Purpose: ADL's Campus Leadership Study Mission provides future leaders with a first-hand perspective of Israel by meeting with the culturally diverse population, engaging with its vibrant society, learning about the strategic and social challenges facing Israel today, and touring the historically and geographically significant land.
In Israel: Mission participants will meet with decision-makers, government and military officials, diplomats, journalists, students, and ordinary Israelis, Arab and Jewish, from diverse communities, cultures and backgrounds. Participants will visit key places of historical,religious and contemporary interest.
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Woohoo! I, along with 13 other US university students, was selected for this mission. This means that, as accurately stated above, I was lucky enough to be provided an impeccably organized Israeli experience, coupling educational lectures with one-on-one experience with average Israelis, and coupling politics with day-to-day life.
I will hopefully find our general itinerary to attach to give a good overview of the program.
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Was this program worthwhile?
Absolutely! I expected a fairly straight-forward, politically motivated and politically centered experience. While politics does pervade the life here and thus often finds its way into many situations, we also experienced much that had little to do with the greater Israeli-Middle East conflict. We also:
- learned and participated in Israeli culture, both Jewish and Druze
- learned about the geography of the country and its borders
- learned about resource use, shortages, and environmental solutions being used and created to address these shortages
- Learned of the diversity of Jews in Israel, far beyond the obvious Russian, Polish, and Western European Jews (that we tend to see in the States.) There is a large population of Ethiopian Jews, and about half of the Jews in Israel are from the Middle East.
- Learned of Israel's booming start up economy and tech-savvy industries
- Learned that Israel's Jews are more secular than Jews in the United States (surprising for someone that is used to seeing the Ultra-Orthodox communities in Brooklyn and the fully Jewish miracle system that is B&H Photo in Manhattan)
- A wonderful tour of the Holocaust museum by a South African Jew
- Learned more about the Kibbutz movement in Israel, its unfortunate fall, and the ways that many Kibbutz have changed in order to stay alive
- Saw the borders between Israel and neighboring Jordan, Syria and Lebanon
- Learned about the security fence between Israel and the West Bank: what it is and what it is NOT
- Experienced a typical market on Friday afternoon, booming as people prepare for Shabbat
- Saw how typical Israelis our age view their mandatory service in the IDF (Israel Defense Forces)
- Learned where areas of contention are in society, not solely between Jewish Israelis and Arab Israelis, but even between different sectors of the Jewish population
- Experienced how informal Israel society is: even in situations where we had to "dress up" it was still extremely dressed down from as we would be in the States (which if you know me, is a huge plus 1 for Israel!)
Overall, I owe a HUGE thanks to the my boss Jessica Havery for forwarding me this ADL application, and my wonderful professors Neil Donahue and Cindy Bogard for their stellar letters of recommendation. And then of course the ADL for bringing me to Israel to teach me so much for free!
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