Birthright’s First Book

The new Birthright-Nextbook book: Tourist info and then some.

by Sharon Udasin

This winter, Taglit-Birthright trip participants left Israel with a little something extra.

In a joint venture between Birthright and Nextbook, these Israel first-timers are receiving a new book, “Traveling Companion,” a colorful hardback filled with history lessons, personal essays and travel guides — written and edited by Wayne Hoffman, the managing director of special projects at Tablet Magazine. For Hoffman, who worked closely with Barry Chazan from Birthright and Len Small at Nextbook, the goal was to include a sampling of places typically visited on Birthright trips as well as supplemental sites that might pique interests on future visits, and of essays and short literary pieces from Israeli authors.

“I don’t think any other book offers such a broad introduction to Israeli iterature in such a compact space — all the while tying it directly to things that the readers have seen with their own eyes,” Hoffman said. (Not surprisingly, a number of the authors represented have Nextbook connections.)

The project was funded entirely by Birthright, and over 10,000 copies have been printed thus far, according to Ada Spitzer, Taglit-Birthright Israel’s vice president for marketing.

“The idea is that it will become part of our permanent educational material,” she said. Spitzer would not provide a figure about how much money Birthright has invested in this project.

Hoffman went along on a Birthright trip last winter to get a taste of the participants’ experiences. Rather than providing logistical data like hotel names or restaurants, Hoffman focused on making the book an interactive tool for use during the trip.

“The traveling companion is intended to give people a bit of context to understand what they’re seeing, and to help them remember what they saw,” Hoffman said. “I figure that people are ready to learn a bit about Masada when they’re actually at Masada.”  Continue reading…

Israel, At First Blush

The author in Jerusalem, overlooking the Temple Mount. Talya Lev

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

Waking up as the tour bus crawled to a stop on the shoulder of an otherwise empty Israeli highway, I opened my eyes to see eight strangers piling their luggage into the bottom of our bus and climbing up the steps. Clad in identical olive-shade uniforms differentiated only by their multi-colored berets, they walked down the aisles among the 40 wide-eyed Americans, taking the empty seats we had left for them.

I shifted over to the window seat, quickly adjusted my wrinkled University of Pennsylvania T-shirt and ran a brush through my hair — you know, just in case the male Israel Defense Forces soldiers lived up to their reputations. Felix, a 20-year-old and perfectly sculpted immigrant from Russia, sat down next to me, and within minutes we were somehow discussing Antoine de Saint Exupéry’s “The Little Prince” in broken English. Not that such a thing — a serious conversation about a literary classic — couldn’t happen with a guy from the States. But it was my first real sense that there was something different about Israelis.

It was midway through my Taglit Birthright Israel trip — June 1, 2007, to be exact — and the eight soldiers around our age had joined us as civilians for the remainder of our time in Israel. We were all reaping the benefits of the free 10-day journey available to all diaspora Jews under the age of 26, funded by private donors and the Israeli government.

Only two weeks before, I had walked through the wind tunnel of Franklin Field in Philadelphia arm in arm with the girls who had been my best friends for the past four years, following the plush red running track that would lead us to our college diplomas. Looking around me and waving up to applauding relatives, I remember being struck with fear. Not fear about graduation — I already had plans to attend journalism school — but fear that I might never make it to those plans because I had finally caved to peer pressure and agreed to go to Israel. Sure, I was an Ivy League grad and relatively proficient in Middle Eastern politics, but as my dad kindheartedly reminded me, “Don’t expect to come back from Israel alive.”

Despite having grown up in a largely Jewish community in New Jersey, all I seemed to know about Israel was war, terrorism and suicide bus bombings.

But I made it there in one piece, and on the first night, our bus pulled up next to the Zion Gate just before sundown, where we made kabbalat Shabbat near the 24-karat gold menorah that overlooks the Kotel. Outstretched in front of me was the Western Wall of my ancestors, a refuge of hope and prayer for thousands of Jews everyday, and I was stunned by the fact that I was actually there, in this place that I had been so afraid of for so many years.

Yet it wasn’t until the five male and three female soldiers joined our group that my understanding of Israel began to deepen, eventually turning to a passion for the small, embattled country.  Continue reading…

This morning, I woke up to find myself in the subject of a Google News Alert without having written the corresponding story — that, I must say, is always rather exciting. The lede story in today’s ”Anglo File” section of Haaretz picks up on my original story that spoke about Momo Lifshitz and Oranim’s decision to separate from Birthright. The author, Cnaan Liphshiz, also included a paragraph on the drama surrounded my “dis-invitation” to a Birthright Israel NEXT follow-up trip. While I have personally already clarified any previous misunderstandings with the Birthright staff, I do understand why Haaretz felt that it was important to mention the incident regardless.

