Section archive - Israel Education

What does it mean to educate towards Jewish peoplehood? How can Jewish educational tourism achieve this goal? This paper traces the historical development of Jewish educational tourism and explores the paradigm of Jewish peoplehood that emerges from it. This is accomplished through a close analysis of the different stages of programmatic activity at the Department of Jewish Peoplehood – Oren throughout its 25 years. The paper describes three stages of educational programming at the Department of Jewish Peoplehood – Oren: (1) the Israel experience, which focuses on bringing Diaspora Jews to Israel and having Israel impact them; (2) the mifgash (facilitated encounter), where Israeli and Diaspora Jews come together to learn from one another; and (3) building an ongoing relationship between Jewish communities in the Diaspora and in Israel.

By looking at the different youth trips as part of the educational system and organizational order of Jewish life, this article sheds light on the significance that factors such as institutional density, social capital and communal legacy have on the nature and scope of these trips, their character, time extent and goals. It incorporates a regional perspective in order to examine the varying array of youth trips amidst an increasingly interconnected Jewish world. For this purpose, several characteristics of Jewish life in Latin America are underscored in a comparative perspective; highlighting the role Zionism and Israel have played as identity referents and community builders, in order to approach the differentiated nature of the trips. The related cognitive and existential dimension s associated with the trips’ experiences are central factors in the socializing process of youth. Israel becomes the territorial and symbolic space in which strong and durable collective bonds are expected to develop, though the goals and natures of the various trips themselves may vary.

An event last week marked the end of the sixth year of the Birthright Israel Excel Fellowship Program. “The Jewish world’s business leadership community built in recent years by Birthright Israel is a project of significant importance, bearing many fruits to be harvested in years to come. Through the program, Jewish students receive an unparalleled opportunity to get to know the country and intern in its leading companies. We have already witnessed the cultivation of strong ties between future business leaders of the American Jewish community and Israel’s business sector. These bonds result in far reaching and extensive international collaborations” said Gidi Mark, International CEO of Birthright Israel, at the closing event.

Research has shown that the presence of children in the Jewish Israeli emigrant family intensifies their ambivalence about living abroad, but encourages greater involvement with fellow Israelis as they seek to transmit a Jewish Israeli identity and maintain their children’s attachment to the Jewish state. This article explores this assumption by focusing on the experiences of mothering of a group of Israeli emigrants in Britain. Based on twelve oral history interviews, it considers the issues of child socialisation and the mothers’ own social life. It traces how the women created a social network within which to mother and how they tried to ensure their children preserved a Jewish Israeli identity. The article also seeks to question how parenting abroad led the interviewees to embrace cultural and religious traditions in new ways.