Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA)

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The Birthright Israel Program: Present and Possible Future Impacts

January 19, 2009 | Prof. Leonard Saxe

By autumn 2008, nearly two hundred thousand young Jewish adults aged eighteen to twenty-six from around the world had participated in Taglit-Birthright Israel, which consists of ten-day educational experiences in Israel. The aim of Birthright Israel is to make the participants' Jewish identity more relevant to them, to enhance ahavat Yisrael (love of Israel), and to promote a sense of Jewish peoplehood. Research shows a great uniformity of impact on each of these measures, regardless of the par

The Social, Cultural and Political Impact of Zionism in Libya (Research Note)

October 25, 1994

The development of the Zionist movement in Libya was an evolutionary process which brought changes in ways of thinking and behavior without detaching completely from tradition. New social and economic elements entered public life (lower middle class and women) and changes took place in education (modern Hebrew language and literature and modern Jewish history). This is not to say, however, that those social elements did not have any part in public life beforehand, but now their involvement became a mainstream one. Similarly, traditional education did not cease, and the old political guard continued to exist: the official communal leadership was manned by it, and Zionist leaders were observant Jews who were backed by many rabbis. Despite the growing involvement of women, they hardly reached leadership positions. The impact of the Zionists.