Returning from Israel with a bad taste in their mouths
There are stickers with Michigan spelled out phonetically in Hebrew characters, Jewish bling abounds and satisfying a falafel craving isn’t hard to do: Welcome to the University of Michigan.
For a lot of seniors, the beginning of the school year means being back in Ann Arbor for the first time in eight months–for others that hiatus was spent where hummus and shawarma are plentiful and shekels are the preferred form of currency. It seems only natural for these students to return even more in love with Israel than when they left. Eight months later and with much-improved Hebrew skills, two U of M students, Ben Wolf and Alyse Opatowski returned with a perspective that perplexes the creators of the programs that sent them to Israel–frustrated and disenchanted with Israel.