Israel Tour Tries to Stem Tide of Jewish Assimilation
Pacific News Service, Peter Cahn, Posted: Jan 10, 2002
A tour of Israel designed to re-invigorate Jewish culture among young Jews comes with an added bonus -- a free honeymoon in Israel for anyone who meets a mate on the tour. Beyond the trips to religious landmarks and discos, writes PNS contributor Peter Cahn, lies a serious struggle against assimilation.
JERUSALEM--This winter, over the objections of parents and a U.S. State Department travel advisory, 6,000 Jews aged 18 to 26 from North America and Europe traveled to Israel. They are neither religious zealots nor political activists. They are participating in a much graver mission: attempting to save Jewish culture from assimilation.
"Birthright Israel" is a bold experiment conceived by two philanthropists to send young Jewish adults on a free, 10-day trip to Israel. Their hope is that a visit to the religion's holy sites will reinforce the connection young Jews feel with their heritage.
And what more logical way to cement that connection than with a Jewish mate?
When participants on a Birthright tour sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles arrived in Israel, their local guide made an unusual offer. Any couple who meets on the tour and gets married will be entitled to a free honeymoon in Israel.
Shlomo Lifshitz, the founder of Oranim Travel who made the offer, believes such measures are justified. "In North America, 50 percent of all Jews marry non-Jews. And in Britain, there are 100,000 fewer Jews than in the last census. Jews are about to vanish."
Assimilation, once the goal of Jewish migrants to the United States, is now seen as the primary threat to their culture's existence.
Many ethnic groups in the United States worry that their traditions will not endure to successive generations. For Jewish communities in the Diaspora, the threat of extinction has been a possibility over the course of their long history of persecution. Since the 1990s, when surveys revealed a high rate of intermarriage among Jews in the United States, the threat has come from inside the group.
Recognizing that children of mixed-faith marriages are less likely to be raised Jewish, Michael Steinhardt, a Wall St. money manager, and Charles Bronfman, co-chairman of the Seagram Company in Montreal, have decided to play matchmaker on a grand scale. Each contributed $5 million. Private donors, the state of Israel and local Jewish Federations pay for the remaining costs of the trips.
The Birthright program provides central registration and coordination for the trips, then out-sources the actual touring to operators in Israel. Participants can choose programs geared to cyclists, the hearing impaired, or Orthodox Jews, for example. Since the first trips in January 2000, close to 25,000 Jews from all over the world have taken advantage of the opportunity.
Lifshitz's travel company is one of the largest among many sponsors of the Birthright trips. Their focus is on seeing the country through the eyes of Israelis. So, in addition to local guides, soldiers from the Israeli army accompany participants on the trip. Military service is mandatory for all Israelis.
And there is plenty of time for mixing.
In Tel Aviv, Lifshitz personally brought the Californians and their Israeli companions to a nightclub and offered them free alcoholic drinks. The setting proved romantic for one woman from Los Angeles. "I grew up in a Christian community and always had Christian boyfriends. I've never kissed a Jewish man until now."
The focus of the tour was less theological than broadly cultural. During their ten days in Israel, the 25 twentysomethings on the trip visited tourist stops like the Dead Sea and the Western Wall in Jerusalem. At nearly every stop, the tour organizers made sure there was opportunity for socializing. The trip included visits to bars, discotheques, and a water park with hot springs.
For many of the participants, the trip succeeded in its goal of strengthening their commitment to Judaism. At one group discussion, the topic of marriage came up. A 23-year-old government worker described how she had been raised in a mixed-faith family. As a result of the confusion it caused her, she resolved to marry a Jewish man.
One engaged couple, who came on the trip together, admitted that they did not keep a religiously observant household. However, they agreed that when they have children, they will raise them in the Jewish faith and practice the traditions as they did on the tour, including lighting candles and resting on Shabbat.
By the end of the trip, conversation turned to how the 10 days had changed the participants. "When I get home, I'm going to dump my girlfriend," one 26-year-old man said. "She's Catholic, and I told her when we started dating that it might be a problem. Now I know I want a Jewish girlfriend."
But not all were as tempted by the promise of a free honeymoon for marrying a Jew. A 26-year-old actress remarked that she does not judge partners based on their religion. Others commented on the difficulty of meeting eligible Jewish singles.
The insistent message of marriage also overlooked homosexual Jewish youth, who cannot legally marry in either the United States or Israel. A lesbian on the tour mocked the repeated pleas for procreation. "Their slogan is, 'Make Jewish babies.' For me that's not what Judaism is about. I'd like to bring home a Jewish wife, but I don't necessarily want children."
The program's founders plan to extend the trips after the initial five-year trial period. Birthright trips join the popular online Jewish singles service JDate.com and events like speed dating, where participants interview several potential partners in one night, as a strategy for encouraging Jews to marry other Jews.
In his farewell address, Lifshitz returned to the theme of cultural continuity. "You have a historical responsibility to keep our culture alive," he told the gathered tourists.
They listened quietly, then got ready for a final disco before heading to the airport.
Peter Cahn (pcahn@uci.edu) is a social anthropologist currently doing research on religious conversion in Latin America.
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