the opening

We sit in a circle staring at each other awkwardly, exhausted from the 10-plus hour plane ride. We are situated on a promenade with a beautiful view of Jerusalem, but it's hard to appreciate. After name introductions, the leaders of our Birthright trip explain to us that they just want to show us the various ways of being Jewish and that they are there to answer all our questions. They used a marketplace analogy to explain themselves. The trip is like a marketplace; you take what you want off the shelf and leave what you don't want. Ultimately it is up to us to make our own decisions. We'll see how that holds up.

I have a feeling that it will turn out like this: as soon as controversial stuff is brought up, it will be oh-so-subtlety shot down with phrases like, "well, I respect that but..." In this way, those in command end the argument without actually responding to it. Instead, they use their power, which needs no public explanation. However, they may actually take the comments and questions to heart and listen, but not let the subject get taken further, to the point where people feel empowered enough to actually get off their asses and do something. Instead, the controversial discussion will just sit on the shelf behind two other more mainstream opinions in the marketplace of ideas.

At the end of our little introduction, our guides point out the various parts of Jerusalem in the distance. One guide points to a concrete block and asks anyone if they know what it is. No one answers, so I chime in, "the separation/security/apartheid wall."
"Yes" our guide says. I knew this was the closest we'd ever be to that wall, so I took a picture.

The actual wall is that concrete stuff waaaay back in the haze of the background

i've never felt so much like a kid

Everything on the trip was finely choreographed; from the bathroom times to the eating times. If you go on a Birthright trip you should expect this. Even our "free time" was constrained. We were allowed to do what we wanted within a 3 block radius and had to be back at the meeting point within 2 hours. The lack of sleep can be very disorienting. I probably got an average of 4 hours per night. I started to feel powerless to make decisions without the guides around me; I didn't know exactly where I was, what day it was, or how I could possibly travel in Israel without the Birthright bus.

Birthright organizers attempt to be the gatekeepers of Israeli identity. Throughout the trip I felt disconnected from the Israeli population. I knew there were Israelis out there who agreed with my views (Anarchists Against the Wall for example), but I didn't meet any of these people on my way.

Unfortunately one of the only spontaneous interactions I had with an Israeli was as follows:
I had to get directions from a stupid old man who told me a joke on the way:
"Why are the signs in Jerusalem written in Arabic?" He said.
"Why?" I said.
"So the terrorists shouldn't get lost!"
"Oh good one. All along, I thought it had to do with the fact that a large percentage of Jerusalem residents speak Arabic." He didn't say anything.

Despite the barely concealed racist assumptions of the man in this conversation, there are many admirable enclaves of the Israeli population that agitate against the oppression of the Palestinians. In fact, there are Israelis that would debate our guides and guest speakers on the exact same points that I did.

The Shuk (outdoor market) in Jerusalem

Unfortunately, tourists can get trapped into homogenizing a country's population, and it's in Birthright's interest to lure you right into this trap. If hypothetically everyone in Israel is a Jewish nationalist (read: Zionist), then that coincides perfectly with Birthright's ideology. Then Birthright can claim they are only representing the population of Israel. It's all so perfectly uncomplicated, unlike reality. Every country has its debates (and of course its limits around what is considered acceptable, sane, or mainstream debate). However, when a chorus of Israeli citizens you meet on your trip all sing the same tune, its hard to imagine where the debate happens.

In part it occurs in the Jerusalem Post (Israel's largest distribution English-language newspaper). In this "Right of Reply" article an Israeli anarchist (Uri Gordon) defends the anarchist community from the vilification of a previous article. Now imagine for a second a major American newspaper, say the Boston Globe allowing an anarchist the right of reply. Actually, I can't imagine it.

During the course of the trip we were able to see one Jewish organization (Yad Sarah) which rents out medical equipment to those who need it in their homes. We went on an extended tour of their facilities, with only half an hour left to actually volunteer.

There are other kinds of the trips, that may allow you to meet with different segments of the Israeli population. In another blog, heeb'n'vegan summarizes the events of his trip:

We went to a Tel Aviv peace rally marking the 40-year anniversary of the Six Day War and the Occupation and got to talk to different protesters as well as representatives from groups that were tabling...We met with a representative from Meretz...We were hosted by an Arab-Israeli family at their home as they talked about their perspectives on the conflict. We drove along the Israel-West Bank border with Lydia Aisenberg of Givat Haviva and saw the security fence close up, looked out to the West Bank on one side and to the Mediterrean Sea (a mere 15 miles away from the border) on the other, and heard Aisenberg's stories about her interviews with Palestinians who wait for hours to get past checkpoints and who are separated from their families by the controversial fence. We attended a Parents Circle Family Forum event featuring a Palestinian woman and an Israeli man who had lost their siblings in the conflict and who shared their desires for peace.

Be careful in your trip selection. There's likely to be another post on other cool things Israelis are doing, but for now I'll move on to other aspects of the trip.