Moishe House and Birthright Israel NEXT, leading organizations in Jewish young adult engagement, are joining forces to bring the successful Birthright Israel NEXT Shabbat program to the 20 U.S.-based Moishe Houses.
“With over 70,000 participants, The Birthright Israel NEXT Shabbat program has provided funding, education, and training to Birthright Israel trip alumni, resulting in nearly 8,000 peer-led Shabbat meals since the program’s inception 18 months ago,” said Birthright Israel NEXT CEO Morlie Levin. “Our partnership will enhance Moishe House’s existing Shabbat program with educational resources and training for hosts, and is an example of the kind of collaboration we would like to be involved in as NEXT scales up its educational platform.”
According to both Birthright Israel NEXT and Moishe House a growing movement of young adults is interested in learning about and celebrating Shabbat. This reflects what each organization believes is an expression of young adults’ desire to build community even as this generation moves through what many refer to as “odyssey years” (the extended post college, pre-marriage years). Data from the NEXT Shabbat program shows, for example, that 73% of NEXT Shabbat meals were attended by guests who had never experienced a home-based Shabbat meal before.
To learn more about the Moishe House NEXT Shabbat program check the program website.
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Fascinating isn’t it?
Shabbat Friday night dinners- the best way to follow up with the Israel Birthright experience- Right?
The obvious question is what does Shabbat have to do with a fun peer trip to Israel?
The answer is that both Judaism and Israel experiences promote Jewish identity and a Jewish sense of comradery for young American Jews.
What’s my point? Birthright should include a Friday night Shabbat dinner as part of the Birthright experience. When alumni of Birthright were asked “What was your most memorable part of your trip?” a strong majority (and much more than #2) said visiting the Kotel the Western Wall.
So it’s crazy to spend all that money in bringing college kids to Israel and then spend Friday night at a pub in Tel Aviv to show the students that “there isn’t much difference between Tel Aviv and New York” when instead if we could make Birthright trips more spiritual (without appearing “religious”) we could make a much bigger impact on their Jewish identities. In other words the sponsors of Birthright could get a lot more Jewish identity bang for their bucks if they made the trips 12 days instead of 10 and required two Shabbat experiences as part of the program.
They should also be careful to accept only Jews but that is already another topic.