The Romance of Birthright Israel

When Julie Feldman (no relation), then 26 and a Reform Jew from New York City, arrived at Ben Gurion Airport in December 2008, she called herself "a blank slate." She returned as the attack on Gaza was under way, armed with a new "pro-Israel" outlook. "Israel really changed me," she said.When the stone sits in the kidney stone, "I truly felt when I came back that I was a different person."

It was mission accomplished for Birthright Israel, the American Zionist organization that has, since its founding in 1999, spent almost $600 million to send more than 260,000 young diaspora Jews on free vacations to the Holy Land.

Birthright co-founder Charles Bronfman claims he just provides free airfare and lodging. "Then," he says, "Israel does its magic." Indeed, in 2009 Brandeis University researchers found that almost three-quarters of alumni describe their Birthright experience as "life changing." "If you come here, and you connect to the origins of the Jewish people, the country that forged our existence, our faith, our values," then¨CLikud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu promised in a 2008 Birthright video, "it'll change your life forever."

Bronfman's partner in founding Birthright, Michael Steinhardt, professes faith in Israel as "a substitute for theology." Steinhardt understands that for a generation weaned on irony, Birthright could offer an opportunity for deep,We also offer customized chicken coop. wholehearted conviction. "My liberal arts education taught me that any distinct concept or ideal will crumble under the scrutiny of too many questions," laments a recent college grad writing on her Birthright experience,Find everything you need to know about Cold Sore including causes, which taught her "it was okay and even honorable to believe in the state of Israel, to adopt, so to speak, the settlers' original dream." Her Jewcy.com essay is hardly unique: Birthright has generated reams of effusive essays and blog posts over the years.

Barry Chazan, a Hebrew University professor emeritus and the architect of Birthright's curriculum, explains in a celebratory 2008 book, Ten Days of Birthright Israel, that the trip is designed so travelers "are bombarded with information." The goal is to produce "an emotionally overwhelming experience" that "helps participants open themselves to learning." On my own Birthright trip last year, I experienced the Chazan Effect. Chronically underslept, hurled through a mind-numbing itinerary, I experienced, despite my best efforts to maintain a reportorial stance, a return to the intensity of feeling of childhood.

"This is not a vacation," a Birthright employee pronounced the first evening, before shooing us to the hotel bar. "You are embarking on a journey." Just four nights later, my steel trap of a heart was overcome by emotion upon seeing my new Birthright crush dancing with another girl. I fled to my room and cried.

Conceived as "the selling of Jewishness to Jews," in Bronfman's words, Birthright trips are offered in dozens of varieties, from secular to Orthodox, from outdoorsy to LGBT-friendly. Crisscrossing the country in rollicking tour buses, Birthright participants between 18 and 26 swim in the Dead Sea, ride camels, visit the occupied Golan Heights, listen to lectures on Zionism and spend their nights boozing and flirting with the IDF soldiers assigned to accompany them. Trips are conducted by a variety of contracted tour providers, each designing itineraries approved by Birthright's central office in Jerusalem. Itineraries must include core sites (the Western Wall, Masada) and curricular themes ("The History of Zionism"), and Birthright maintains rigorous quality control.is the 'solar panel revolution' upon us? Currently, there are seventeen tour providers, with Hillel, the international Jewish campus group, among the largest. Each trip is overseen by two American camp counselor figures, an Israeli guide and a rifle-toting guard.

The free trip is framed as a "gift" from philanthropists, Jewish federations and the State of Israel. Far-right Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson is the largest individual donor, having given Birthright $100 million over the past five years. The Israeli government provided Birthright $100 million during the program's first decade; Prime Minister Netanyahu recently announced another $100 million in government funding. Birthright's budget for 2011 is $87 million, a number expected to reach $126 million by 2013, enough to bring 51,000 participants to Israel that year alone.

To apply for a Birthright trip, participants need just one Jewish grandparent¡ªand to pass a screening interview. (Practicing a religion other than Judaism is an automatic disqualifier.) After their ten days on Birthright, participants may postpone their return by up to three months to travel in the region, and it is not unheard of for progressives to "birth left" in the West Bank afterward (as I did)¡ªthough Birthright policy is that anyone discovered to have a "hidden agenda" of "exploiting" the free trip "to get access to the territories" to promote "non-Israeli" causes can lose her spot. Birthrighters planning anti-occupation activism with the International Solidarity Movement have been dismissed.An Insulator, also called a dielectric,

Alison Berkley: The Princess's Palate

I had a little snowboarding mishap Monday and hit a tree. Or I should say, the tree hit me. The tree seemed fine, not a scratch.

