(blog post also written for Jewlicious.com).

Boarding the E-train en route to my most recent international reporting endeavor, I wasn’t sure what exactly to expect. I was about to tag along with 40-some-odd American peers who were visiting Israel for the first time, not through the auspices of Taglit-Birthright Israel, but under the newly independent wing of Oranim Educational Initiatives. I was placed with the 25- to 30-year-old age group, the eldest of three different groups that Oranim founder, Shlomo “Momo” Lifshitz, was taking to Israel at his own expense.

Initially the largest Birthright trip provider, Oranim split with the huge umbrella organization this past June, following continued disagreements over registration numbers and Lifshitz’s commitment to vocalizing the message, “raise your children Jewish.” Eager to continue supporting the

message he deemed crucial to Israel’s future, Lifshitz decided to launch his own trips, with a particular focus on an older age group of young adults, many of whom no longer even qualified for the Birthright age maximum (no older than 26).

Waiting on line for security that Dec. 27 afternoon, I winced, as my ears picked up on some joking among participants as to whether or not they should be purchasing bottles of Duty Free alcohol before boarding the plane. Oh no, I thought — this is going to be the same alcohol-obsessed, sex-crazed frenzy that swept through the 18-year-old scene on my own trip 2.5 years before (I was 22 at the time). I loved my own Oranim Birthright trip back in June 2007 — in fact, it triggered an obsession with Israel that brought me back there five times since and will likely lead me to spend extended time there at some point soon. But as a reporter, I cringed at the thought of spending 10 days among cliquey girls and guys who were more interested in clubbing than seeing Israel.

Boy, was I wrong.

Sure, group members enjoyed lounging under the Tel Aviv night sky with a beer or two in hand and a hookah nearby, or dancing the occasional evening at a kibbutz pub or Eilat club. And don’t worry, there were enough matches made among these same participants that would render Momo proud. But their ultimate goal — to learn about Israel and take advantage of their free 10-day journey to the utmost. Why risk a hangover when there’s a rocky mountain climb the next morning?

“This whole experience — I love it,” Shira Prigat, one of eight Israeli university students who accompanied the American travelers, told me for my Jewish Week article about the trip. “Everyone has been really excited about hiking. I’ve heard more enthusiastic comments about hiking than about clubbing, which really made me happy.”

What I saw those 10 days was a mature group of mid to late 20-somethings, who were riveted by their tour guide Yariv Ofer, 38, a criminologist and IDF commander turned Oranim staffer, whose knowledge about Israel seemed endless and whose physical prowess could’ve propelled him up the Aggro Crag with a blink of an eye. At every stop — be it a muddy corner of the Mount Carmel forest or the wind-chilled outskirts of a Yom Kippur War bunker — the participants listened to Ofer intently, absorbing his discussions on Israeli history, culture and modern society, and asking questions that sparked countless debates to follow.

“I feel like this room is a melting pot of a wealth of intelligence and knowledge,” said Brandon Cohen, 26, on the last night of the trip. “It left me hungry for more.”

I’m in favor of sending Jews of all ages to Israel, which would be optimal if today’s Jewish community had unlimited financial resources. But after witnessing both my typically younger Birthright trip’s age group as well as the 25-30 group from Oranim, the difference in maturity between the two was astounding to me. Rather than coming to Israel on winter breaks from school, many participants had to take precious vacation days — some even unpaid vacation days — to come on this trip. Their time was precious, and they wanted to get the most out of their 10 days in Israel, willingly waking up as early as possible to maximize their cultural intake.

“I think I took in 50 percent more information than I would have if I had come when I was younger,” said participant Evan Ryan during the group’s closing session. “It’s not a question of if I want to come back to Israel – it’s a question of when I want to come back to Israel.”

His peer, 26-year-old Brad Goldstein, agreed, adding more recently, “Being older, and more mature, and having a better sense of world news, you can appreciate the everday struggle of being in Israel and seeing Israelis.” On the last day of the trip, Goldstein — who himself had come to Israel expecting little — organized a fundraising effort among his fellow trip members, collecting a grand total of 2,000 shekels ($500) from them for Oranim’s future free trip, an idea he said came to him in a hotel shower.

“The amazing leadership of Yariv made me want to share this experience with more people and do anything I could to help that happen,” Goldstein said, noting that he and his fellow group members wanted to do everything they could to make sure that these trips continue.

