"Exactly one week after I finished taking my finals I found
myself sitting at JFK airport, looking at 40 new faces and ready for a life
changing adventure ahead of me. I was finally going on my Birthright! For those
of you who do not know, Birthright is an organization that allows Jewish young
adults, from ages 18 to 26, to go to Israel for a free ten-day trip. During the
ten days, I traveled with my group all over the country. The amount of
activities we accomplished and sights we saw was overwhelming. From rafting
down the Jordan River, floating in the Dead Sea, sleeping in Bedouin style
tents, hiking Masada, riding camels, walking around the city of Tel Aviv and
praying at the Western Wall. On the fourth day of our trip, our group was
joined with eight new faces. These were our soldiers from the Israeli Defense
Force (IDF). At age 18 all Israeli citizens must join the IDF, the army. What
this means is that the soldiers who joined our trip, were our age-mostly 19 or
20 years old. One night, I roomed with Mai, who is one of our female solider
who serves in Gazi. Her and I began talking and we realized how similar we
were. We both were the oldest in our family, had one younger brother, and
unsure with what we want to do with our lives. She was even born only ten days
before I was. A realization that Mai had is the best way I know how to
summarize my trip to Israel. Upon learning that we were only a few days apart
in age she turned to me and said “Wow! I could be finishing up my second year
of University right now” and I responded with “Yes, and I could be in your unit
serving in Gazi.” In that moment we both realized the difference between being
Jewish and being an Israeli. The entire culture of the state of Israel makes it
a different experience. From living in a land that is holy to many world
religions, to being required to go the army at age 18, and (if you are Jewish)
living in a country where the majority of the population has the same faith as
you. You would think that it would be easy to be Jewish in a land where it is
the norm, but yet 40 Americans were able to show eight Israeli’s what Judaism
means when your religion is an active choice."