Anyway, to read Cnaan’s article, click here.

Meanwhile, also check out some awesome Anglo File articles by my friend Raphael Ahren — one on an aliyah incentive program for physicians, and another on Jewish geneaology.

A Divorce In The Birthright Family

Oranim’s “Momo” Lifshitz: Agenda at odds with Birthright?

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

“Momo” Lifshitz is a legendary figure among Birthright Israel participants, a larger-than-life symbol of the free 10-day trip that more than 200,000 diaspora Jews have used to jumpstart their Jewish identities.

In the decade since the Birthright trips began, nearly 50,000 teens and 20-somethings have wandered through the gates of Ben-Gurion International Airport — and into the open arms of this balding, middle-aged teddy bear of a man. The president and founder of Oranim Educational Initiatives, the largest Birthright trip provider, Shlomo Lifshitz (“Momo,” as he is commonly called) prides himself on greeting each of his Oranim Birthright trip participants with a personal “Shalom and Welcome Home.”

But Lifshitz’s “message” — alumni say he routinely pushes aliyah, pressures participants to date only Jews and stresses that they should “make Jewish babies” — has drawn criticism over the years. And this week, citing new restrictions forced on him by Birthright officials, Lifshitz, 53, a secular, nationalist former Israeli army officer whose office is based in Kfar Saba, cut his ties with the popular trips, formally withdrawing from the winter ‘09-’10 trip season.

In an e-mail sent to thousands of Oranim alumni Monday, Lifshitz cited an ideological reason for his move.Due to new rules and regulations within the project, I have been instructed that there were certain things I was simply not allowed to talk about,” Lifshitz wrote. He noted that Birthright had prohibited him from using the phrase “raise your children Jewish” or encouraging aliyah to Israel. And he said he could no longer promise his free Israel honeymoon gift to brides and grooms who had met during their Oranim Birthright trips.

“I cannot continue to allow my messages to be muted,” Lifshitz continued in the letter. Continue reading…

Brotherly Love, From NYU To Israel

The ‘Aleph’ chapter: The new AEPi-ers at the Interdisciplinary Center of Herzliya.

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

In what has become perhaps the most Americanized region in all of Israel, the sunny seaside city of Herzliya just landed a classic American import that it probably never expected: the Jewish state’s first-ever college fraternity.

The international executive board of Alpha Epsilon Pi initiated 15 young men from the Interdisciplinary Center of Herzliya into the “Aleph” chapter of AEPi, at a ceremony last week at the Sheraton Jerusalem Plaza Hotel. Among the initiates were six Israelis, six North Americans, one Australian, one Colombian and one South African. 

“AEPi was founded as a refuge for Jewish males who couldn’t get into other fraternities,” said one of the 15 founding fathers, 20-year-old American student Ron Bronstein, who hopes that his chapter will become an “international outpost” for the fraternity’s future growth all over the world.

After visiting universities throughout Israel, the board determined that IDC Herzliya was the ideal location, according to Steven Kaplan, expansion director of AEPi. Located just 10 minutes north of Tel Aviv, IDC is Israel’s first private university, and it boasts a popular school for English speakers in addition to its Israeli program. Replete with North Americans who crave a more cohesive campus experience, IDC was the perfect venue for fraternity life, Kaplan decided. Continue reading…

Alpha Epsilon Pi opens Israel’s first-ever college fraternity.

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

In what has become perhaps the most Americanized region in all of Israel, the sunny seaside city of Herzliya just landed a classic American import that it probably never expected: the Jewish state’s first-ever college fraternity.

The international executive board of Alpha Epsilon Pi initiated 15 young men from the Interdisciplinary Center of Herzliya into the “Aleph” chapter of AEPi, at a ceremony last week at the Sheraton Jerusalem Plaza Hotel. Among the initiates were six Israelis, six North Americans, one Australian, one Colombian and one South African.

“AEPi was founded as a refuge for Jewish males who couldn’t get into other fraternities,” said one of the 15 founding fathers, 20-year-old American student Ron Bronstein, who hopes that his chapter will become an “international outpost” for the fraternity’s future growth all over the world.

