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Taglit CEO: Assimilation bigger threat to Jewish people than anti-Semitism
By Haaretz Staff
Tags: Birthright, Taglit 

The major threat facing the Jewish people is not anti-Semitism but assimilation, says CEO of Taglit-Birthright Israel, Gidi Mark. And while Taglit sponsors free trips to Israel for thousands of young Jews every year, Mark says, thousands more are slipping through the cracks.

"We have been witnessing over the last 20 years a huge decline in the demographic of young Jews around the world and in North America in particular," Mark told Haaretz this week. "To date, Taglit-Birthright Israel has been almost the only - or at least the main - bridge connecting young Jews to Israel, and for many of them, also to their own Jewish identity."

Every year, thousands of Jewish youths aged 18-26 who have never been on an organized trip to Israel take part in Taglit's programs - for many, it is their first exposure to Israel and Judaism. According to Mark, the trip allows Jewish youth to see Israel in its reality, rather than through the filtered lens of the media.
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"Most of the information that our participants get in their image of Israel is through television news or Internet news and the only way to show them the real picture is to take them through the screen, take them to Israel, and show them the reality," he said. "You can't get a clear picture than this one."

"The 10-day trip is a springboard for tens of thousands of [Jewish youths] who felt alienated before and who felt distanced from the State of Israel to look for more meaning and connection to their Jewish identity and to the State of Israel," he said, adding: "The educational trip to Israel is perhaps the strongest single most effective in terms of changing attitude over a short time."

Participants on the trips are brought from 52 countries around the world. In addition, thousands of Israelis - most of them soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces - join the program each year. This enables the Diaspora participants to encounter the country through the eyes of their Israeli counterparts, said Mark.

"One of the many innovations of Taglit-Birthright Israel is the standardized encounter with Israeli peers, which is called mifgash in Hebrew," said Mark. "Participants have the opportunity to get their impression of Israel through an uncensored 24 hours a day meeting with Israeli peers."

According to Mark, the Israeli participants are just as excited to take part in the program. It provides them "with a rare opportunity to feel they are a part of the Jewish people with a sense of responsibility and connectedness," he said. "There is a wait list in the IDF."

While participants on the 10-day trip may "not know the whole complexity of Israel as someone here for two years," Mark said, it gives them more than the "20 second" news clips they would otherwise be receiving. He believes the trip itself has provided many with the impetus to immigrate to Israel. "Today there are over 10,000 alumni who live in Israel in addition to the 30,000 Israelis."

While there are tens of thousands of Birthright Israel alumni from around the world, Mark said that thousands more miss out on the opportunity because the resources of the program are limited.

"We discovered that most of the registrants from North America who cannot go because of our limited resources don't bother to reapply and they are lost, in many aspects, to the organized Jewish community," he said. "These people are unlikely to try to connect again."

"The ones who apply and we don't take, we don't have the resources to engage them again, because we are under constant surplus of demand by young Jews," he went on. "Taglit has created a revolution because until not more than 10 years ago there were millions of dollars in subsisdies for trips to Israel waiting for young Jews to apply and go to Israel without much demand. And now with huge demand we don't have enough funds to cater to this need.

"We need to remember that tens of thousands of applicants who do not go on Birthright Israel will never apply again, not only to go to Israel but to any Jewish activity. Now, more than ever, this bridge that we have built towards a better Jewish future must be strengthened," he said.

Mark said that Taglit hopes to continue its programming for as long as possible. "We believe this is exactly what the Jewish people need to avoid assimilation. We are not yet there in the magnitude and scope that we need to in order to stop the demographic danger, but we know this is one of the best solutions."

"Ninety-five percent of our participants register on Birthright based on recommendation of friends, and that says everything. We have 200,000 alumni and 400,000 parents and 800,000 grandparents," he said. "I think we touch almost every Jewish family around the world in one way or another and whenever you mentioned Birthright Israel you get a lot of support - I hope this turns into financial support, to increase the scope of our program into a much bigger picture."

Taglit benefits not just the young participants, but Jewish communities on the whole and the Israeli economy as well, said Mark.

"It is now accepted around all sectors that believe Birthright Israel is the most successful project in the Jewish people because it has both an impact on the participants, on the communities and on the Israeli economy," he said.

"Taglit has introduced to the Israeli economy over $350 million, with hundreds of thousands of employees, hundreds of thousands of hotel beds, and the use of buses and tour guides," Mark added. "We have become a major sector in the tourism industry in Israel, which is considered the best potential locomotive to create growth, especially these days, supporting Birthright is a combination of supporting both local communities and the State of Israel.
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