Opinion
A
MIX OF IDEAS
Dry Bones
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Editorial
Sustaining Our Birthright
I
is one of the great success stories
in the imposing pursuit of building
Jewish identity among 18- to 26-
year-olds, a still-impressionable age group
that represents the core of young Jewish
leadership worldwide.
More than 200,000 young adults from
50 countries have experienced a free 10-
day trip to Israel over the past 10 years as
part of Taglit-Birthright Israel, a brilliant
philanthropic initiative that continues
to have a long waiting list because the
demand far outstrips the funding. More
than $400,000 has been invested this year
in trips with demand now beyond the
30,000 participant limit.
What has become the No. 1 question is
how well the American Jewish community
is engaging Birthright participants when
they return.
New York-based Birthright Israel NEXT
was designed to elevate the importance of
alumni follow-up. NEXT is committed to
helping American Jewry nurture, educate
and sustain future generations of young
Jews.
New chairman Al Levitt says in a
nationally distributed commentary,
"Young Jewish adults are engaging in
Jewish life in record numbers due in large
effort to Birthright Israel NEXT.
"Tens of thousands, many of whom grew
up without a strong Jewish identity and
lacking any substantive Jewish educational
background, are turning to Birthright Israel
NEXT for ways to deepen the connections
to Jewish life that they have been inspired
to seek because of their trip to the Jewish
homeland."
His evidence? NEXT's next Shabbat
program already has encouraged 4,000
young adults to host dinners and open
their homes to serve 60,000 Shabbat meals
to their peers; 700 alumni were hosts dur-
ing the last Shabbat dinner program in
December. Levitt has feedback to show
that thousands more have joined in local
cultural and educational events.
Aggressive alumni tracking certainly
gives NEXT better statistics to gauge its
appeal. Buoyed by the results, NEXT aims
to engage more than 100,000 alumni
through an array of post-trip experiences
selected to lift Jewish literacy and build
connections to the wider Jewish commu-
nity. It gives Birthright credit for inspiring
tens of thousands of alumni to become
immersed in programs hosted by campus
Hillels and other campus-based Jewish
and Zionist groups. Hundreds more are
signing up for Jewish and Israel studies
courses to sustain their Jewish journey
that started on Birthright.
That is well and good, but the scope
NATO FORCES ARE
STRIKING TALISAN
STRONGHOLDS IN
AFGHANISTAN.
and reach of NEXT only
scratches the surface of
an alumni base of 215,000
— and counting. Levitt,
president of the Jim Joseph
Foundation, is right: NEXT
can't intensify Birthright
follow-up alone. It needs
to partner with existing
and new organizations
that share an interest in
inspiring young adults and
increasing their communal
involvement.
NEXT is focusing on
four identity-building
areas: learning Hebrew,
celebrating Shabbat,
meaningfully connecting
to Israel and to the Jewish
people. "We are fully com-
mitted to making Birthright follow-up
every bit as rich, textured, meaningful,
absorbing — and life-changing — as the
trip itself;' says Levitt, who seems well-
equipped to take to the next level what
American mega-philanthropists Michael
Steinhardt and Charles Bronfman, the
Israeli government, the Jewish Agency for
Israel and other investors started with
Birthright.
To that end, Birthright Israel NEXT
HOPES AND
PRAYERS
THE CAREFULLY
PLANNED ATTACK
WAS LAUNCHED
WITH
>n,
PRESIDENT OBAMA'S
HOPES AND PRAYERS
THAT WHEN IT'S
OVER
www.drybonesblog.com
must seek out partners with backbone,
like StandWithUs. Such partnerships
would push NEXT to become more instru-
mental in giving alumni the knowledge,
confidence and heart to advocate for Israel
in the wake of harder-edged, anti-Israel
bias and hostilities on college campuses
across the country. EI
To learn more about partnership opportunities:
next.birthright.com .
Reality Check
The Roots Of The Game
H
anging on the wall above my
computer is a lithograph of the
world champion 1876 Boston
Red Stockings. They were the first pen-
nant winners in what would grow into the
National League, baseball's first profes-
sional organization.
Some of the names might sound famil-
iar if you've ever visited Cooperstown.
Albert Goodwill Spalding was the star
pitcher, a six-footer at a time when few
grew to that height. He left the game a few
years later, built a sporting goods compa-
ny that landed lucrative contracts with the
big leagues and was the wealthiest man
the new sport created.
Seated in the center is the manager,
Harry Wright, regarded as the finest,
shrewdest mind in the game. At his feet
is his younger brother, George, the game's
first five-tool superstar — run, hit, hit
with power, throw, field. They had come
from Cincinnati to join the new league
seven years after the Red Legs brought
26
March 4 • 2010
baseball to national attention
by going on a 69-game win
streak.
Here they are, 144 years
later. The bones of Custer's
command had been enriching
the Montana soil for just four
months. It was America's 100th
birthday and the sensation at
the Philadelphia Centennial
Exposition was the telephone.
The emperor of Brazil, Dom
Pedro, listened to a message
from a nearby town and shook
his head in sheer amazement.
The Republicans and
Rutherford B. Hayes would steal this fall's
presidential election and leave the South
to its Jim Crow fate for the next 70 years.
Hundreds of possible Jackie Robinsons
and Willie Mays could never appear in a
championship lithograph as a result of
that. (Not until 1948 did Larry Doby and
Satchel Paige make it in.)
As a history and baseball
buff, I can look at that old pic-
ture for an hour and discover
something new in it. So long
ago, yet so familiar. If I sat in
the stands to watch these guys
play, I would immediately rec-
ognize their game. Its texture
is intertwined with that of the
growing nation's.
This may be hard to believe
for those who think baseball
history began with ESPN, but
the first 40 years of the game
were dominated by Boston. The
New York teams didn't win a
pennant until 1903. The Red Sox mauled
the Yankees on a regular basis.
Those must have been happy days.
Detroit lost its National League team
(which was called the Wolverines) in
1889. When they joined a minor league
a few years later, a local newsman, not-
ing the stripes on their uniform sleeves,
named them the Tigers. And so they have
remained for 116 seasons.
I bring all of this up because its all
about to begin again; from the frigid April
start to the desperate hopes of September.
The player we never heard of now who will
end up carrying the weight on his shoul-
ders, perhaps, like another Rick Porcello.
The game is timeless. I look up to my
wall and there are those scrappy old
Bostons, ready to outthink you or open a
gash in your leg or stick a fastball in your
ear.
Could they ever have imagined what
they had begun? Forty-nine years after
this picture was taken, George Wright
was invited back to Cincinnati for the
first World Series ever played there. The
old man must have looked around in
wonder. The game had become a national
treasure. FT
George Cantor's e-mail address is
gcantor614c aol.com .