Aug 16 2011

Birthright Trip to Israel

Israel is a country, no, Jewish State, whose pride seeps into your bones the moment you get off the airplane. The air is crisp and refreshing and the streets are clean of litter. The people are friendly, the water is ok to drink, and you will probably not die from a suicide bomber. Never in my time there did I feel unsafe or insecure; well, at least with regards to my personal security - my mental state is an entirely different beast.

I was there for Birthright: a gift given to young Jews who are interested in their identity and who are searching for a bit of enlightenment in an otherwise disingenuous world. In my case, that world was Los Angeles, and disingenuous is the perfect adjective for it.

On the other side of the world we stayed on kibbutzim (plural for kibbutz), which are old-world co-ops where simple and easy going is key and where the hassles and stress of city life dissolve as quickly as water on the hot cement. From there we ventured back into history and wilderness as scenes from the Bible came to life as it it were a children's pop-up book: ‘here is where David fought Goliath’ and ‘ this is the actual cave where Kind David hid from Saul’ were phrases uttered by our erudite guide, Yoav, who could have given Ken Jennings a run for his money. Yes, stories from the Bible did actually happen and the dirt on my Reef sandals is proof of this. And a majority of them happened in or around modern-day Israel; which is why most religions want to own that holy land.

We covered topics from religion to politics to history to language barriers, and I cannot remember a time I was not learning. My brain sponge birthed baby brain sponges and I walked away from the trip with a whole new understanding of what my people went through and why my parents raised me Jewish and why I need to raise my kids Jewish.

I floated along the dead sea as every orifice burned so good, saw beautiful waterfalls in the Negev desert, drank wine atop a Jerusalem hotel, saw the sun rise off the top of Mt. Masada, and simply learned what it was like to dig deep down to the core of your soul, and feel connected. It’s remarkable. Truly.

Our first lesson was how close everything is in that part of the world. One could stand on top of a hill in Israel and see houses located in Lebanon and Syria. Another lesson learned was how we can defeat terrorism simply by standing our ground. Such is life in the tiny border town of Dsverot where children’s playgrounds are lined with bomb shelters to protect them from the 12,000 homemade rocket propelled grenades launched over the border by radicals. The entire town is on Valium but is not relocating, because then the terrorists win. And when you’re a country the size of New Jersey, you can’t let the terrorists win.

Joining us on our adventure were Israeli soldiers (which every Israeli citizen basically is) as well as other non-serving citizens who were there to answer all our questions and keep us in check (not really). They were incredibly warm and welcoming and the journey seemed as much a spiritual awakening for them as it was for us.

Yad veh Shem, the national Holocaust museum, was also a very powerful experience as well as Independence Hall in Tel Aviv where we tapped back into history and listened to the actual radio broadcast from when Israel signed its declaration of Independence, only 50 years ago. And then they were immediately invaded and went to war, not even a country for 24-hours.

If you have the opportunity to go on Birthright - do it. I highly recommend the experience for a number of reasons, many of which will probably be different then what you get out of it.

PS - we also caught a Matisyahu concert in Jerusalem where he encored with yes, Jerusalem.

About Dave Goodman

I began my career in public relations and marketing in the Entertainment Industry and have always had a knack for understanding how to incorporate new technology in client outreach. I’ve traveled to Mexico, Western Europe, Canada, Hawaii, the Caribbean, and took a tour of a majority of the states about 10 years ago. My favorite destination would have to be Amsterdam (I lived there for 5 months), but Barcelona was pretty cool also. I specialize in online marketing, HTML and website design, database analysis, data collection, and marketing coordination and development. I hold a Bachelor's degree and ATLAS certificate (Alliance for Technology Learning and Society) from the University of Colorado at Boulder and am proud of our recent Travel Age West Trendsetter Award for ‘Best Agency Website’ and Travel Weekly’s Magellan Award for Internet Marketing. I love this industry because I get to talk about beautiful and exciting places all day, and get to experiment with new and interesting marketing tactics.