I don’t remember exactly when I learned about Birthright. It’s just one of those things every Jewish kid knows–like when you found out about Thanksgiving or pizza. Birthright’s been engrained in the Jewish community since it launched in 1999. I recently got to finally experience it for myself and the trip turned out to be the best 10 days of my life.
Taglit-Birthright Israel (pronounced “tahg-leet”) is a nonprofit that gives young Jews 18 to 26 around the world the gift of a free ten-day trip to Israel to explore the homeland. Throughout the ten days you go almost everywhere, see countless historical sites and breathtaking views and experience more than you could ever imagine possible. Everything you’ve heard about in Israel, from the Wailing Wall to camel rides and the Dead Sea, is explored in those ten days. And all of this is free. Over 350 thousand people have participated on the trip so far and Birthright continues to grow stronger.
I went on the UF Hillel trip with 39 other college students, the majority of whom were also Gators. None of us really knew anybody else on the trip–we all had our one or two friends, but for the most part we were all strangers going in. Literally within hours that all changed as we settled in and became best friends, one happy Bus 372 family that started to click in the security line at Newark.
Immediately after the 13-hour flight to Tel Aviv we got on the bus, had a quick orientation session, and began traveling through Israel. One of the great aspects of Birthright is that no two trips are identical. Remember that snow storm in Israel that completely shut down Jerusalem? Yeah, we got there three days after that and we couldn’t go to our first city Tzfat because the roads were closed due to the heavy snowfall. Instead, we took a detour to Caesarea, an ancient beach town on the Mediterranean coast named after Roman emperor Julius Caesar, where we played frisbee in front of the Roman aqueducts on the beach.
One of the running themes of the trip was that it turned out that this group of 40 “adults” were in actuality easily amused children. Our first stop, orientation, happened to be at a public park with a playground, where we managed to entertain ourselves for a solid hour. My favorite memory from the trip is when we were driving through the Golan Heights, a mountainous region in the northeast. The area was completely covered in snow and we saw a vast field of nothing but pure white snow. The group being mostly made up of Floridians easily excited by anything frozen, the whole bus started screaming to stop the bus. Our tour guide Amitai obliged and let us get off the bus and have some fun, providing a few Floridians with their first encounter with snow. For those of us who weren’t first-timers, this experience was entirely new, nonetheless; could say we had even been part of a 44-person snowball fight in the middle of a Israeli hill until that point.
After our third day in Israel, eight Israelis our age joined us for the trip. Military service is compulsory in Israel, so six of the eight were still in the military. For whatever reason, the soldiers joining us is the hardest part to understand for people who haven’t been on the trip. Yes, we have active-duty soldiers on the trip with us, but no, they are not there to protect us and they are. at no point, armed. The six soldiers and two students joined us as if they were part of our group, which they quickly became. They wore civilian clothes, ate with us, slept in the same rooms, did all the same activities and, of course, partied with us, too. A point of getting to hang out with each other is so Americans have personal connection to the people of Israel, as well as enabling Israelis to make connections to a Jewish community outside of their country.
The hikes we went on were absolutely beautiful (and I managed to fall only once!). We got to explore the Banias, the waterfall where the famous Jordan River begins and where Abraham crossed into Israel thousands of years ago, the historic Mount Masada and through canyons. We went to the Lebanese border where a few nice soldiers let some of us hold their rifles, which we later found out is illegal, and floated in the freezing-as-fuck Dead Sea.
We got to explore Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. We haggled in the famous Jaffa and Shuk markets where we bought overpriced hookahs after arguing with their salesman for 15 minutes. We saw Independence Hall where the Israeli Declaration of Independence was signed in 1948, the battle site in Jerusalem Ammunition Hill and the Holocaust Memorial Yad Vashem.
Being 40 college students, we went hard almost every night. The two kibbutzes we stayed on both had bars. The first kibbutz bar was a dinky, small shack that had hardly any alcohol. The bartender opened whenever and his shelves were less impressive than a fraternity party on a skimpy budget. The second kibbutz’s bar was more like a nightclub, with a fully stocked bar and creepy “kibbutznicks” who will dance on any girl, even if she’s already dancing on a guy. We had nights out in Tel Aviv (or as I like to call it, Tel ASleaze) and in Jerusalem. In Tel Aviv we barhopped all night, but Jerusalem is where it turned ratchet. It was our last night to go out and most of us stayed at one bar and just partied all night. Our Israelis had left us that morning and some of them came back to go out with us. I ate pizza off the floor of the Holy City and two people broke into an apartment to climb the roof of the building, so it was that kind of night. Too much arak for us.
Birthright is without a doubt the best experience of my life. I learned so much about my Jewish heritage, the current state of Israel and its history, and Israeli culture. I had eye-opening experiences, like meditating completely alone in the Negev desert at night and visiting a sports center for disabled children. Everyone in our group became best friends and we’ve all maintained those friendships now that we’re back at school.
Birthright is a life-changing opportunity that anyone eligible should take advantage of.