After visiting universities throughout Israel, the board determined that IDC Herzliya was the ideal location, according to Steven Kaplan, expansion director of AEPi. Located just 10 minutes north of Tel Aviv, IDC is Israel’s first private university, and it boasts a popular school for English speakers in addition to its Israeli program. Replete with North Americans who crave a more cohesive campus experience, IDC was the perfect venue for fraternity life and could benefit from AEPi’s capacity to unify the school’s perpetually separate international and Israeli populations, Kaplan decided.

“IDC has been trying for such a long time to bridge the gap between the international school and the Israeli school,” agreed Chapter President Ofri Ben Porat, a 25-year-old native Israeli. Continue reading…

Here’s what two weeks of reporting in the Holy Land can produce. I had such an amazing experience there, and I certainly produced a lot in

Tel Aviv at 100

a short time. Next step, really learn Hebrew. Please see my five articles below, as well as my friend Yoav Sivan’s editorial about the non-religious nature of the city.

Growing Up With Tel Aviv

  

“Tel Aviv developed a lot; it became the big city of the state,” Natan said, looking back through his seven decades as a Tel Avivian. But there is a sense of longing for his and Mirtza’s young days together. “Life was much better then,” Natan says.

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

The moment he laid eyes on Mirtza Antin 74 years ago, Natan Abramovitch was determined to win a date with her. Little did he know that they’d end up fighting through a War of Independence together, witness the growth of a Jewish state and one day celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary as Tel Aviv — their city — turns 100 years old.

It’s still their city, sure, but the urban center that Tel Aviv has become is hard to recognize for them now, and they prefer to think back to the carefree days when they were newly married, and both they and their country were young.

“He had horses, he had a car,” Mirtza, told The Jewish Week over coffee and cake in the Tel Aviv apartment that she and Natan have owned for the past 68 years. Her youthful eyes glimmering under vibrantly dyed red hair, she poked fun at the handsome young man who she said “followed her around” for four years until they were married. “He was born specially for me,” Mirtza said. Continue reading…

How Green Is My Landfill

  

The Hiriya landfill, above, dominates the landscape from the highway below. Left, part of the state-of-the-recycling effort at the site. Photos by Sharon Udasin

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

Just southeast of Tel Aviv, a huge mountain peak looms over the highway below, harboring swarms of flies and wafting scents of decaying garbage down its sprouting hills. The manmade mound — called Hiriya — may contain a colossal pile of trash, but the landfill is quickly becoming Israel’s icon of environmentalism: a space to recycle waste, produce energy and cultivate greenery.

Hiriya, named for the former Arab village of al-Hiriya, served as Israel’s largest landfill from 1948 through 1999. During that time, flocks of birds posed a danger to aircraft at nearby Ben Gurion Airport, according to Danny Sternberg, former Hiriya engineer and current CEO of Ariel Sharon Park, which is located directly below the landfill. Ten years ago, the government closed the dump and converted it into Israel’s largest waste transfer station, and since 2001 the site has been home to several environmental innovations, including what is being billed as a revolutionary water-based recycling project. By 2011, Steinberg said, developers hope to open Hiriya to the public — not as an odorous garbage dump, but instead as 2,000 acres of sprawling green landscape filled with bike paths and wildlife, two and a half times the size of New York’s Central Park. 

“It’s really the entrance to Israel — everybody who flies in sees this space,” Sternberg said. And revamping Hiriya is just one major example of the Tel Aviv area’s newfound efforts to become a greener, more sustainable place; the city is becoming increasingly filled with yellow recycling bins and new, tree-lined bike lanes.

Hiriya is part of no municipality and remains completely under national jurisdiction. Locally, the site is managed by the Dan Region Association of Towns Sanitation and Solid Waste Disposal board, half of whose members are from Tel Aviv, according to its chairman and deputy mayor of Tel Aviv, Doron Sapir.

Yet the space is crucial to southeast Tel Aviv and the surrounding area as “an environmental social project,” Sapir explained, because it will drastically improve the quality of life in the area, which is known to be among the poorest sections of Tel Aviv. Continue reading…

Pride OF PLACE

  

“The real breakthrough was not the fact that [the LGBT Pride Center, above] was even built, but the fact that it was financed by the government,” says the center’s chairman, Etai Pinkas, inset. Photos by Sharon Udasin

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

In San Francisco, the Castro district teems with gay life — there are drag shows, gay-run boutiques and the signature of the gay rights movements — the rainbow flag — seems to be everywhere.

