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District students traveling free to Israel as part of Birthright program
Wednesday, December 22, 1999 By Steve Levin, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
A nonprofit organization is offering 6,000 young adults from around the world free round-trip plane tickets to Israel and covering all their food, lodging and transportation bills for 10 days -- and it's not asking for a thing in return.
Yet Birthright Israel believes it will get more than its money's worth on the estimated $14 million to $16 million cost of the trips.
"Something magical happens" when young Jewish people travel to Israel, said Ivy Abrams, vice president of marketing for Birthright Israel North America, which is in charge of sending 5,000 travelers between the ages of 18 and 26 from the United States and Canada on the trip. The number includes 20 students from Carnegie Mellon University and 11 others from the area who were summer counselors at the Emma Kaufmann Camp. Another 1,000 students from around the world also will participate.
"Studies have shown that an Israel experience in a peer-group educational environment opens the doors for the students when they come home to become more involved in their community and more involved in their Jewish culture," Abrams said. "And we have seen a strengthening of their Jewish identity."
David Rice of Fox Chapel is one of the CMU students going on the Jan. 3-14 trip. He went to Israel on a family trip nearly 10 years ago, and while he vividly recalls some moments, he said he was too young to appreciate the broader aspects of being a Jew in Israel.
"Here, you're used to being a minority," said the double major in economics and history and policy. "You're used to being in a Christian society. It's a new experience to be in a place where you're the majority. It's just a good opportunity to get in touch with your roots."
This is the first year of the Birthright Israel program, which is funded with $210 million from philanthropists, Jewish community organizations and the Israeli government. It is co-chaired by philanthropist Michael H. Steinhardt and Charles R. Bronfman, co-chairman of Seagram Co. Ltd.
More than 80 North American colleges and universities are sending students on the inaugural trip, including Penn State, Boston University, the University of Delaware, the University of Florida, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California at San Diego.
Fourteen trip providers, including the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill and Hillel: the Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, selected and organized students for the trip. A total of 210 youths from Pennsylvania will go to Israel. In Pittsburgh, the Hillel Jewish University Center in Oakland is the coordinating group. Hillel's Alison Ross said that because the University of Pittsburgh's semester begins Jan. 5 and Carnegie Mellon students are off until Jan. 17 when the trip already has concluded, it was decided that all 20 trips slots would go to Carnegie Mellon. Next year, Ross said, Pitt students will get the trip slots.
Ross said about 50 Carnegie Mellon students applied for the trip. Twenty were chosen by lottery. Sarah Gross of Squirrel Hill, president of the college's student body, was not one of them. But after another student dropped out, she got her chance.
"I've always wanted to go to Israel," said the senior science and social history major who also is completing the first year of a master's degree in public policy and management. "It's especially exciting because we're going with a bunch of students from all over the country and world."
During the trip, students will do volunteer work with senior citizens, participate in a blood donation drive, visit an Israeli Arab village, meet with Israeli students and hold discussions on political and social issues.
Ultimately, the program hopes to provide similar trips to Israel for every Jewish young person in the world between the ages of 15 and 26. In addition, a long-range goal is to donate $180 to the Birthright Israel fund for every Jewish baby born outside Israel.
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