A project brings thousands of young Jews to Israel and works magic. And they cut its budget

David Culwin, a student from San Francisco who recently took part in an educational tour of Israel in the framework of Birthright (known in Hebrew as Taglit, or "discovery"), is planning to be involved in Jewish affairs on his campus and maybe even come back for a year of study in Israel; Victoria Levitt, another American student who took part the Birthright tour, is planning to learn Hebrew; Nolan Studley from Los Angeles want to study the history of Israel, especially about the Mossad, because, as he says, "Now I know that if there will be a war in Israel, I would come to help." Only Maricca Engel, 26, a television writer from Los Angeles, openly declares that even after the tour for intensifying connection with Israel and with Judaism, he is not planning aliyah (immigration to Israel) and says, "The fact that I was born Jewish is less important to me than the things I have myself created: the fact that I am a writer and a dancer, for instance."

All four participated in one of the largest delegations to ever come to Israel as part of the Birthright project, some 9,000 visitors out of the total 11,000 expected to visit this winter. Birthright is now considered the flagship project of the Israel-Diaspora relationship, and not only because it has succeeded in bringing to Israel some 60,000 Jewish students in its five years of existence. It also has the distinction of being the only project of educational tours from the Diaspora that has not collapsed since the outbreak of the intifada.

Although the number of participants is still below forecast, and the composition of the groups has altered slightly (a little less from the U.S. and more from the former Soviet Union and Argentina), on the bottom line, says Birthright director-general Shimshon Shoshani (a former director-general of the Ministry of Education, and director-general of the Jewish Agency), "Right now, we are the leading factor in the incoming tourism field in Israel, with nearly 16,000 young people arriving in Israel during 2003."

Despite its success, the project faces severe budgetary distress, after two of the three financial partners bankrolling the project - the Israeli government and the local Jewish communities (the third group is Jewish philanthropists from the U.S.) - have greatly curtailed the scope of their participation in the past two years. This has cast a heavy pall over the future dimensions of the project, if not its very existence.

Jerusalem, Masada, talking with soldiers

Birthright began as an initiative of a few big Jewish philanthropists, led by Charles Bronfman and Michael Steinhardt, who saw it as a powerful tool for reinforcing the Jewish identity of young Jews around the world, as well as a means of combating assimilation. The idea was to give every Jew between the ages of 18 and 26 a free, 10-day, educational tour that would include visits to Jerusalem and Masada, study of the Holocaust and an encounter with soldiers. This age group was specifically targeted because this is the age at which the most important life decisions are made: building a family and choosing a profession. It is a free trip. Participants pay a $250 registration fee that is meant to ensure their participation. The fee is refunded upon their return home.

Little enthusiasm

At the outset, it was not so easy to persuade all of the relevant agencies to join in the project. The Israeli government always felt that the money should flow from the Diaspora to Israel, and not vice-versa. The Jewish Agency, which was also supposed to join in as a partner of the Jewish communities, showed little enthusiasm. Its leadership feared that the program would compete with its own traditional programs that brought Jewish high schoolers to Israel, because if they knew that a few years later they would be able to get a free tour of Israel, they would not want to pay for a trip during their high-school years. But the deep commitment and the heavy pressure of the philanthropists broke the objections, and the program got underway.

The project was planned for an initial five years, after which its continuation would be weighed. According to the initial planning, the budget for the five years was $210 million, which was supposed to be evenly divided among the three partners. In the first year, 2000, the total budget was to be $25 million, and by the fifth year, 2004, it was supposed to increase to $60 million.

Success exceeded expectations. By the end of 2000, three candidates were vying for each available spot, and the organizers were forced to hold lotteries among them. Only the intifada that broke out toward the end of that year slightly reduced demand. The year 2002, after a string of especially bad terrorist attacks, was the only year in which the numbers (11,397 participants) were lower than those of the preceding year (13,365 in 2001).