While $500 will hardly send an entire bus of future participants to Israel (a bus, Lifshitz says, requires $80,000, in comparison to Birthright’s price of $130,000), the money raised by these trip members is certainly a start, and a group of them are already planning fundraising events in the future, entirely independent of the Oranim staff. Oranim already has a host of successful long-term programs in Israel, but if the company wants its 10-day trips to survive independently of Birthright, it is certainly a wise business strategy for Lifshitz to focus his efforts on this older age group. In terms of attracting investors and philanthropists, they will not be competing with Birthright because they are offering an entirely different product — a different, but equally valuable product. If the funds are available, the two can exist simultaneously.

“For the first time in my life, I’m really proud to be a Jew,” said participant Adam Nolan, on the last full night of the trip, as the circle of participants shared their opinions in a small conference room at their Neve Ilan Hotel.

A few seats away, his cousin — David Pinsky — began tearing.

“I just broke out in tears when my cousin said that for the first time he’s proud to be a Jew,” Pinsky said about 15 minutes later, still sniffing. “I feel like with the relationship I’ve built here, I don’t want to leave you guys.”

“I’m going to go home tomorrow night with the feeling that I didn’t go to work,” Ofer said. “I went on a trip with a bunch of my friends.”

In today’s JTA daily digest e-mail, my story on the new Oranim trips was featured as the top story in “Editors’ Picks.” It also appeared in the same position on their Web site’s homepage. See image below, courtesy of Todd Edelman. I will blog about the rest of my experiences from that trip shortly.

Funding In-Marriage Out Of His Own Pocket

“You have to try to find Jewish love,” Momo Lifshitz, inset, told his Oranim trip participants, pictured here near the Syrian border. LEFT CREDIT: Sharon Udasin

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

Tel Aviv — Tucked into the rocky thickets of Mount Carmel in northern Israel, 43 American 20-somethings gathered in a hotel conference room to play a simple game — using their bodies as place markers, they lined up across the room according to how important they found dating Jews, and Jews alone.

At first, only four people stood on the “date Jews” side of the room. But when the question changed to marriage, four soon grew to 15. And when marriage changed to raising children Jewish, a good 15 more shuffled over.

“If I were going to raise my kids with a religion, I would want it to be Judaism,” said Matt Lakind, 29, from Hoboken, N.J., who had joined the trip with his girlfriend, Erica Roth. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t want them to have any religion, that’s all.”

A week later, after touring Israel from top to bottom, east to west and back again, his opinion changed. “Now coming here I can see there’s actually a whole ethnic culture to Judaism that has been harder to find in the past,” he said. “Now I understand why when people ask where I’m from, I will tell them: ‘I’m Jewish.’”

Lakind and Roth were participating in an inaugural free 10-day trip to Israel, sponsored by Oranim Educational Initiatives, and funded personally by the owner of the organization, Shlomo “Momo” Lifshitz. Though their trip followed an itinerary quite similar to that of the better-known Taglit-Birthright Israel, this 10-day journey was under the auspices of Oranim alone.  Continue reading…

Momo Returns

by Sharon Udasin

After splitting from Birthright Israel two months ago, he’s back.

Shlomo Lifshitz — more commonly known as “Momo” — is president and founder of Oranim Educational Initiatives, formerly the largest Birthright Israel trip provider. Personally greeting each one of his nearly 50,000 travelers at Ben Gurion Airport, Lifshitz was a visible presence on each trip, where he eagerly promoted personal messages like “make Jewish babies” — messages that clashed with the more low-key approach of the program that is committed to offering free 10-day trips for young diaspora Jews.

Now, as the winter trip season approaches, Momo is launching his own remake of the famously free trips, going after the same population that Birthright targets — and even courting some of the same funders. This is the first time in Birthright’s 10-year history that a provider has broken away and launched its own free trip.

He’ll formally introduce Oranim’s revamped agenda during a live Webcast on Sunday.
Though Oranim’s free trips will largely resemble those provided by Birthright, Lifshitz has decided to make a few key changes. He’s opening up registration to Jews up to the age of 30 (Birthright’s age limit is 26), with priority given to those over 23 and a focus on networking young professionals within similar careers.  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.

Momo and Birthright Israel: Splitsville?

Well, thanks to an article in the New York Jewish Week, the cat’s finally out of the bag so I can freely write about what many of us have known for weeks: the relationship between Taglit Birthright Israeland Oranim’s “Momo” Lifshitz is in jeopardy. Last week, Oranim officially informed Birthright Israel that it was not planning on participating in this winter’s session, calling into question the future of their relationship. 

Why is this relevant? Because Oranim is the largest trip provider that recruits participants and runs trips for Birthright Israel. In the 10 years that Birthright has been in operation, Oranim has brought in nearly 50,000 of the 200,000 young Jews who have come to Israel – and Momo, in his trademark style, has greeted nearly every single one of them. So what transpired that would cause such a rift?

Continue reading Jewlicious’s post...

Or read Sharon’s original article...

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…