BirthWrong explores Jewish culture outside Israel

In May, BirthWrong gave students the opportunity to travel to Spain to learn about communism, the Spanish Civil War, and Jewish culture outside of Israel.

BirthWrong was founded by the left-wing British organization Jewdas as a response to Taglit-Birthright Israel, an organization that takes Jews aged 18 to 26 on a free trip to Israel.

In 1999, Charles Bronfman and Michael Steinhardt — then 65 and 56, respectively — founded Birthright with the goal of connecting young Jews in the diaspora to Jewish history in Israel.

In a 2011 interview with The Nation, Bronfman said he felt Jews must have an “emotional and physical attachment to Israel” in order to be “complete.”

The trip fulfills its mission for students like Ariel Sobel, a junior at the University of Southern California.

“I really enjoyed [Birthright],” Sobel said. “It was really positive.”

Not everyone who’s been on Birthright saw it as a positive experience, though. Birthright’s reputation for educating participants with a strong conservative bias has made several students feel uncomfortable, with some questioning its Zionist teachings.

“Birthright really troubles me in a number of ways,” said Aaron Madow, Haverford ’14.

Madow, who went on Birthright in 2011-12, added that he feels Birthright puts forward “singular narratives” about Jewish identities.

“Birthright is like Zionism 101, but it’s really right-wing Zionism 101,” he said.

“It presents itself as an intro to Zionism writ large when it’s actually a very narrow version of Zionism and Jewish self-determination that’s being offered.”

But now, left-wing Jews concerned about Birthright’s teachings have alternatives to choose from, such as Birthright Unplugged, founded in 2005, and now BirthWrong.

Starting in Sevilla, BirthWrong’s first participants celebrated May Day and Kabbalat Shabbat with a progressive Jewish community, visited a communist village and toured Spanish Civil War sights. The trip aims to give Jews insight into Jewish culture unrelated to Israel, and advertises itself as “a trip for anyone who’s sick of Israel’s stranglehold on Jewish culture.”

According to Sobel, removing the focus from Israel could be problematic.

“There’s nothing wrong with looking at Jewish culture in different places, but it is deeply centered in [Israel],” Sobel said. “It is the only place Jews have … that connection.”

While Jewish history is intertwined with Israel’s, BirthWrong says there’s more to Jewish identity.

For Jewdas’s Joseph Finlay, the group’s ultimate goal is to show young Jews that they can own their Judaism any way they want.

In an interview Finlay gave to Mondoweiss in 2006, he said the organization aims to “reopen the debate on who owns Judaism, who has the right to speak for the Jewish community and who is a Jew.”

BirthWrong’s focus on the Jewish experience all over the world speaks to many students, providing them a space other than Birthright to discuss their identities.

“It’s really inspiring that these kids are getting together and saying that there is more to the diaspora,” Madow said.

“A singular narrative of what Jewish identity can be utterly estranged from the diverse lived experiences of different social groups in and outside of Israel.”

 

Nicole Zelniker is a student at Guilford College.