In the Chelsea neighborhood of New York, gay life has taken root, transforming that West Side area into a mecca for men with well-developed pectorals in tight T-shirts and jeans, and for the wider the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

But try to find a “gay neighborhood” in Tel Aviv, believed to be one of the most gay-friendly cities in the world, and you’ll come up short. Likewise, there are very few exclusively gay social establishments or bars in Tel Aviv — a sign of how well woven into the fabric of the city Tel Aviv’s LGBT community has become. This is due in large part to the city’s overwhelmingly accepting culture, observers say.

“I don’t think people ever felt particularly threatened, so that’s why there was no need to group up” in a gay neighborhood, Etai Pinkas told The Jewish Week. Pinkas, chairman of the new city-funded LGBT Pride Center, is having lunch at the center’s café and reflecting on the city’s gay community, the victories it has won and the unfinished work that stands before it. “Generally, LGBTs in Tel Aviv are very well integrated.” Continue reading…

‘The Great Neck Of Tel Aviv’

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

You can play the national pastime — the American national pastime, that is — on a baseball diamond in Ra’anana, one of the few fields of dreams in all of the country.

In this affluent Tel Aviv suburb, you can get Gatorade there, too, and American candies can be had on the grocery store shelves. And you can join the Penn Club and reminisce about the old college days in Philadelphia.

“I would say Ra’anana is the Great Neck of Tel Aviv,” said American Joel Leyden, president of the Leyden Communications group, founder of Israel News Agency and a Ra’anana resident for the past 10 of his 22 years in Israel. “Ra’anana really stands out as the most cosmopolitan, most modern town in the country.”

And while the influence of American culture can be felt in much of Israel, it’s particularly strong in Ra’anana, the suburb to beat all other Israeli suburbs, to hear the locals tell it. Continue reading…

Bauhaus Is Our House

  

Photo Sharon Udasin

by Sharon Udasin

Cream-colored stone apartment buildings line nearly every street in central Tel Aviv, each varying slightly in shape and size but adhering to a loosely defined style of openness and movement that is particular to Israel’s “White City.” (In 2003, the area was designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.)

Tel Aviv urban development began with the “eclectic style” of the 1920s, largely through the plans of Scottish architect Patrick Geddes said Jeremie Hoffmann, 42, the director of  Tel Aviv’s municipal Conservation Department. In the 1930s, Tel Aviv saw an influx of bourgeoisie, as well as famed architects from the German Bauhaus School eager to construct the stone buildings. Continue reading…

Temple OF THE NOW

by Yoav Sivan

Few cities define themselves by what they are not, but Tel Aviv prides itself on being the city that is “not” Jerusalem. Indeed, the distance between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem is precisely that between a living-in-the-moment present and a layers-of-history past that can sometimes be a burden to creativity.  

In contrast to Jerusalem where you inhale thousands of years of history in a single breath, Tel Aviv lives today intensely. And much of that life gets lived in cafés. First-time visitors are in awe at the number of cafés a city of 400,000 people can sustain. You won’t find a block without a café and free wireless Internet. Tel Aviv’s coffee shops have become Israel’s modern temples for secular thought, where students finish their homework, businessmen conduct their meetings, couples meet for dates, friends hang out and artists hash out new ideas. These are the places to seize the moment. Continue reading…

Exactly a week ago today, I landed back in New York after my two-week reporting odyssey in (predominantly) Tel Aviv.  Now that I’ve had time to get over the initial Israel euphoria phase/acute post-Israel withdrawal syndrome, I figured I’d write a bit about my experience there. During my two weeks there, I was assigned by The Jewish Week to conduct interviews and research for our upcoming Tel Aviv at 100 section (appearing May 22), but while there, I really was able to do much, much more. In those 14 days I think I learned as much as one entire year in college — no offense Penn, you know I love you.

Tel Aviv-Yafo celebrates its centennial

Of the four times I’ve been in Israel, this was the first time that my purpose was work, rather than vacation. But I enjoyed this experience as much or maybe even more than my prior visits — this time, though I might have been staying with Lior’s family, I was navigating the country completely on my own. After two weeks there, I think I have the map of Tel Aviv memorized, as well as the Herzilyya-Tel Aviv Merkaz/HaShalom train schedules and many of the local bus routes. Despite my (embarrassingly) minimal Hebrew abilities, I was able to get around with absolutely no problem, as if I had been to the country 100 times before. I felt completely at home. And another part of home had come with me in a way — my parents decided to take their first vacation to Israel while I was there reporting, and I was able to see them briefly a few times.

