The two women met in Palestine in 2003. They both led various international delegations in the West Bank. As a result of those experiences, they identified a need to set up opportunities for Jews who cannot otherwise visit the area or are simply too afraid to. The conflict in Israel and Palestine has many distortions, one of which is the perception that Jews are not welcome in the territories. "We planned the itinerary with Palestinians and asked them, 'Look, do you want American Jews to come here?' They said, 'Yes, these are exactly the people we want to come to our communities.'"
Starting with an orientation meeting in Jerusalem, Unplugged goes to Bethlehem and nearby Deheishe refugee camp, Hebron, Ramallah, the northern region of Salfit, and finally a destroyed Palestinian village on the Israel side of the Green Line. (The trips cost $350 excluding travel to Israel.) "Mostly, it just takes you to places and you see things with your own eyes, things that are self-evident and require no explanation whatsoever," says one former Unplugged participant. It's enough, he adds, just to see the effect of the separation wall and countless checkpoints on daily Palestinian life. Many Unplugged participants take the trip directly after a Taglit tour of Israel and recommend doing so. Of course, at this point, with less than 100 participants, the Unplugged Tour's impact on young Jews is only a footstep compared to the stampede of the established Taglit tour.
To Taglit leaders, the birthright trips have had some unwanted consequences. Some participants have used the trips to either "birthleft" or "desert," as they put it. Trippers ranging from a handful to hundreds, depending on whom you ask, have crossed the Green Line into the Occupied Territories after the Israel trip, to work with the International Solidarity Movement. This organization defines itself as "a Palestinian organization committed to resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land using non-violent, direct-action methods and principles." ISM delivers food and medicine to houses under curfew, supporting demonstrations -- currently against the separation wall -- and documenting violations of human rights. In March 2003, an American activist with ISM was killed by an Israeli bulldozer while trying to protect a home from demolition in the Gaza strip. The Israeli government accuses it of supporting terrorism and often refuses entry to its volunteers.
Jacob Rosenblum, a 22-year-old from Portland, Ore., traveled with Taglit in 2004. "I wasn't there for the birthright trip," he says. "It was just my vehicle to get to Israel and Palestine. After the trip, he participated in ISM training and volunteered in Nablus, Tulkarem and Qalqilya. Similarly, says Aaron, the Canadian radio worker, "My plan all along was to spend two months in the West Bank with the ISM." While in the West Bank, he tried "to do as much independent radio journalism as possible," while also involved with "general ISM things like accompanying farmers who face settler harassment and delivering bread and medicine to people under curfew." Lora Gordon, 24, from Chicago, didn't plan on taking such a course of action after her Taglit trip in 2002. But she ended up spending 10 months working with ISM in the then heavily invaded Gaza strip, engaging in media work, staying with families whose homes were threatened with demolition, and teaching English to high school students.
Taglit is not too thrilled with these developments, mainly because it funds the ISM volunteers' travel to Israel. "It is taking advantage of the Jewish money that sends people to Israel, exploiting this money to promote an agenda which is not the agenda of the people who funded Taglit," says Mark. Potential candidates who are discovered to have a "hidden agenda" are not allowed onto the trips.
But "birthlefters" have no qualms over misused money. They say the idea of a blanket Jewish birthright to Israel is fundamentally flawed, given that countless Diaspora Palestinians are accorded no such right. "Billions of dollars are used to give free trips to American kids and if the Israel government funds it then that comes through the U.S., people's tax dollars," says Gordon. She sees anti-occupation work as a good use of that money. Others point out that in the P.R. battle between pro-Israelis and pro-Palestinians, the former has huge resources while the latter "has to do bake sales to fund our next event." Moreover, says Gordon, "If Birthright is going to weed people out according to politics, then it's not really about Judaism anymore."
And yet this emerging dynamic, between Birthright and those who seek to counter it or provide alternatives, is precisely about Judaism. It comes up time and again when speaking to birthlefters who say that, prior to visiting the region, they felt unable to find a voice in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Raised on Jewish Sunday school and years of Jewish summer camp, Jessy Tolkan says, "I purposefully stayed away from the Israel-Palestine argument, unable to reconcile myself with being a pro-Israeli Jew and also a left-wing person." After seeing the situation on the ground in Palestine, she says she felt "sad and angry that I had been lied to by the Jewish community that I was and continue to be proud of." Until that point, she says, she had been "using a different framework to view the Israel-Palestine conflict that I use to view everything else in the world."
Many of those who traveled in both regions say they left with a deeper connection to Judaism, challenging one very sacred cow: that a loyal relationship to Israel is fundamentally a part of Jewish identity. Gordon speaks of discovering the "joyful way of being Jewish, that Shabbat can mean dancing on the roof and singing songs and having a wonderful communal meal and then having a day working on your inner self." Jacob Rosenblum says he returned from Israel and the territories more committed to Judaism and engaged with more moderate Jewish political groups. "I got really into claiming Judaism as my own and finding the religious parts and practice that really speak to me as a political activist," he says.
About the writer
Rachel Shabi is a UK journalist currently in Tel Aviv working on a book.
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