Birthright Israel’s role has always been the same since its founding in 1999: to take American Jews aged 18-26 to Israel and help them realize and create their own connection to Israel, according to its website.
But since Oct. 7, Birthright has made additions to the story it is intending to tell.
“Birthright has to be reactive and tell a new story about Israel now post 10/7,” IACT Coordinator Dan Kling said, “so those changes are trying to reflect the changes in Israeli society.”
Those changes include more volunteering opportunities in communities and farms that have been impacted since the Oct. 7 attacks and visiting the site of the Nova Festival, according to Kling, who is also the Birthright Israel coordinator at this university.
On Jan. 11, 2021, Sheldon Adelson, one of Birthright’s major donors, died. His wife Miriam, who was one of Birthright’s most generous donors, severely cut down her funding, the Birthright website said.
Loss of funding and the ongoing war has seen Birthright lose participants over the last few years.
“I think Birthright will bounce back from that because I think more than ever, people and donors are going to see the value in sending young Jews to Israel,” Kling said.
Kling is pushing for students to embark on the trip despite the escalating situation in Israel and how people are viewing Israel.
“Everyone else is looking at Birthright and looking at Israel through a political lens … but I want [participants] to look at Birthright [through] a personal lens,” Kling said. “I want people to feel confident when they go.”
“I am going no matter what.”
Sammy Goldstein, a sophomore finance major at this university, has wanted to go back as much as possible since the war.
Goldstein, from Annapolis, Maryland, has been to Israel almost every summer of his life, but he has yet to go on a trip with a program like Birthright. He knows the upcoming trip in the winter will be different from the usual trips he has taken with his family.
Michaela Feiler, another sophomore at this university, has only been to Israel once, and that was last winter. She was originally planning on going with Birthright during that time before it was canceled.
Since then, Feiler has felt the need to go back to Israel and experience more, and she is planning on going on. the upcoming winter trip
“I am going to be able to actually understand why people love going there so much,” Feiler said.
Feiler argues how important it is for Jews to go to Israel with a war ongoing.
“The fact that [there] is a war and I still want to go just illustrates how much we actually need to connect to our homeland,” Feiler said. “If that is my place, then I need to be there with everybody.”
“I could walk around and be so proud of who I am.”
Like many Jews in the U.S., Taylor Faust’s life changed after Oct. 7.
Faust, from Westchester, New York,, had been involved culturally with Israel through programs such as BBYO, but she became more involved with advocating for Israel on campus throughout the last year.
“It is so hard to fight for something if you don’t fully understand it,” Faust said, “and I think being there is the best way to understand the whole country.”
The junior criminology and criminal justice major had only been to Israel once for her younger brother’s bar mitzvah before the “best trip of [her] life” in May 2024.
Faust and the 35 other students from this university visited the Nova site, one of the kibbutzim in the south of Israel that was attacked, and a small city in Israel called Sderot that was a part of the initial barrage of Palestinian rocket attacks from Gaza to Israel.
“It was just so incredible to see the resiliency in Sderot and understand firsthand what had happened on Oct. 7,” Faust said.
Faust explained that Birthright briefed the participants at every location of precautions to take in case of emergency and of where the nearest bomb shelter was and how much time it would take to reach it. The nearest shelter to the Nova site was 15 seconds away, and if anything happened in locations like the Mahane Yehuda Market, she would have to lay on the ground and not run due to the large crowds.
Despite the ongoing war, Faust emphasized the safety and security she felt throughout the trip and how “you would not even know that there was a war occurring” in some areas of Israel.
“I honestly think I felt safer walking around Israel than I do walking around the streets of New York City or D.C.,” Faust added.
After this trip, Faust is “more proud to fight for Israel and Israel’s safety.”
“It would be in poor taste to go.”
Liora Petter-Lipstein could have gone on the same trip Faust did, but she did not feel comfortable going on a “touristy” trip with the war ongoing.
Petter-Lipstein, a senior public policy major from Highland Park, New Jersey, had only been to Israel once and has always wanted to do the “iconic things” that participants on Birthright get to do in Israel – specifically a sunrise hike up Masada.
But she described Birthright in this time as “tone-deaf” when there is “suffering and atrocities” occurring “just mere miles away.”
“It did not feel like it paid true attention and respect to the suffering of Palestinians,” Petter-Lipstein said.
Deciding not to go was a difficult choice for Petter-Lipstein, considering how exciting and built-up a trip to Israel has sounded to her.
Kling explained that he does not want students to “walk away from the trip feeling like they were pushed one way or the other in the [Israeli/Palestinian] conflict.”
However, Petter-Lipstein argues there is not enough education on the biases behind this conflict, or “a ton of nuance for the actions of the Israeli government,” and there is no room for criticism of the Israeli government on Birthright.
“I want a world in which we can live peacefully with our neighbors,” Petter-Lipstein said, “and I am not going to support the actions of the Israeli government by going on Birthright until their actions are something that I feel comfortable supporting.”
Petter-Lipstein is still open to going to Israel at some point, but “it will take some change, some pretty large change for me to go.”
