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Next week more than 80 young Australian Jews will venture off to Israel for Academy. They will join the thousands of others before them over the last more than 40 years who have gone to Israel each year as part of the Jewish student delegation the Australasian Union of Jewish Students.
The following week around 200 will go on the Taglit-Birthright Israel program, a free ten-day trip to Israel for 18-26 year olds provided by local and international philanthropists and the Israeli Government.
Then, in 2011, around 350 more Australians under the age of 26 will go to Israel on a long-term program supported by MASA, another initiative of the State of Israel in partnership with the Jewish Agency. This is on top of a record-breaking 2010, when Australia sent more than 300 participants on youth movement Shnat programs, AUJS’s Aviv, art programs to Bezalel and postgraduate degrees at Tel Aviv University.
That in an age of sky rocketing costs of private Jewish education and the overall cost of living in Jewish centres, that young Jews in Australia are still flocking to Israel in their droves, is truly incredible. But why do I tell you all of this? Because it’s integral that we take time to note, celebrate and disaggregate these figures.
It is evident that the relationship between Australian Jewry and Israel is rock solid. More than 80 per cent of our community consider themselves Zionist, one of the highest in the Diaspora Jewish communities, and around 70 per cent of high schoolers are sent through our sophisticated and globally admired Jewish day school system. Even while economic pressures on families are so intense, that it is still a clear priority to send young Jews to Israel is nothing to sneeze at.
Indeed, at a time when young Jews across the world are disengaging from their Jewish identities and from Israel, while this doesn’t quite show that we’re immune in Australia, it does give us a leg up to try and avoid it.
The positive experience of a young Jew who has been to Israel builds Jewish identity and builds the connection between them and Israel like nothing else, and as a community we need as much of this as we can get.
In fact, not only is now the time of youth disengagement, it is also the time of one of the greatest threats to Israel in modern history, the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign raging to undermine the legitimacy of Israel. In this age, Zionism is rapidly becoming a dirty word – on TV, on Twitter and on campus, three of the places those under the age of 25 have the most engagement.
Having students go to Israel and experience the miracle of Jewish achievement in carving a home for ourselves in hostile territory, the pride of seeing the multicultural, liberal democracy we’ve forged and the resilience of our people is exactly what we need to turn the next generation of Jews into leaders, proud of their community, of their people and of themselves.
We should also not be surprised that going to Israel on a program like these also significantly reduces the likelihood of intermarriage. Monash University’s Gen08 survey estimates that students who go on Academy have only a single-digit chance of marrying out, more than five-fold less than if they hadn’t gone on the AUJS program.
Content is also important, though, and part of these programs needs to be showing students the ‘whole’ Israel. The land of milk and honey might be a wonderful picture to paint, but it’s inaccurate.
Because of how hyper-connected they are, Gen Y-ers are acutely aware of social and political divisions, the scourge of poverty, and the plight of both Israelis and Palestinians because of the continuing conflict.
Understanding the complexity that surrounds these issues helps build a rapport with Israel; in my experience as a leader on these programs, highlighting topics such as these in a positive way serves to engender passion and commitment, turning young Jews into active Zionists intent on creating the best possible homeland for the Jewish people.
As the Jewish people and the state of Israel face increasingly real and imminent threats — a near-nuclear Iran, the continued uncertainty of a lack of permanent peace in Israel and, of course, inter-marriage and assimilation, to name but a few – ensuring positive connections between the Diaspora and Israel is integral in our efforts to repel them.
To the parents and grandparents, to the community leaders and philanthropists, you all deserve our gratitude for the choices and sacrifices you make to ensure our youth can travel to Israel and strengthen our community’s ties to the Jewish homeland. I hope that the nachas of the future can more than repay your efforts.
This column was originally published in the Australian Jewish News.
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