Taglit - Birthright Israel
| Taglit - Birthright Israel | |
|---|---|
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| purpose | Promote the connection of foreign youth with the Jewish heritage through trips to Israel |
| Chair: | Gidi Mark (CEO) |
| Establishment date: | 1999 |
| Seat : | Jerusalem , Israel |
| Website: | birthrightisrael.com |
Taglit - Birthright Israel ( Hebrew תגלית Taglit ), or Birthright Israel or Birthright for short , is a non-profit educational institution that organizes free, 10-day trips for young people to Israel. The trips are primarily intended to connect young people with Jewish roots from other countries with the culture and everyday life in Israel.
Taglit is Hebrew for "discovery". As the trips progress, participants will be motivated to develop a better understanding of the connections between their own Jewish heritage and the history and everyday life of Israel. Since the start of the program in the winter of 1999, it has been used by more than 600,000 young people from 67 countries. Due to the mass of applications and the limited funding from private sponsors, the number of trips funded is currently limited to 40,000 annually.
history
Taglit - Birthright Israel was founded as a start-up project in 2000 by philanthropists and represents a collaboration between the State of Israel and Jewish organizations around the world. The program goes back to an earlier initiative by Charles Bronfman and Michael Steinhardt , who subsequently created the Government of Israel (under Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin ), private sponsors, the Jewish Agency for Israel and Jewish communities around the world were able to win for cooperation.
Taglit - Birthright Israel aims to counter assimilation by bringing young Jews closer to their Jewish identity, the State of Israel and their local Jewish communities. The Taglit - Birthright Israel project is based on the idea that every young Jewish adult between the ages of 18 and 26 has the birthright to visit Israel at least once in their life.
Meetings with Israeli soldiers are on the program for all Taglit trips. Usually these soldiers spend five days with the group.
In 2017, Taglit instructed its tour operators to stop organizing meetings with Palestinians with Israeli citizenship .
In April 2018 , more than 150 students from New York and New England protested for a boycott of Taglit and for the rights of Palestinian refugees as part of the Return the Birthright campaign, which is supported by the Jewish Voice for Peace and Independent Jewish Voices to be able to return to their homeland. Michael Steinhardt, co-founder and main sponsor of Taglit, showed the protesters the middle finger .
In June 2018, several American participants in a Taglit group left the travel program to protest Taglit's portrayal of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and to visit Hebron and Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank with the organization Breaking the Silence . A few days later, another group of American participants left a taglit tour, during a tour of the City of David (Wadi Hilweh), an Israeli settlement and archaeological site in occupied Jerusalem. The protesting Taglit participants instead visited a Palestinian family whom the Jewish National Fund and the right-wing City of David Foundation (Eldad) have been trying to evict from their homes since 1991. Taglit then informed several of the protesters that their return flight to the USA would be canceled. Shalom Achshaw welcomed the protest. Taglit co-founder Charles Bronfman said in an interview with Haaretz that the participants do not have the right to “take our money” and criticize Israel. A spokesman for IfNotNow, the group that organized the protests, countered, “Bronfman says our generation should have the ability to think critically and deliver progressive values at the entrance to Taglit because major funders like himself and Sheldon Adelson paid for the trip. This is not a gift as Taglit claims; that is bribery. "
In 2020 taglit trips were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic .
Taglit's largest sponsor is currently casino magnate Sheldon Adelson .
Experts believe that it was only a matter of time before Taglit became the site of political clashes between Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, and Adelson's right-wing agenda.
Conditions of participation
The prerequisite for participating in a Taglit trip is proof of the young person's Jewish origin, at least one parent, or the conversion to Judaism by completing a conversion course (certificate required). The young applicant must consider himself / herself to be Jewish. Young people between the ages of 18 and 27 can apply, regardless of their educational qualifications or their profession. The application process takes place online.
Travel organizers
In Germany, the Central Council of Jews in Germany, in cooperation with the Central Welfare Office for Jews in Germany, has taken over the processing of Taglit - Birthright Israel trips.
Web links
Footnotes
- ^ A b Judy Maltz: Birthright Orders Trip Providers to End Meet-ups With Israeli Arabs. In: Haaretz , November 2, 2017.
- ↑ Noam Shuster Eliassi: Birthright's So Scared of Arabs It's Banned Them Haaretz , November 2, 2017.
- ↑ JTA : Birthright Founder Gives Middle Finger to Protesters Outside Gala Haaretz , April 16, 2018.
- ↑ a b Taly Krupkin: Birthright Participants Walk Off Trip to Join Anti-occupation Tour. In: Haaretz , June 29, 2018.
- ^ Nir Hasson: For Second Time in Two Weeks: US Jews Walk Off Birthright Trip to Join Anti-occupation Activity. In: Haaretz , July 15, 2018; Sam Sussman: 'One Jewish Life Is Worth More Than 10,000 non-Jews': Why More US Jews Will Walk Off Birthright This Summer. In: Haaretz , July 15, 2018; Nir Hasson: Jewish National Fund Working to Evict Palestinian Family From East Jerusalem. In: Haaretz , January 2, 2018.
- ^ Allison Kaplan Sommer: Birthright Co-founder Says Walk-out Protesters Don't Have Right to Criticize Israel 'On Our Nickel'. In: Haaretz , August 9, 2018.
- ^ Allison Kaplan Sommer: Between Adelson and BDS, Birthright Has Become a Political Battlefield. In: Haaretz , June 29, 2018.