Bernie Marcus, the Home Depot co-founder and major Jewish donor, dreamed of a generation of Jewish teens falling in love with Israel. On Sunday night in Rishon LeZion — notwithstanding the enormous challenges of operating Israel trips over the past three years — that dream came roaring back to life.

Blasting the song “Golden” from the Netflix hit “KPop Demon Hunters” — “I’m done hiding, now I’m shining, like I’m born to be” — thousands of teens jumped and danced at an outdoor venue that regularly hosts Israel’s biggest stars like Omer Adam and Eden Ben Zaken. In total, 4,000 Jewish North American teens, joined by 500 Israeli peers, filled the venue for RootOne’s Big Tent event. Last night marked the first time since 2023 that RootOne was able to hold the Big Tent event.

“A month ago, we did not think this would happen, but the fact that all these kids are here — this is something we as a community should not take for granted,” said Jonathan Fass, senior managing director of RootOne — the Marcus-backed initiative launched in 2020 which provides vouchers to subsidize Israel travel experiences. 

At the VIP reception, David Bryfman, RootOne’s interim executive director — who is also CEO of The Jewish Education Project — addressed a crowd of professionals and partners in amazement looking out at the view of thousands of Jewish teens gathering together in one place in Israel in the midst of transformative Israel experiences. 

“It sounds so simple, but when you see it out there, it comes to life.”

Reflecting on the evening to eJewishPhilanthropy, Bryfman said, “watching thousands of Jewish teens singing together for the first time since Oct. 7 was to witness history, healing and hope all at once.”

More than a dozen partner organizations were represented, including BBYO, the Union for Reform Judaism, the Conservative movement, the Orthodox Union’s NCSY, Hillel, Taglit, StandWithUs, Aardvark, OpenDor, JSU, Masa and Young Judaea, among others. Together, they made up the mosaic of Israel travel organizations this summer, and the network that carries teen engagement through its year-round programming.

Meanwhile, teens explored a “Big Tent Experience” — a series of interactive stations celebrating connection, service and community. These included: a post-trip engagement fair on staying connected after a RootOne experience, a volunteer station where teens packed care kits for Israeli reservist families with the Israeli nonprofit Sachi, as well as an Unpacking Israeli History Podcast Studio, where host Noam Weissman was joined by Unpacked’s Yirmiyahu Danzig to lead a live recording with other members of the OpenDor Media team.

Later in the evening, the crowd of more than 4,500 gathered in the amphitheater. The evening’s emcees were two American RootOne participants: Shira Greenberg of Austin, Texas, who is in Israel with NCSY, and Ike Diamond of Houston, who is in Israel with BBYO. 

The evening also featured a conversation with OpenDor’s Danzig as well as video remarks from Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who declared, “This tent matters to me.”

Musician Daniel Weiss, from Kibbutz Be’eri, whose parents were murdered on Oct. 7, performed a medley that included the Beatles’ “Let It Be” in English as teens raised their phone lights in the air.

In a particularly moving moment, former hostage Moran Stella Yanai was met with thunderous applause, followed by near-complete silence as she spoke. Asked how she found the strength to tell her story in hostile rooms around the world, she replied: “I did it for you. I did it for my people. Resilience is not something you can teach — it’s something you need to discover.” The teens cheered.

Noam Bettan, Israel’s 2026 Eurovision runner-up, closed the event as he launched into his song “Michelle.”

Misha Reyesleff, 16 , a participant on an Israel trip with Camp OSRUI, a URJ camp in Wisconsin, told eJewishPhilanthropy that some friends back home questioned why she’d come at all. Coming from a hometown with few Jewish peers, she said reconnecting with camp friends in Israel, and hearing that “they didn’t seem scared here at all,” reinforced for her why the trip mattered. “I don’t regret it,” she said.

Luke Jaffee, a BBYO participant from Boca Raton, Fla., said the trip deepened friendships he had already built through the youth group while exploring Israel. Jaffee reflected on the strange duality of the experience — sharing a religion and a connection to the same country alongside Israeli teens whose day-to-day lives look different from his own, all while still just being normal teenagers having fun together on their trip. Jaffee was especially moved thinking about what RootOne made possible.

“There are thousands of teens out there, and I am sure that if there were not RootOne and the $3,000 voucher, there would be far fewer people who would have the opportunity to go to Israel,” Jaffee said. 

The average cost of an Israel trip is roughly $10,000, with RootOne offering a $3,000 voucher for trips of three weeks or more and $2,000 for two- to three-week trips. A source told eJP that the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation has started providing funding for additional vouchers for low-income families on top of the RootOne voucher to help make Israel travel more accessible to lower-income households, as the cost of Israel travel balloons. 

Many of the trips also include a mifgash element where Israeli teens interact with their North American counterparts. 

Noam Levi, an Israeli from Hadera, who is participating in BBYO’s ILSI (International Leadership Seminar in Israel) trip, spoke to eJP about how meeting and building friendships with American Jewish teens felt especially meaningful in this moment. “To be surrounded by my American BBYO friends, I discovered that I learn more about myself and my country while also making new friends from around the world,” Levi said.

Itamar, an Israeli teen who didn’t want to provide his surname, echoed that sentiment, saying it was only when he and his group visited the site of the Oct. 7 Nova music festival massacre that it all “clicked” for him.

“We sat down and had a ceremony, and I saw something that only happens when you’re part of the Jewish community,” he said. “I felt that no matter where we are, as Jews we have this shared pain. Even though we are different as Jews, we need to be there together for each other.” 

Earlier that evening, Bryfman told the VIP reception that in his last conversation with founder Bernie Marcus, who died in 2024, he had said his dream was to see the Big Tent himself — “to see the smiles on the kids’ faces.”

Marcus never lived to experience the Big Tent event’s Jewish joy and resilience in person, but last night under the Rishon LeZion stars, 4,500 Jewish teens did.