May 15, 2023
A year ago, I would have never expected to be writing this blog post here in Israel to discuss the immensely positive impact Birthright Israel has had upon my Jewish identity. My story is unconventional, to say the least, but I feel profoundly fortunate to have ended up where I am today — and that Birthright Israel has left an...
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May 9, 2023
Where I grew up, there was a church on every street corner, and the nearest synagogue was 30 minutes away. Israel felt like a country too far away for me to reach and full of people who I didn’t think were anything like me. I grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta, GA, in an interfaith family and spent the...
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May 1, 2023
I thought this blog post would be a lot easier to write. Now, what makes it hard isn't my inability to share my experiences but my inability to not publish a novel about these experiences. If you had asked me just a year ago today that I was writing MY STORY from MY Birthright Israel trip, I probably would have...
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April 24, 2023
Growing up, I remember being told I was Jewish and celebrated the holidays with my family but nothing else. I didn’t go to Hebrew school, nor did I have a Bar Mitzvah like my brother did. I knew I was Jewish, but I would always make the joke that I was “Jew-ish” and didn’t know much more about Judaism or...
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April 20, 2023
My journey with this organization started way before my Birthright Israel trip. As a Persian Jew growing up in Beverly Hills, I was raised Jewish and surrounded by a Jewish community. For all my life, my parents had instilled a Jewish value system in me, but I didn't really know what my true Jewish identity meant — I had never...
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April 16, 2023
Every Birthright Israel experience incorporates a meaningful and well-contextualized encounter with the Shoah (Holocaust, from the Hebrew word for “catastrophe”), introducing its place in Jewish life and Israel and its relation to the Jewish narrative in today’s world. Many groups learn about the Holocaust by visiting Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center. While at Yad Vashem or another approved...
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March 30, 2023
My name is Sophie Milstein, and I will share a tale of rediscovery with you. Here is how this will look: I will tell you my common experience being a Midwest American Jew. I will describe to you a likely familiar experience of lost connection. But stay with me; after all, this is a redemption story. I grew up in...
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March 9, 2023
The easiest way to get someone to disappear is to make them feel ashamed of who they are. And the best way to combat hate is actually with pride. I understand both things as a Jew and a person of color. I grew up in the projects of Brooklyn, NY, to a dark-skinned Jamaican father and an Ashkenazi mother —...
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February 10, 2023
Words cannot describe how dear Birthright Israel is to my heart. To understand why I have to give you context about me and my childhood. I grew up in Buckhead, an Atlanta neighborhood, and as close I was to the Jewish community, I had zero Judaism in my upbringing. I'm a sixth-generation Russian Orthodox Jew, but within the last two...
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February 8, 2023
Why did you swab for Gift of Life on your Birthright Israel trip? Billy Richman: "I never questioned it. There are not many Jews in the world, and it can be very hard for a Jewish person to find another with matching DNA. Anything I can do to help others, Jewish or not, is a no-brainer. I was just telling...
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