September 7, 2000 | Read Time: 1 minute
Once a skeptic when it came to Birthright Israel, Gil Troy is now a convert: The McGill University history professor writes in the August issue of Moment that the organization has the potential to revitalize young American Jews’ interest in their religion and heritage.
Birthright Israel provides free and subsidized trips to Israel for Jewish young adults, financed with $80-million contributed by 16 donors. Mr. Troy questioned Birthright Israel in a Moment article last year, suggesting that it had the potential to be an “expensive magic bullet that missed its mark.” Challenged by the program’s organizers to chair its Montreal affiliate and make it a success, Mr. Troy says he agreed to do so, hoping he might prove his prediction wrong.
In his new article, Mr. Troy notes that the program’s very existence spotlights the weakness of many American Jewish organizations. “Let’s face it,” he writes. “On a certain level North American Judaism is failing. Thousands of young Jews are voting with their feet, and rejecting Judaism. Birthright Israel is a white flag, an admission of community failure.”
Mr. Troy reluctantly observes that the top-notch accommodations and “cushy amenities” provided on the trips to Israel were a key ingredient.”It’s sad but true: the luxurious spare-no-expense, no-strings-attached gift was central to the trip’s success,” he writes, because it gave the program “a Charlie-in-the-Chocolate-Factory feel, a pinch-me-I-can’t-believe-this-is-happening-to-us wonder.”
The positive experiences that participants had “on Israeli soil, enhanced by the atmospherics of Israel, help explain why it is necessary to send people 6,000 miles away to improve their Jewish identity at home,” he observes.