The educational achievements, as much as can be checked, were equally impressive. A team from Brandeis University in Massachusetts, which was commissioned by Birthright to conduct a long-term study of how the tour affects participants, demonstrated that if prior to the trip only 38 percent of participants expressed a sense of connection to the Jewish people, one year afterward, the rate of those feeling such a connection was 65 percent. This compares favorably with a control sample of young people who did not take part in the tour. The difference is their connection to Israel is also noticeable: before the trip, only 22 percent expressed a sense of connection with Israel, whereas one year later, 48 percent expressed a sense of connection with Israel. Among non-participants, only 28 percent felt a connection to Israel.

The relative decline in the level of terrorism (or perhaps the adjustment to it) led to a resurgence in demand for Birthright, and as planners prepare for this coming summer, they are already thinking in terms of two candidates competing for each available spot. Yet now, the rise in demand stems partly from the new problem that the project has encountered: reduced funding by two of the three partners. The Jewish communities, primarily in the U.S., were the first to announce that they were having a hard time raising their share of the agreed-upon budget. The United Jewish Communities (UJC), the umbrella organization of the Jewish federations in the U.S. and Canada), says Shoshani, promised to raise $56 million over the five years, but in actual fact, raised only $22 million. "The Jewish Agency raised its share from $8 million to $12 million," says Shoshani, "but that doesn't cover the whole difference."

The director-general of the UJC, Steve Hoffman, explains the decline by the fact that the organization depends on contributions transferred by the communities. "Each community has its own level of success in raising contributions, and each community has its own needs and priorities."

Government cut

But the partner making the most problems is the government of Israel. While the philanthropists allocated $13 million to the project in 2003 (which is also lower than originally planned), and the communities and the Agency have chipped in $11.5 million, the government reduced its own participation from $14 million to only $9 million. Toward 2004, the government further reduced its share to a token amount of about $400,000 (NIS 2 million), attributing the sharp decrease to Israel's budgetary problems.

The division of the financing, which was supposed to be equal, has been modified such that the philanthropists gave 42 percent ($57 million), the UJC and Jewish Agency put in 32 percent ($44 million) and the government only 26 percent ($35 million). The overall budget that was planned to be $210 million over five years, shrank to $136 million, and the number of participants declined from the planned 93,000 to 65,000.

What all this means, says Birthright marketing director Gidi Mark, is that if approximately 9,000 students came to Israel on Birthright last summer, and next summer there is financing to bring only 3,000 students, and not because of lack of demand.

Yet the initiators of the project are much more concerned about the future of Birthright than about the short-term problem of next summer's financing. With the completion this year of the five-year pilot program, it is clear that it's a huge success, and all of the relevant parties agree that it should continue. But Shoshani warns that if the government does not restore its share of the financing next year, "It will send the philanthropists the message that the government does not conceive of the project as being essential, at which point they, too, will wash their hands of it and the project will shut down."

Shoshani wishes to remind the Treasury that to date, the tour participants have brought some $90 million to Israel, if not to the government, through tourism, shopping, and purchase of services - a much higher sum than the original amount that the government was asked to pay, not to mention what it actually paid.

The government decided last September that in 2005, it would once again contribute one-third of the cost of the program, but only on condition that the scope of the project be reduced. Hoffman would also be pleased with this direction. Interestingly enough, Salai Meridor, whose organization was at first skeptical about the project, now thinks that not only must it not be cut, but also that Birthright should be expanded. "This should be a strategic project of the Jewish people," he says. In his vision, Israel has to see to it that 50,000 Jewish young people come to Israel each year on educational tours of the country, 20,000 through Birthright and the remainder with other organizations, in order to ensure that "at least 50 percent of Jewish youth in the Diaspora get to take part in an educational trip to Israel between high school and the end of college."

A budget of $45 million is required to bring in 20,000 Birthright visitors a year. Meridor says that most of the amount can be raised from the government, the Jewish Agency, communities and philanthropists. In order to make up for the budgetary shortfall, he suggests tinkering with the principle of offering a free trip, and holding onto the $250 registration fee. Hoffman is also in favor, but according to informed sources, the most vehement opposition to such a change is voiced by Michael Steinhardt, one of the prime movers behind Birthright, and a major donor to the project. This means that, for the moment, reducing the scale of the project seems a more realistic option.

	Tour participants, shown here at a party, have brought some $90 million to Israel.
	Photo by: Eyal Warshavsky / Ba