Birthright Day 11

Ten days changed their lives. Now what? One year ago this month, at the age of 26, I visited Israel for the first time. I did not go with my family, as I had long imagined, but in the company of 34 complete strangers. We arrived at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport a motley crew of Americans: Uri was a ba’al teshuva from California who liked to pontificate on the subtleties of Jewish observance, while Jaime was a sun-kissed sorority girl who knew no other Jews on her University of New Hampshire campus. Aaron, a bespectacled Los Angeles hipster, never had a bar mitzvah, while Russia-born Mike was once shomer negiah. As for me, I grew up in an observant Conservative home, which meant we celebrated two days of Rosh Hashanah, fasted on Yom Kippur and, more often than not, made a Passover pilgrimage... Continue Reading