If you’re planning a lifecycle event — be it graduation, bar or bat mitzvah, or wedding — what better place to have it than Israel?
Just imagine chanting at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, or reciting your vows atop Masada, overlooking the Dead Sea.
C’mon now, who wouldn’t jump at such an opportunity?
Is it pricey? Perhaps not quite as high as you may imagine, especially if can get group rates. That helps Oakland Hebrew Day School keep costs down for its eighth-grade graduation trip, which will be happening very soon for the lucky kids attending the Modern Orthodox school.
“We’re extremely committed to our students deepening their love for Israel,” said school director Mark Shinar, who will accompany nine 13-year-olds on the 10-day journey Sunday, May 14 to Thursday, May 25.
This will be the third consecutive year such a trip has taken place. The experience is designed to give the teens a spiritual connection to the Jewish state and serves, in a way, as “our gift to you,” he said.
During their travels, the students complete a list of tasks assigned by various departments at the school, such as writing a poem about Israel (English) or calculating the number of kilometers between one city and the next (math).
The journey, in short, is “a meaningful testament to what we value,” Shinar said, adding that in addition to studying facts about the land and its historical and biblical connections, the teens also do community service in Israel.
Parents pay for the trip, but scholarship funds are also available so no child stays home, Shinar said.
Before the second intifada in Israel, it was not uncommon for Bay Area families to travel there for bar and bat mitzvahs, and some still do.
But Bay Area travel agents say that the number of local Jewish families who’ve planned such celebrations in Israel over the past few years is scarce.
“I guess [it’s due to] the political situation there,” said Israeli travel agent Michal Ronreihanian from Tamalpais Travel in Corte Madera. “People are a little bit cautious traveling to the Middle East.”
This spring, however, there has been an increase in business, Ronreihanian said, with more families calling her to plan trips to Israel this summer. “People are feeling more comfortable,” she said.
Miri Geldfeld, an agent at International Travel Bureau in San Francisco, is helping her daughter, Karin, plan her wedding in Israel for June 20.
Last winter, when airfare costs to Israel were down, Geldfeld and her daughter flew to the Middle East “to look for a place.” She highly encourages anyone planning a celebration to do the same: “Go there off-season in the winter, when it’s cheaper.”
That way, you get to choose the best spot, rather than letting someone do it for you. Her daughter decided on a romantic beach wedding by the Mediterranean shore.
“It’s very personal,” Geldfeld said. “I don’t think that anyone can find a place for you.”
Most Israeli weddings nowadays take place “in open places, like in a tent in a field,” Geldfeld said. “If you drive on the old road between Haifa and Tel Aviv, you’ll find a dozen places here, like on a farm. That’s the style today in Israel.”
Ronreihanian agreed: “Conference places and wedding halls are out. Open spaces and gardens are in.”
Once you’ve chosen a location, “we can do the rest, like planning your hotels and tours,” Geldfeld said.
There are also planners in Israel, of course. Joan Summerfield, director of Anglo Israel Events, has been planning weddings, and bar and bat mitzvahs since 1993. She’ll map out every detail, if you want.
For a bar mitzvah, for example, “you can choose between popular places like the Western Wall or Masada, or go wild with an outdoor ceremony in one of Israel’s pastoral nature reserves,” said Summerfield, who made aliyah from England 13 years ago.
“The intifada practically ruined my business — along with the rest of the tourist industry,” she said. “Now, however, I’m delighted to say, it’s busier than ever.”
“I know how difficult it is to arrange an event in another country,” she added, “but costs are much cheaper than people imagine.”
And, unlike in the United States, weekends are not more expensive than weekdays.
“Thursday is the most expensive and popular” day of the week, Summerfield said.
One of the most memorable bat mitzvahs that Summerfield planned took place last fall, with the theme “Destruction to Redemption” and a visit to Yad Vashem.
“The bat mitzvah girl twinned her bat mitzvah with a girl from Holland who had perished, and who had the same birthdate. She composed what she felt would have been her life story had she lived, and this was followed by a speaker from Holland who had survived.”
Oakland Hebrew Day School’s bar-mitzvah-aged eighth-graders can expect a bit of somber education as they take in the sights, but the bittersweetness is part of the Israel experience.
Shinar expects a lasting impression to be made upon his charges. “It’s the whole thread that links the kids together. There’s something magical about Israel that reconnects the students.