away a whole month already.

So, what's been keeping me so busy? Well, I've been on the Birthright Israel Experience. Birthright is an organisation that believes that it is the 'birth right' of all Jews to visit Israel whilst they're still young enough to enjoy it. Accordingly they provide a completely free trip/tour/experience for any Jew between the ages of 21-26 who has never been on an organised educational trip here before and wishes to do so. Since the program started in the mid 1990s, over 200,000 Jews from all over the world have taken advantage of this incredible opportunity. Birthright works with various Jewish organisations in each country, who in turn work with various tour operators in Israel, so one's experience can vary enormously depending on who you go with. I had no choice - there is only one group from England that I fit into to - the young professionals trip organised by UJIA.

There were 38 of us on the trip plus two British leaders (the same age as the group) and two Israeli guides. As one would expect of such a large group, there are people whom I got on with better than others, but as a whole we all gelled well. Given it was a UK group, it was surprisingly international since it included people of the US, South Africa, Australia, France and Spain who are now either working or study in Britain. For about half the tour, six Israeli soldiers and two Israeli students also joined the group. It was as much a learning experience for them as for us.

There were hundreds of groups from all over the world and we bumped into several along the way. One of the most memorable experiences of the trip was the Mega Event, on the evening of January 1st, when the 4000 participants currently in Israel all met for an extravagaza that I will write more about later.

We packed so much into the trip that I wonder if the leaders had some kind of power to warp time. Places visited include Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Jaffa, the Negev, Massada, the Dead Sea, Peki'in, the Galilee and the Golan Heights. We went on walking tours, visited museums (Independence Hall, Hertzl Museum, Yad Vashem), met and talked with various minorities in Israel (the Bedouin, Druze and Israeli Arabs), saw the work being done by a couple of charities and heard lectures on Israeli cinema and the Middle East situation. We learnt about various environmental issues in Israel. On top of all this we had numerous opportunities to think about, engage with and discuss our Jewish identity and our relationship with Israel. And that barely scratches the surface.

Right now it's much easier to write and talk about what we did rather than how I feel about it all (far too tired and overwhelmed for that). I'm sure that this trip has affected me in ways that I won't even realise for weeks or months. I am staying in Israel for another three weeks on my own and am extremely glad about that. I need some time to soak things up at a reasonable pace. I have friends here that I want to see, other places I want to visit (chief amongst them Haifa and Akko) and maths education professors I've arranged to meet. Right now I'm staying in Jerusalem with an old friend from synagogue, Binyamin, and his delightful husband Avi. In a couple of days I'll head to Tel Aviv and chill out there for a while, but I'm taking things a day or two at a time and looking forward to meeting people as I go along. Now that the tour is over and I can go at my own pace, I should have much better access to the internet and hope to write more frequently from here on in.

Although there is still so much more to say, Shabbat is about to come in and the computer is going off, so I'll leave it there.