To be honest, the local Summer in Israel Youth Program wasn’t the reason Evan Goodman decided to become a rabbi. But the trip back in 1981 gave Goodman, then a Peninsula teen, a serious push in that direction.
“It was one of the most wonderful experiences of my life,” recalls Goodman, now 34 and the rabbi at San Francisco’s Congregation Beth Israel-Judea. “It helped begin to set in motion the process that led to me becoming a rabbi.”
From visiting the Western Wall to climbing Masada at sunrise, the trip nearly 18 years ago spoke personally and powerfully to Goodman’s developing sense of Judaism. “It was really important to [becoming] the kind of person I am today,” he said.
Such sentiments appear to be common among the roughly 3,500 area Jews who have journeyed to Israel through the program, which has been run by the S.F.-based Bureau of Jewish Education since the early 1970s. As the program marks its 30th trip this summer, some of the earliest participants are looking back on their trips as odysseys that redirected the course of their lives.
Now in their 30s and 40s, some of those first travelers say that the trip electrified their sense of Judaism. The trip also cemented their love of Israel. “I have to say it was a life-changing experience and I don’t say that lightly,” said Susie Gelman, who was on the very first trip back in 1970. “That trip began what is a lifelong quest of learning about being Jewish and the traditions. I really owe it all to that trip.”
A 44-year-old mother of three living in Chevy Chase, Md., Gelman credits that summer with inspiring her to regularly light Shabbat candles, study Hebrew and become actively involved in her synagogue and other Jewish organizations.
Gelman was a confirmation student at San Francisco’s Congregation Emanu-El when the new assistant rabbi began pitching the trip. Rabbi Brian Lurie had led a group of teens from throughout the United States to Israel in 1968 and wanted to start a local program in San Francisco.
Now president and CEO of the Jewish Museum San Francisco, Lurie said he believed the trips “could really change the nature of Jewish education, not just for our synagogue, but for other synagogues and the whole area.”
For teenagers living in an assimilated community like San Francisco, he said that “if you don’t create these kind of living moments, where you can immerse them in living Judaism, it’s quite hard to excite them to lead a Jewish life here.”
The trip proved an “easy” sell. Ultimately, 36 teens, most of them 10th-graders from Emanu-El’s confirmation class, signed up for what was then an eight-week trip. They traveled throughout the country by bus, guided by a charismatic Israeli named Eli.
“The summer was probably even greater than I thought in my imagination,” recalled Lurie. “The kids were beyond enthused.”
When they returned home, “they didn’t want to get off the plane because they had such a sense of camaraderie.”
Subsequent trips blossomed in size, drawing confirmation class graduates from more and more local synagogues. Within a few years the BJE took over the official sponsorship.
This summer, an estimated 150 teens from San Francisco, the Peninsula and Marin and Sonoma counties are expected to take the five-week trip. It is the largest community trip to Israel of its kind in the country, according to Amy Wittenberg, the program’s coordinator.
Besides touring Israel by bus, the teens camp at the base of Masada, participate in a Maccabiah-style sports competition and choose a week of electives that includes such activities as army training, hiking the desert or working with Arab and Israeli youngsters.
“For many teenagers, it’s a real growing experience,” Wittenberg said. “They gain a new outlook on the world because they’re doing it on their own and not with their parents.”
Though it’s been nearly 30 years, John Roos, a 43-year-old attorney in San Mateo, has a clear memory of his first moments in the Jewish state.
“I still remember getting off that plane — that first feeling you had arriving in Israel.” These days, Roos travels there frequently in his capacity as a high-tech lawyer.
“It really gave me a great spark,” said Mark Myers, a 43-year- old Kentfield resident who participated that first summer. “I think the trip to Israel really anchored my Judaism.”
Ripples of that commitment are evident today. Myers ran the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation’s Marin County campaign for three years and currently serves on the federation board. Like Roos, Myers’ memories from the trip are still sharp: clearest of all are his visit to a kibbutz and hearing Golda Meir speak in an amphitheater on Mount Scopus.”My commitment to Israel is very important and largely stemmed from the trip.”