Birthright Unplugged

September 4, 2006 - 2:06 PM by Allison

David Abitbol of Jewlicious fame, published a fascinating article about his experiences leading Birthright Israel groups through the Holy Land and his ongoing battle between his cynicism and his idealism:

How’s it going? I Tivo’d the last episode of Lost. Now you can relax and enjoy your trip! See ya when you get back!

Over the course of the last three years, I’ve been a madrich (trip leader) on four Birthright Israel trips, a program that offers a free ten-day visit to Israel to any Jew between the ages of 18 and 26. On my last trip, we would receive e-mails sent to chanichim (trip participants), print them out, and hand-deliver them every day. The quote above was taken verbatim from one such e-mail which we had received on the second day of the trip.

I was struck by the possibility that someone’s enjoyment of the free ten-day trip to Israel might have been detrimentally affected by the possibility that upon their return to America, they would miss one episode of a favorite television show. Luckily, disaster was averted and the participant in question was able to enjoy the trip, free of any such impediment.

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