Skip to Content, Navigation, or Footer.
Support the IDS in College Media Madness! Donate here March 24 - April 8.
Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

Birthright Israel trip emphasizes connections to country, other students

IU students who attended the Winter 2016 Birthright Israel trip through IU Hillel pose for a photo at Masada in the Judean Desert. In the winter, about 40 students attend the Birthright Israel trip, while the summer trips take about 80 students.

In less than a month, 80 students fly to Israel where they will spend 10 days traveling throughout the country.

The goal is not solely religious but also to integrate IU students with the culture of Israel.

“This trip allows students to find the Judaism they connect to,” IU Hillel Assistant Director Megan Garrett said. “Sometimes that’s through religious experience, sometimes that’s through meeting other IU students with this commonality.”

The IU Helene G. Simon Hillel Center trip takes place through the umbrella organization Birthright Israel. Birthright Israel provides Jewish young adults with a free trip to Israel.

The IU Hillel Birthright Israel trip takes place twice a year, in the winter and summer, Garrett said.

During the trip, the group is packed into buses, Garrett said. Each bus holds about 40 students. In addition to the students, each bus also has a tour guide and Israeli soldiers. Garrett said the soldiers are around the same age of the students and they take a break from the Israel Defense Forces to attend the trip with the 
students.

This allows students to connect with Israelis their own age and other IU students, Israel fellow Yotam Elias said.

“They have those friends for the rest of this life,” Garrett said.

Tyler Goblirsch, a junior studying informatics, went on the winter 2016 trip. He said meeting Israeli soldiers not much older than him was the best part of the trip.

He described how the lives of the IU students and IDF soldiers are so similar and 
different at the same time. He said soldiers go into the IDF right after high school but are not hardened soldiers, and it was sobering to see how similar he was to the soldiers.

“Our bus was a community,” Goblirsch said. “It made me reconnect with the Jewish aspects of my life.”

In addition to meeting Israeli soldiers, students will tour educational and historical places in Israel. They visit the Western Wall in Jerusalem, explore the day and night culture in Tel Aviv and make smaller stops to see Israeli culture. Garrett said they are part of a program that provides the students with higher level experiences. Last summer, students went rafting in the Jordan River.

Becky Zaguli, a senior studying marketing, attended the winter 2016 trip with Goblirsch. She said she recommends the trip to anyone who has the ability to go.

For her, the best part of the trip was seeing Jerusalem and being able to experience all the places she had heard about before.

“You think about it, and you hear about it, but until you’re actually there, you don’t understand what it’s actually like to be home,” 
she said.

Sophomore Morgan Rinder voiced a similar opinion. She attended the summer 2016 trip and said she believes it is important for students to experience the country they have heard so much about.

She had been to Israel before, but she said the Birthright Israel trip was special because she got to see the big tourist sights and the smaller cultural sights one normally wouldn’t see.

“Actually getting to be there and experience it firsthand makes it more special to you and more important than just some place that you heard of,” she said.

Elias said the trip is both fun and educational for students. In his position as the Israel fellow, part of his job is to strengthen the connections to Israel for students on campus. Once students come back they not only have a stronger connection to the country, but they also have a group of people in Bloomington who went through the same experiences they did, Garrett said.

“It’s also helpful for the them to build their own Jewish identity,” Elias said. “It’s a journey that they begin in just ten days that goes for a 
lifetime.”

Get stories like this in your inbox
Subscribe