With teen educational travel to Israel severely curtailed by persisting security concerns, RootOne is changing itineraries, so to speak, and is now offering its vouchers for trips to alternative locations — Greece, Belgium, Costa Rica and Spain — at least for this year.

“We don’t want another year to go by where we’re missing the opportunity to impact teens in a meaningful way related to their Jewish identity and Israel,” RootOne’s executive director, Simon Amiel, told eJewishPhilanthropy. “I have a huge number of American Jewish families who are just not ready to send their kids to Israel, but are interested in having their kids do something Jewish. Why not utilize and leverage that to be able to provide them something of significance?” said Amiel, noting that RootOne-supported trips dropped by 90% last year.

Armed with a $60 million grant from the Marcus Foundation in November and with Israel travel at a standstill, the organization was forced to pivot.

The alternative trips will be offered in partnership with trip providers including BBYO, the Union for Reform Judaism, Eli and Bessie Cohen Camps, JCC Association of North America and the Chabad Teen Network. Like all RootOne sponsored trips, this year the alternative trips will provide a mifgash — an encounter between North American and Israeli teens. This is only meant to be a stopgap measure for this year, with RootOne returning to its normal sponsorship of Israel travel alone the following year. 

According to Amiel, the ultimate goal is still an Israel experience. So while typically RootOne vouchers are only applicable to one summer experience, because of the circumstances, teens who go on an international program will remain eligible for a RootOne Israel trip later on.

On top of subsidizing international trips for Jewish teens, RootOne has also expanded its coverage to include some summer programs that cater to teens from Orthodox day schools, including Bnei Akiva’s Mach Hach Ba’Aretz, some NCSY programs and Sulam. 

Since these programs historically have focused more on biblical history and religious Zionism, RootOne’s educational standards for trip partners will require the implementation of a more robust Israel education surrounding geopolitics and Israeli society, Amiel said. 

“It’s not protecting kids to not give them a diversity of voices. Especially if those kids are moving on to leadership opportunities around Jewish life for Israel on college campuses,” Amiel told eJP. “It’s really helpful for them to understand the plurality of Israeli voices at the table, so that they really understand what Israel is and what Israel isn’t.”

As of now, around 3,000 teens are registered for RootOne’s international and Israel trips combined. 

“It was clear we weren’t going to reach the number of kids that we would have loved to send to Israel, but by and large, we’re impacting a much larger group than we anticipated, given what’s still happening in Israel,” Amiel told eJP.