When Melanie Lubin told her friends she was going to Israel last week, “They said things like, ‘I hope you don’t die.’ “
Lubin, who is a high school senior from Sharon, Mass., was representing Young Judaea as one of 21 teens from a variety of youth groups participating in a special trip under the auspices of the federation system and the North American Alliance for Jewish Youth.
Lubin, who returned on Monday, said she had been nervous about going and felt a bit skittish before a group dinner at a Tel Aviv restaurant.
But she is convinced that it is safe for American Jews to travel to Israel on group tours and she wants to encourage her friends to do likewise.
Her trip came as the prospects for summer teen programs in Israel are grim, with registrations the lowest they have been in the past generation.
In fact, Lubin’s trip concluded just as a major teen program — the March of the Living, which brings teen-agers to Poland and then to the Jewish state — was announcing the cancellation of the Israel segment of its trip.
And last week’s youth leadership trip took a substantially smaller group than the 37 initially slated to go, with many teens and parents nervous about the wave of terrorist attacks in the preceding days.
As teens finalize their summer plans, Israel programs — hit hard last year by the intifada — continue to suffer from concerns about terrorism.
Most major providers of Israel programs — from the Reform movement to the Jewish Community Centers Association to the Orthodox National Conference for Synagogue Youth — are continuing to run programs this summer, but amid uncertainty and very heavy security measures.
Among the security measures:
All programs organizers interviewed said teens will have virtually no free time in urban areas and will not be allowed to travel on their own.
Programs will consult daily with government officials and the Jewish Agency for Israel to ensure that itineraries are safe.
Programs will be in frequent contact with parents during the trips, most of them manning 24-hour phone lines parents can call if they concerned about anything.
Many are housing participants outside Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The Reform movement, which canceled its teen trips last summer due to security concerns, will house teens only in kibbutz guest houses, which it feels are safer than other accommodations.
Despite the precautions, registration numbers are down dramatically from pre-intifada levels, and in some cases from last year. Most programs have been forced to cut staff significantly and to rely on financial subsidies from parent organizations.
Echoing virtually all major providers, Yuval Koren, director of JCC Maccabi Experience Israel Programs said, “We’re struggling financially how to keep this program going, but the decision was made at the board” of the Jewish Community Centers Association of North America and Maccabi that “we’re going ahead.”
Jules Gutin, director of the Conservative movement’s United Synagogue Youth, said the group’s Israel programs “operated at a substantial loss last summer,” subsidized by the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.
However, the movement is reluctant to “dismantle our infrastructure, because if you do, it could take years to build it back up.”
Among the losses in registration:
Young Judaea, a Zionist youth movement under the auspices of Hadassah: The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, expects to send 100 teens this summer, compared to 200 last year, and an average of 1,000 each summer before the intifada.
The Reform movement’s North American Federation of Temple Youth hopes to send “a couple hundred” teens this summer, according to officials, compared to almost 1,500 in the summer of 2000. Only 80 are signed up so far.
Before the intifada, Young Judaea and NFTY were the largest providers of teen travel to Israel, together accounting for 40 percent of North American teens on summer trips there.
The JCC Maccabi Experience Israel Programs expects to send 70 teens, the same as last year, but down from pre-intifada levels of 600.
The Orthodox Union’s Israel touring program for public school students is hoping for 45 participants, compared to over 100 in previous years. Its study programs for day school students expects 140 to 180 participants, down considerably from pre-intifada levels but about the same as last year.
The Conservative movement’s United Synagogue Youth, expects 175, compared to 285 last year, and between 450 and 650 in recent pre-intifada years.
With so many parents reluctant to send their teens to Israel, many groups are expanding teen programming outside of the Jewish state.
For example, the Orthodox Union, Reform movement and Conservative movements are offering European travel programs, which are full or almost full.
Enrollment at the Reform movement’s teen leadership camp in the United States is up considerably. For the first time, the Orthodox Union is offering a travel program in the United States.
The Conservative movement is actually facing lower enrollment for its USY On Wheels, a cross-United States travel program, which it attributes to the Sept. 11 attacks.
However, the movement is also offering, for the first time — a pre-college summer school program, which is filled to capacity, at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.
Young Judaea is making a point of not offering Israel alternatives.
“It’s inconsistent with our ideology to set up programs that overtly compete with sending kids to Israel,” said Doron Krakow, national director of Young Judaea.
“As long as we can run Israel trips responsibly with attention to safety, that’s where we’re going to urge our members to go.”
With recruitment so challenging, groups are trying different strategies.
The Conservative movement’s USY recently sent 16 parents on a trip to Israel, hoping they could convince other parents of the safety.
The JCCA’s Koren said recruitment is “very personal now.”
“We’re talking with parents and kids — they’re not just picking up a brochure. There’s a lot of questions and dialogues with parents and kids.”
Young Judaea’s Krakow said his group is “pulling out all the stops from a marketing standpoint, but the long and short of the situation is that people simply aren’t calling.”
Instead of reaching out broadly, the group is focusing its recruitment efforts on kids who are already heavily involved in Jewish activities and thus deemed the most likely to see an Israel trip as important.
The groups say the security measures will not significantly affect the educational agenda or fun of the programs.
“We hope kids will be accomplishing 90 percent or more of what we’ve done in the past,” said Paul Reichenbach, director of Israel programs for the Reform movement’s Union of American Hebrew Congregations.
Lubin said her first trip to Israel — a Young Judaea program last summer — was “incredible,” despite the security restrictions.
“We couldn’t go to Tel Aviv or Ben Yehuda,” Lubin said, referring to the pedestrian mall in downtown Jerusalem. “We did different things but very special things. I don’t think the security affected how much fun it was.”
But with the situation in Israel changing daily, the program providers are clearly uncertain about what is in store this summer, with most acknowledging the possibility that programs may need to be canceled if the situation in Israel escalates further.
One professional, who did not want his name or organization’s name mentioned, said, “I’m troubled by some of the ‘it’s business as usual’ talk about sending kids to Israel. It’s not business as usual. It’s an extraordinarily difficult time and parents are right to be concerned.”
USY’s Gutin said, “If at any time we feel it’s not possible, we won’t run the programs.”
In the event of cancellation, USY is developing back-up plans for this summer’s registrants, promising to place them in North American or European programs “should the necessity arise.”
Daniel Schonbuch, national educational director of NCSY, said that it is important to continue programs and “not to let Arafat win.”
However, when asked if the trips might be canceled under any circumstances, he said, “If the Jewish Agency decides the program is too dangerous, then we’ll decide not to continue with it.”
That was the decision of the March of the Living officials.
Since 1988, the March of the Living has sent teens to Poland for Holocaust Remembrance Day, where they retrace the death march from Auschwitz to Birkenau. The teens then go to Israel for Israel’s Memorial Day and Independence Day.
The program’s goal, according to its official Web site, is “for these young people to learn the lessons of the Holocaust and to lead the Jewish people into the future vowing, ‘Never Again.'”
Many — including Joseph Breman, the chair of the North American Alliance — are criticizing the March of the Living’s Israel cancellation, saying it sends a message that “a Jewish teen is safer in Poland than in Jerusalem.”
No one from the March of Living was available to comment.
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