Rabbi Mordechai Weiss
Rabbi Guide
As written in
The Jewish Voice and Opinion
July 2008
Now a Licensed Israeli Tour Guide, Rabbi Mordechai Weiss Revels
in Showing Birthright Participants Their Jewish Homeland
Six years ago, Rabbi Mordechai Weiss
headed the Chabad House in Teaneck and directed Friends of Lubavitch
of Bergen County. Then, in 2002, he, his
wife, Ellie, and their 10 children made aliyah. Today, there are 14 Weisses (they
have had two more children, both sabras) residing in Mitzpeh Yericho, and Rabbi
Weiss is a licensed Israeli tour guide.
While he loves showing individual
tourists and families the nooks and crannies of his adopted homeland, he has
found guiding young adult participants in the Taglit-Birthright Israel program a
perfect way to put his new profession in the service of his first priority: Impacting
individuals who, more often than not, have absolutely no connection to Israel
or Judaism.
“It’s an opportunity I treasure to experience,” he says.
His first experience with TaglitBirthright Israel came in the summer
of 2006, just before the outbreak of the Second Lebanon War. Rabbi Weiss, in
the middle of his tour-guide course, was hired by Oranim College, a school
of education in Tivon near Haifa, to put together itineraries for Birthright groups.
To accomplish this, it was necessary to spend some time traveling with the
groups coming to Israel.
Joint Effort
Founded in 2000 by philanthropists Charles Bronfman and Michael
Steinhardt, in cooperation with the Israeli government, the Jewish Agency,
and Jewish communities throughout the
world, Taglit-Birthright Israel was created to send young Jewish adults, ages
18-26, from throughout the Diaspora on
a free 10-day trip to Israel in recognition of their birthright to the land.
There are some stipulations. Participants must be post-high school and may
not have been on any earlier organized
trip to Israel. Vacations with family do not disqualify, but participants may not
have lived in Israel after the age of 12.
To be eligible for this free gift, a
young person must be recognized as Jewish by the Jewish community or by one
of the recognized denominations of Judaism. The young person is eligible if either
parent is Jewish and the applicant does not actively practice another religion.
An Introduction
While the Birthright trips include visits to historical, religious, and cultural
heritage sites around the country, including in Jerusalem, the Negev, the Dead
Sea, Tel Aviv, and the Galilee, the tour
is not meant to offer an exhaustive education of Israel and the land. Rather, the
founders saw it as an introduction, hoping participants would be encouraged to
extend their stay in Israel or return again
on their own.
To give this overview of Israel, the
founders brought together top educators, historians, and tourism professionals to
devise logistical, educational, and security standards so that Birthright Israel
could accomplish its three major goals:
to diminish the growing division between Israeli and Diaspora Jewish communities; to enhance the sense of Jewish
solidarity; and to strengthen participants’ personal Jewish identity and connection
to the Jewish people.
By any standard, the Birthright project has been a success. In many communities, the experience of participating in
a Birthright trip to Israel has become a
normative part of Jewish coming-of-age, and there is often an overwhelming
demand for spots on the trips in all the countries in which the program operates.
Spots are often filled within two days of
the beginning of registration and wait-lists are the norm.
In 2007, Miriam and Sheldon Adelson pledged $60 million to Birthright
Israel to take applicants off waiting lists
and to increase annual capacity from 25,000 to 37,000 in 2007 and 2008.
160,000
By this summer, Birthright will have spent more than $200 million on trips to
Israel taken by more than 160,000 young Jews from more than 52 countries, but
70 percent of trip participants are from the United States.
Rabbi Weiss agrees that the free trip is the key to the success of Birthright’s
recruiting efforts.
“Still, more than 160,000 participants is an impressive number,” he says,
pointing out that many of the young people who take advantage of the gift and
actually make the trip must “overcome
personal safety concerns and, quite often, pressure from friends and family not
to take the chance.”
Sounds of War
When the Second Lebanon War broke out, he and the Hillel Birthright
group from California he was accompanying were touring Israel’s northern border. On the first day of the war, the group
was enjoying “a fun-filled water hike in the Jordan River.”
“Most of us were still unaware of what was transpiring only a few miles away,” he says.
Not that they didn’t hear the sounds of war. But, as Rabbi Weiss recalls, “the
sound of distant tank-fire is not necessarily uncommon background noise in this
part of Israel.”
Nearby army bases are often involved in different training drills, he says.
Not a Drill
But this time, the continuous booming was no drill, and as news of what was
happening reached Birthright officials and the world at large, plans had to be changed
quickly. Instead of traveling to Safed, which had already been hit by Katyusha
missiles, the group decided it would be safer to spend Shabbat in Tiberius.
“As you can imagine, security is always a very serious concern on any
Birthright trip, with many precautions taken, such as providing a 24-hour armed
guard. Try to imagine what happens if a war breaks out. Security is increased in
direct proportion to the concerns of parents back in the states, worrying about
their children traveling around Israel, often for their very first time. We decided
to go to Tiberius because what ever happens in Tiberius?” says Rabbi Weiss.
But this time, on Shabbat, Tiberius, too, was hit by a Katyusha missile, which fell in the general area of the hotel being
used by the Birthright tour.
“After a real Israeli experience of spending a few hours in the hotel’s bomb
shelter, the group was evacuated to Tel Aviv,” says Rabbi Weiss.
From there, the trip, despite the ongoing war, proceeded as scheduled.
Not as Dramatic
Last month, Rabbi Weiss took another group of Birthright participants on a
tour which he says was “thankfully not as dramatic.” It was his first opportunity to
serve as an official Birthright tour guide.
“Thank G-d, we are celebrating Israel’s 60th birthday and the tourists are
coming,” he says.
His says his experience with the Birthright group—youngsters from the
University of Colorado Chabad House was “indescribable, one which I will
never forget.”
Official Organizers
Birthright trips are often geared for individual groups, such as graduate or
undergraduate students, especially those affiliated with the school’s Hillel, and,
more frequently, the campus Chabad.
Jewish organizations which are approved by Taglit-Birthright Israel are
authorized to operate the trips. Their responsibilities include recruitment, determining eligibility, conducting interviews,
establishing the itinerary, and hiring the staff. Hillel and NCSY are among the
many organizers, which generally have representatives in the Diaspora country
and Israel.
Just recently, the Mayanot Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, a school
which attracts young Jews from around the world who wish to explore Jewish learning while experiencing Israel,
teamed up with many Diaspora campus
