Birthright Israel: "Don't Wait"

For most of my life, Israel was something I was supposed to wait for. When I was growing up in a Chabad Chasidic community, the answer was seminary. When COVID-19 shut that door, the answer became “next year.” When my health collapsed, the answer became “when you can walk again.”

Once COVID restrictions were lifted, and I had time off from my job, my body had already begun to change in ways I didn’t yet understand. What started in 2021 as gastrointestinal symptoms and chronic illness evolved into back pain, numbness, weakness, and a leg that wouldn’t reliably hold me. In the summer of 2023, I was diagnosed with a spinal cord malformation that needed surgery, and I was unable to walk or stand independently just two months later.

I underwent spinal cord surgery in the spring of 2024. Two months later, I fractured my spine and required a fusion. Four weeks after that surgery, I developed sepsis. Leaving the hospital and transitioning to caring for myself was terrifying; getting out of bed on my own seemed impossible. Getting dressed was an insurmountable task. Life itself felt provisional. Every time I would finally see progress, I was forced to start again from scratch. The strength it took to face my daily reality left me without a moment to even think about what regular life might look like, let alone travel.

I spent more than 150 days in the hospital between 2023 and 2024. As I began rebuilding my strength and looking forward to attending school again, working, traveling, and dating, I was told, “Just wait six months, wait a year, wait until you can walk again.” So when Birthright Israel came up, I thought to myself, I'll do it when I can walk again.

It was around the time when I was in and out of rehab, undergoing surgery, that I learned about Birthright Israel trips through Yalla, an organization that partners with Birthright to take adults with disabilities on trips to Israel. I had seen photos of participants traveling in wheelchairs using a ventilator and managing different complex medical needs, and it made me stop and ask myself a simple question: “What am I waiting for?”

I’ve always been fiercely independent, and for a long time, I was positive I would walk again, and accepting that I may be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life was not easy. In 2025, I started adaptive sports and experiencing the world sitting down. Wheelchair tennis instead of regular tennis, hand cycling instead of biking, and archery from a wheelchair rather than standing. I was getting to do normal things again, even if it wasn’t quite how I imagined it would go.

I wanted to go to Israel deeply. I had watched friends spend a year there backpacking, traveling, being spontaneous, and I felt that I missed an entire chapter of my life while managing my health. I applied for the Yalla trip, and soon after, my Bubby landed in the hospital. She was fighting terminal lung cancer. I told Bubby, I wouldn't go. And she was firm. “How could you not go? We've worked so hard for you to get to a place where a trip like this was possible.”

I worried that if I went, she would not be with us when I returned. And as things progressed, the outcome looked bleak. My father reassured me that this is what Bubby wanted. “If Bubby passes away while you're in Israel, she'll be with you for the whole trip,” he said.

Immediately after Shabbos in Tiberias, I had an unshakable feeling that my Bubby was no longer with us. That night, just after midnight, my father called to let me know that she had passed on Friday night. The last words she had spoken were “Where is Shaina?” And when he told her I was in Israel, she said: “Good!”

I chose to stay and experience the rest of the trip fully. I leaned into the community around me, and while grief filled me, I exuded joy and was surrounded by happiness. I felt both overwhelmed with loss and joy simultaneously. Israel itself surprised me. I worried about accessibility, the stairs, the hills, and uneven terrain. But what I learned instead was that it’s the people who make a place accessible. Our logistics team planned ahead, checked access, and when something wasn't fully accessible for each of us, they found a way around it. And being surrounded by other Jews who understood my reality mattered more than I expected.

The trip itself was remarkable because it didn't have to be perfect. When my ankle braces were lost during the flight, and my wheelchair footplate broke, solutions were quickly made with some zip ties, duct tape, and creativity. Living with medical complexity teaches you how to adapt quickly, and being surrounded by people who were familiar with the same things made it easier.

There were so many moments in Israel that I felt my Bubby so strongly right beside me. The next day after her passing, we went adaptive tree climbing, and I got to pull my body weight up a tree with my arms, something I never thought I'd be strong enough to do. With a little bit of assistance, I made it to the top. I felt Bubby with me that entire day. And the next day, we went ATVing. I wanted to sit up front, and the staffer said, “Sure, get in right next to me.” And I steered while she controlled the pedals. We went on a boat ride. And right before we got on the boat, I started crying because the last time I'd been on a boat was adaptive sailing with my Bubby, and I could genuinely feel that Bubby was watching right over me.

Being surrounded by other Jews, by people who understood my life experience, was incredible, and I'm so grateful to Birthright Israel for giving me this opportunity because there's no way this could have happened otherwise. Birthright Israel didn't just make this trip possible; it made travel feel possible again. It shifted what I viewed myself as capable of. If I could go to Israel, why couldn't I go somewhere else, too? For years, I've been told to wait for seminary, for health, for walking, and this trip taught me that waiting for the right moment often means missing life entirely. Sometimes you take the ten days, and you go anyway. I didn't have to wait to live my life. I've actually since traveled to Florida with a friend from Birthright, and my wheelchair was totaled; I'm in the process of getting a new one now, but that's not gonna stop me from traveling because you can't wait for the perfect moment when you never know how many moments you have left. That’s what it meant to go on Birthright Israel.

Shaina shares her orthodox life and rehab experience on Instagram. You can find her @adapting_with_Shaina