NOTEBOOK

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TEEN TRAVEL

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GLOSSMOM GLOSSMAN
OLDSMOBILE
50 1 0B

5/1
1998

44

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from page 35

ter place is there to share God's word
than the Jewish homeland, home to
4.7 million Jews?
Ilyse Kaplan, 14, of Congregation
Shaarey Zedek, first visited Israel
two years ago after her bat mitzvah.
Meeting Israeli teens during the mif-
gash buoyed her interest in Teen
Mission 2. "I'm excited about seeing
Israel from the point of view of
teenagers rather than from a family
point of view," she . said.
Scott Sadoff, 16, of Congregation
Beth Abraham Hillel Moses, is head-
ed to Israel for the first time. "Your
religion is a part of you that's never
filled," he said, "until you go back
and visit your homeland."
Rabbi Avraham Jacobovitz of Oak
Park's Machon I2Torah, The Jewish
Learning Network of Michigan, has
chaperoned 500 young people to
Israel over the past 15 years. This
summer, he's taking a group of 10.
He's Orthodox, but his trips have
included kids from diverse Jewish
backgrounds.
"The difference between those
who go and don't go is incredible,"
the Tel Aviv native said. "Every sin-
gle student who goes comes back
feeling more connected to Israel, to
Judaism and to each other. They feel
proud to be Jewish; they tell their
friends to go and they begin to have
a more traditional Jewish lifestyle.
"I have no expectation," he
added, "other than for each to be
more Jewish than before—and be
more involved Jewishly."
The B'nai B'rith Youth Organiza-
tion and other Jewish organizations
also sponsor teen trips to Israel.
Gerald Cook, of Adat Shalom
Synagogue, is trustee of the Ben Tei-
tel Charitable Trust. A spinoff of the
Trust is the Agency for Jewish Edu-
cation-administered Ben Teitel
Incentive Savings Plan, which
encourages youth travel to Israel.
Cook's uncle was the late Ben Teitel.
Said Cook: "The teens themselves
tell me what an impact a trip to
Israel has on them, how it turns
them on to Judaism."
So, how do we as a community of
96,000 Jews sustain the heightened
Jewishness our teens bring back from
Israel? And how do we parlay that
spiritual vigor into greater involve-
ment in Jewish communal affairs?
The ever-thoughtful Irwin Shaw,
Jewish Community Center of Metro-
politan Detroit's executive vice presi-
dent emeritus, wrote in a letter to
the editor: "We are desperately in