Of course, not all Birthright participants have quite as positive an experience. Steven Blum, who went in the winter of 2008-09, expected a fun trip that would also help him understand what it means to be a Jew, and might include some discussion of Israel/Palestine. What he found was a maze of “propaganda” that didn’t accommodate critical thinking. In his view, participants were told what to feel at major stops along the way, like Masada, where Israeli soldiers talked about their experience defending the contested land.
This is still how I feel. I wish someone would re-vamp this program and make it more like these programs.
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