While on this trip, I interviewed and met with so many brilliant, interesting people — just to name a few: my new good friend and fellow journalist Yoav Sivan; deputy mayor and head of Hiriya environmental development Doron Sapir; director of the municipal LGBT center Etai Pinkas; head of conservation and architect Jeremie Hofman; one of the  mayor’s gay advisors, Adir Steiner; Technion environmental professor Emily Silverman, the only gay Knesset member, Nitzan Horowitz; Filipino caregiver Jonny; and the Abramovitches, a nearly 100-year-old Tel Aviv couple who have been married for the past 70 years and also appear in Centennial photographs by Dani Eshet.

Among the most interesting places I visited was Hiriya, the garbage dump turned recycling center, which is now being redeveloped into a huge park of greenery and wildlife — out of the way and near no public transportation, but definitely, definitely worth a visit. The innovation going on there is unparalleled, and engineers have devised such advanced recycling techniques that now only 20% of Israel’s waste ends up in landfills. I think that more and more, the world is recognizing just how advanced Israel’s science and environmental innovations have become.

In addition to Hiriya, another thing I was thoroughly impressed by was the municipality’s direct contributions to the city’s huge LGBT community. I feel like in the United States, gay organizations only exist through private funding, and this type of step is very honorable on Tel Aviv’s part — though, of course, they may have other motivations in keeping this population happy, with the sheer number of LGBT Tel Avivians involved in politics alone. Crazy/amazing that such a liberal city could exist just 45 minutes from Jerusalem.

Speaking of Jerusalem, I did spend one day there, where NY media consul David Saranga and press officer Noam Greenberg worked really hard to get me into the official Yom HaZikaron-Yom Ha’Atzmaut ceremony at Har Herzl. That evening provided a great window into the importance of Israel’s military culture and really emphasized the sacrifices that all Israelis make in order to keep the country a Jewish homeland. The ceremonies, which also paid tribute to Tel Aviv’s 100 years, quickly jumped from somber to celebratory, eventually bursting with fireworks. My only problem with that evening — I forgot to bring a sweater because I didn’t realize that Jerusalem evenings are about 20 degrees cooler than those in Tel Aviv. Luckily, the woman sitting next to me covered me in a blanket. Sure, Israelis are known for rudeness and brusque behaviors, but they should also be known for hospitality.

Yom Ha’Atzmaut I spent with my amazing friend Liron Mark and her family in Haifa, where we also visited the Air Force base at Ramat Avid — the one day of the year that the base is open to the public. Missiles and aircraft were on display, and war planes swooped in formation above in a sort of sky show. One thing that really, really surprised me while I was at this base, however, was the fact that nearly half of the many visitors there were Arab. Not Druze, but 100% (Israeli) Arab — and so many of the parents took photos of their kids in front of the missiles, as if this was a theme park. I really regret that I didn’t go speak with some of them, and ask them why they had decided to come for a visit that day — Do these Arab families side with Israel and dislike nearby Hezbollah as much as their Jewish neighbors do? Or are they Palestinian supporters who want to explore their enemy’s military culture? Or are they neutral civilians, who simply wanted to take the kids somewhere new and exciting to play that day? I guess I will never know that answer to these questions.

I learned so much in Israel, yet so much remains unanswered. Could I ever live there? Do I want to live there? Could I learn to speak fluent Hebrew? For the moment, I am happy in New York and have a great job, but I constantly think of the possibility of one day spending more than just a couple weeks in my favorite place — in Israel. Well, who knows what will happen. And with that uncertainty, I need to be satisfied because really, I guess anything is possible.

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

After about two hours of driving northward, we finally emerged from Highway 90 at the shores of a fog-blanketed Kinneret, the Sea of Galilee, where a few rays of sunlight poked through the clouds and reflected off the waters on a chilly January morning.  

Positively unique adventures in the Golan Heights

Only two hours before, my boyfriend Lior had started up his mother’s Volvo as two of his closest friends piled into the backseat for the ride from Ra’anana to the mountainous region of Ramat HaGolan. Roni and I would be the only women with the four men — Lior and his army friends Raz and Zvika, with another army buddy, Eyal, driving separately. They were a band of brothers on a tour of their old army bases and we were along for the ride. The journey seemed possible only in Israel, where the personal and the political are so seamlessly braided.

I closed my eyes for the next 20 minutes as we lumbered along the small northern roads and tagged behind Eyal, who led the group through the Golan Heights in his European-sized Federal Express truck. Suddenly, Lior jolted me awake — we had arrived at a military base, where their friend Yuval was serving a few weeks of army reserve time. Though Yuval had served with them in the Israel Defense Forces from 2002 to 2005, the Gaza conflict had prompted a precautionary draft up north as well. Continue reading…