Groin/mg Pains

Some federations are asking tough questions of the Birthright Israel plan.

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Many local agencies

have active teen missions

to Israel. Is a national

one an improvement?

JULIA GOLDMAN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

New York

7

he Greek goddess Athena
sprang fully formed from
the head of Zeus, but
Birthright Israel, the brain-
child of two Jewish philanthropists
announced with a flourish last
November, is being created on a more
mortal trajectory.
A year ago in Jerusalem, Seagram
Company executive Charles Bronfman
announced the plan he and Wall
Street mogul Michael Steinhardt had
hatched of making a trip to Israel as
commonplace as the bar and bat mitz-
vah in diaspora Jewish life.
The announcement came during
the annual General Assembly of North
America's umbrella fund-raising and
social service organization, a group
now known as the United Jewish
Communities. Bronfman is chairman
of the UJC board.
At this year's GA, as the annual
meeting is known, taking place in
Atlanta, Birthright Israel was expected
to be a topic discussed in conference
rooms and hallways by delegates from
the UJC's more than 189 constituent
Jewish federations and independent
communities.
Although widely hailed as a bold,
new initiative, the exact details of how
the Birthright Israel program will run
and with whose input — is com-
plicating what at first seemed like a
simple scheme. The initiative aims to
cover the cost of 10 days of education-
al programming on a first trip to Israel

Metro Detroit teens on the Jewish Federation-sponsored Teen Mission to Israel in
1998 ride camels in the desert.

for Jews aged 15 to 26. As originally
envisioned, the program would be a
three-way, $300-million partnership of
Jewish philanthropists, the Israeli gov-
ernment and Jewish communities
around the world.
The effort was intended to enhance
Jewish identity at a time when the
community as whole is concerned
about the future connection of Jewish
youth. So far several philanthropists
have put their financial heft behind
the idea, and the Israeli government
under Prime Minister Ehud Barak has
promised $70 million over five years.
That fulfills most of the $100 million
pledge made by the former prime
minister, Binyamin Netanyahu.
To date, however, the UJC and
local federations have yet to sign on to
match the other partners' commit-
ments and to link their existing Israel
trips for teenagers and young adults
with the ambitious Bronfman-
Steinhardt plan.
The first wave of trips, accommo-
dating 6,000 college students, are
scheduled to begin in December, but

plans for future trips for college and
high school students are still under
development.
For the past few months, represen-
tatives of Birthright Israel North
America, the international organiza-
tion's New York-based franchise, have
been crisscrossing the continent to
find out what federations want and
expect. "Long before we get to the
point of solidifying our thinking, we
want to do a reality check with federa-
tions to see how we can make this
work best for them," said Mark
Charendoff, vice president of the
Andrea and Charles Bronfman
Philanthropies.
Charendoff, who represents the
Bronfman foundations' interests in
Birthright Israel, said, "Initially when
we spoke to federations a year ago,
there was some skepticism about
whether they should be involved."
With the first trips selling out with-
in weeks and the Israeli government
making a clear show of its support,
Charendoff said the tone among fed-
erations has changed "to 'how do we

make this work' rather than 'whether
we make this work.'"
Representatives of Birthright Israel
North America said that "discussions
are ongoing" and that they would take
the federations' input into account.
In North America, the challenge
may boil down to making room at the
table for federations to contribute to
the program's evolution.
"You cannot have a national pro-
gram without the federations being
partners in it," said Marvin Lender, a
former Unitedlewish Appeal chair-
man from New Haven, Conn., who is
also vice chair of the board of
Birthright Israel North America.
The reasons for federations' reluc-
tance to embrace the program without
reservation are manifold and vary from
community to community. Most fed-
erations already sponsor and subsidize
trips to Israel and are reluctant to alter
or abandon their time-tested programs.
"We're satisfied with it, we want to
expand it and we want Birthright
Israel to help us implement what we're
already doing," said Robert Aronson,
executive vice president of the Jewish
Federation of Metropolitan Detroit, in
summing up a common federation
position. The bottom line, he said,
was that "there has to be an ongoing
dialogue with federations to figure out
how to do this right."
Birthright Israel's initial announce-
ment last year was sprung without
much preparation, leaving the com-
munity groups smarting and confused.
"There were some communications
issues" and a need for more consulta-
tion up front, "but that's the past,"
said Max Kleinman, executive vice
president of New Jersey's United
Jewish Federation of Metro West. He,
like many of his colleagues, expressed
support for the Birthright Israel initia-
tive as a whole, but voiced a common
concern: that there be appropriate fol-
low-up programming, "so its not a
one-shot deal."
Some federation officials ques-
GROWING PAINS on page 19

11/19
1999

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