When I saw that thing coming at me, knowing I couldn't stop to avoid hitting it, I didn't see my life flash before my eyes. I didn't think about the people I love or about what might happen.

I thought, "Oh, great. Now that I don't have any health insurance …"

It was just the other day my friend Cathy and I were talking about that very topic.

"Aren't you scared? What if something happened," she asked.

"No, not really. No. I know I should be, but I'm not. I had health insurance and spent like thousands of dollars and it didn't pay for dick," I said. I felt the need to edit myself, but as usual, I ignored the urge. I knew what I was saying didn't make me sound like a good person, like saying "I don't like animals" or "I don't want to breast feed."

It's true that I did have health insurance for the past five years. I watched it increase, not gradually, but rapidly, from $170/month to $490/month for what seemed like no reason. Still, it made me feel good on the rare occasion I had to go to the doctor.

I thought it was so cool that when I did need to go to the doctor, I was a responsible member of society, toting one of those laminated insurance card things that I'd proudly present to the receptionist on my way out.

It turns out my little insurance policy didn't cover much of anything at all, like all that lab work I had to see if I could still get knocked up or not. If I would've known that, I would've come up with some excuse to get a prescription for Botox, or said I had migraine headaches that warranted a medical marijuana card or something legit like that.

After all that, and all that money the insurance company basically stole from me for this insanely high monthly premium, I get this letter in the mail saying they're going out of business. Instead of going with some other lame-ass insurance company, they referred me to for the same insanely high premium.

I let my policy lapse.

"I'd be terrified not to have health insurance," Cathy said. "I mean, what if something happened? What if I got hurt skiing or something?"

"Yeah, that's true. But I don't ski like you do," I said. Or maybe I thought it but didn't say it out loud. "It's not like I'm hitting the park or doing first descents at this stage of the game. I'm just making turns."

So of course this tree decided to come and attack me out of nowhere a few days later just to make a point.

It was that big powder day, the one on Monday that everyone was freaking out about. It was one of those perfect bluebird days that mocks you for staying inside. It's just like when you were a kid and everyone's taunting you to ride your bike over the jump your brother made in the backyard out of dirt even though you know you're gonna eat it if you do. But you have to because everyone else is doing it, and then you get the old, "If your brother told you to jump off a bridge, would you do that too?" lecture from your mom when you go running into the house bleeding.

Ry went up for a few lunch runs, so I figured the fresh air would do me some good. We were coming down Jackpot and I saw this untracked patch of snow, just glistening in the midday sun. You would think I would know by now that when you see untracked powder at one o'clock in the afternoon there is a reason.

Like, when I lived in Jackson Hole, I would always get sucked into these untracked powder fields in Casper Bowl that inevitably lead to exposure I'd have to hike out of. Those were some of my most terrifying days, crawling through thigh deep powder with my board off, trying not to slide off a cliff.

Still not having learned my lesson, I threw a heelside turn into that untracked snow like I was heli boarding in Alaska. Instead of floating through bottomless powder, I hit the reef underneath — frozen death cookies with a deceptively thin layer of dust on top — and went "ass over teakettle" (as Ryan likes to say). I landed on my butt and saw that big trunk coming at me, so I stuck my legs out in front of me to brace myself.

Then, wham! My left foot hit first and my stiff, straight leg and adrenaline did nothing to cushion the impact. I could see it in my mind's eye: My hip joint, that ball-and-socket joint, jamming together and pushing up on my spine.

I sat in the snow breathing hard like I was about to have a baby. Ryan stood over me, trying to do the right thing, remaining calm and trying not to laugh.

"Can you stand up?" he said.

I thought about my conversation with Cathy and the dollar signs and the number of zeros that would appear on my medical bill.

"No, I'm okay," I said, and propped myself up. I felt sick but managed to make my way down the mountain. Once I took my board off, walking proved to be even more difficult. But I didn't break anything. I could walk and talk. I was lucky to be alive. On that very same day, others wouldn't be so lucky.