While as many as 331 teens were signed up for last year’s trip, this year’s month-long Israeli odyssey will serve only 18 students from throughout the Bay Area.
“In a normal year, this would be disappointing,” said Talia Leibler, the Jewish Federation of the Greater East Bay’s Israeli trips director.
But, she added, “we are a Zionist federation; we believe there is a place for teen trips in Israel and we’re doing it.”
Leibler believes only the East Bay and Dallas federations are sponsoring teen trips to Israel this summer. Other federations have canceled planned trips. The S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation and Jewish Community Federation of Greater San Jose are referring interested teens to the East Bay trip.
As many as 70 students were signed up for the June 26 to July 24 trip at the beginning of the year but ongoing violence took its toll, with most of the registrants bowing out. Currently, 12 of the students on the trip live in the East Bay, with six hailing from the West Bay.
The S.F.-based Bureau of Jewish Education and the Koret Foundation, which offered trips in the past, are no longer doing so — and for good reason. Running a month-long trip for so few participants is a huge financial drain. Leibler confirms that the program’s deficit will be around $100,000 this year.
“People just weren’t prepared to sign up their kids to go to Israel at this time,” said Bob Sherman, executive director of the BJE. “We held out for a long time and hoped the situation would change, but that doesn’t seem to be the way it worked out this year.”
It’s not just federations that have canceled teen trips. Last year, the Reform movement’s Union of American Hebrew Congregations came under heavy fire for doing so. The trips are back on this year — barely. Only 10 students nationwide are currently signed up, according to one UAHC official. Two years ago, more than 1,400 students took a UAHC trip to Israel.
Abe Goldstein, a 16-year-old sophomore at Lowell High School in San Francisco, is one of the few local teens to be traveling to Israel with the East Bay group. He now finds himself to be the envy of his friends. So far, his family hasn’t said no.
“I feel kind of bad; my friend really wants to go but his father doesn’t want him to, so what can you do?” said Goldstein, a San Franciscan who celebrated his bar mitzvah and recent confirmation at Congregation Beth Israel-Judea.
Goldstein says most of his friends were forced to drop out by their parents. “I try not to be too critical…I don’t want to harass them if their parents don’t feel safe, or if they don’t. If people don’t feel safe, I don’t want to force them to do anything, or try to convince them. I don’t want people to go if they feel uncomfortable.”
Personally, Goldstein is comfortable heading to Israel. He points out that far more Israelis are killed each year in traffic incidents than by terrorists.
“But, in terms of your chances of dying, nobody really cares about traffic. Nobody talks about dying in a car accident in another country. The connotative value of terrorism makes people more afraid, and I don’t buy into that,” said Goldstein, who last traveled to Israel when he was 9. “I’m not as afraid as most people are.”
Avidan Yerlick, a 17-year-old junior at Berkeley High School, had dropped out of last year’s program before it was canceled, in part because his friends weren’t going.
“Even though it was canceled, I still felt horrible about it,” said Yerlick, who attends services at Berkeley’s Congregation Beth El. “This year, my family and I made the decision that if the trip goes, I’m going to go. Last year, I went along with all my friends whose parents either wouldn’t let them go or didn’t want to go at that point. This year I decided I have to do what I want to do. And I want to go to Israel, so that’s what I’m going to do.”
Security concerns have relegated the 18 teens to the more rural sections of Israel, as events in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa have been eliminated.
Instead, the travelers will spend the vast majority of their time in the south of Israel on several kibbutzim and in towns and cities such as Mitzpe Ramon and Eilat. They will also spend four days at an army base, where they will participate in a Gadna (premilitary youth group) program.
Goldstein expressed some disappointment at missing Israeli city life, but he pointed out that the trip is about “more than just Jerusalem, more than just the religious aspect. I have a connection with Israel. It’s hard to explain.”
For Yerlick, whose Israeli father has many relatives still living there, skipping the cities is a huge letdown. This will be his fifth trip to Israel.
“I don’t get to visit my relatives on this trip, and that’s disappointing. But that’s not going to stop me,” he said. “If we go, I hope it’ll be the most unique experience of my life, not only because I’m going to Israel but because I’m going with people my age. These people feel the same way I do about Israel, which is hard to come by, especially here in the tolerant, progressive Bay Area.”
Leibler said there’s no real deadline for more teens to apply, but she doesn’t think any more will.
Anyone who might be interested in this year’s trip can contact Leibler at (510) 839-2900, ext. 255.
Goldstein, for his part, hopes the trip takes place as planned, because if it doesn’t his parents will be out of town and he’ll probably have to spend a month with his grandparents — in Cleveland.
“That would be a really bad situation for me,” he said. “I might have to go to summer school, and that wouldn’t be as fun.”