Birthright Students Break the Mold, Travel to the West Bank

By Miriam Berger, Assistant Features Editor

Cara Tratner Micah Weiss '10 makes his mark on the boundary between Israel and Palestinian territory.

As a leader of the University Taglit-Birthright trip to Israel this January, Micah Weiss ’10 felt a responsibility: to lead an optional extension trip beyond disputed borders in order to actively engage with Palestinian realities.

Taglit-Birthright, funded in part by the Israeli government and in part by American Jewish community groups, provides free ten-day informational trips to Jewish young adults. Nine of the 40 students who participated in this winter’s University trip extended their stay with Weiss, traveling to territories not often visited by Jewish tourists.

“I thought that it was important for there to be an additional part of the people’s first encounter with Israel,” Weiss said. “A big part of my relationship with Israel/Palestine has been trying to learn about all the voices, narratives, and situations of the many peoples in this land.”

With this in mind Weiss, a Religion and African American Studies major, organized a four-day extension to the trip, which offered participants a glimpse of the Palestinian territories of East Jerusalem and the West Bank—and the chance to speak firsthand with Israeli and Palestinian activists and civilians.

Cara Tratner ’12 considered the additional tours to the West Bank and East Jerusalem an opportunity to enhance her initial introduction to Israel.

“I felt incredibly unaware,” Tratner said. “I felt ignorant about the conflict and situation. I wanted to learn and try to gain as many perspectives as I could and to engage politically while I was there.”

Rachel Shopper ’10 viewed the extension component as a personal challenge.

“It seemed like the responsible thing to do politically and ethically,” Shopper said. “I got a real sense of the country in a way that is kind of hard to do when you are on this tourist agenda.”

Weiss, who has traveled to Israel and the West Bank several times, hoped the extension tour would dispel misconceptions about the region and help participants move beyond the physical separation that often clouds perceptions of the conflict.

On a day-tour of the West Bank with Grassroots Jerusalem—a progressive organization that connects tourists with activities in the West Bank— Weiss and the nine other students focused on engaging with multiple perspectives about the disputed territory.

The sovereignty of the West Bank region of the Jordan River, a densely populated Palestinian area that Israel occupied during the Six Day War of 1967, remains contested. Under the Oslo Accords of 1993, three administrative divisions in the West Bank were created, with varying levels of security and civil control split between the Palestinian Authority and Israeli government.

Traveling around Bethlehem, Jericho, and Ramallah, the group was struck by the separation between Israelis and Palestinians. According to Weiss, a car trip from Bethlehem to Ramallah should take around 40 minutes. However, for the average Palestinian, the trip can take up to two hours due to the poor condition of Palestinian roads and the severity of internal checkpoints.

Shopper recalled a moment in Jericho when a child helped her choose the ice cream bar with the most chocolate and then counted out the change with particular care.

“The underlying message for me was that, look, we aren’t thieves, we aren’t liars, we are good people, and we definitively aren’t terrorists,” she said. “It was the most humane moment of the whole trip.”

For Tratner, a visit to the Palestinian refugee camp of Dheisch, originally constructed as a temporary refuge southwest of Bethlehem during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, was the most powerful encounter.

“Tamir [the Grassroots Jerusalem tour guide] said to me that you aren’t responsible, that you can’t compare tragedies,” Tratner said, recalling scenes of impoverished and overcrowded living conditions. “I went in expecting to feel direct hostility towards me and American Jews.”

Aaron Kelley ’10 recalled a scene in Ramallah that reinforced the value of visiting the region and actively engaging with its residents. He was seated in a cab and temporarily lost on a side street in Ramallah when he watched as two young children on bicycles approached the vehicle.

“Micah [Weiss] said to me that this was the moment where we know whether we trust Tamir and everyone around us,” Kelly said. “The kids then came up to the car, asked us if we were okay and tried to be helpful.”

In addition to the West Bank trip, Weiss tried to expose participants to a blend of voices and viewpoints by scheduling meetings with NGOs and peace groups active in the region.

One such group was Encounter Programs, an educational organization that exposes Jews to Palestinian experiences through tours and information sessions. Students met with two Wesleyan alumnae, co-director Ilana Sumka ’94 and Rebecca Linden ’08.

Ir Amim (City of Peoples), a non-profit, briefed the students on a range of concerns, including separation barriers, annexation, municipal funding, settlement construction, house demolitions, and water shortages. The non-profit also provided context for how the geography and politics of Jerusalem directly affects its Palestinian residents.

The students also met with Zochrot (Remembrance), a group of Israeli citizens working to raise awareness about the Nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948.

Ibrahim Abu El-Hawa, a Bedouin Muslim peacemaker from Jerusalem also relayed a message of co-existence. Part of Abu El-Hawa’s story resonated personally with Maggie Cohen ’12.

“I was really touched when we were at Ibrahim’s house and he got really emotional about being racially profiled,” Cohen said. “It was really touching for me to go back to the privilege that my Jewish Israeli family has and contrast it to the Arab-Israeli experience. It was a moment that felt very real for me.”

For Leslie Pyne ’12, the extension offered a critical, but inconclusive, context for explaining the discrepancy between the trashed roads of Palestinian cities and the cleanliness of Israeli settlements next door.

“The most eye-opening experience was realizing that there is humanity on both sides of the wall,” Pyne said. “We met really amazing people wherever we went and it wasn’t an Israel/Palestine thing. The more people I spoke with the more complicated I found it all.”

These additional voices provided Elissa Martel ’10 the opportunity to engage with the region.

“For me, I felt pretty uncomfortable with just the idea of Birthright—with what it means and what it stands for and what I perceived as the larger meaning,” Martel said. “It’s hard to describe the experience—it was amazing, it was intense, it was emotional, it was political.”

While Weiss was honored to facilitate the Birthright ten-day tour of Israel, he felt that an independent extension trip to Palestinian areas was necessary for a more comprehensive understanding.

“Its complex, there are a lot of stories,” Weiss said. “In my opinion, though, that’s not an excuse to be complacent. It is important to recognize that both Israeli and Palestinian people have a history, a story and a right to the way they feel. But I don’t think the complexity of these intertwined realities is reason enough for complacency. By listening to multiple narratives we are breaking that mold.”
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