For a taste of how participants feel and reflect upon their Meor Israel experience, here is an article, originally published in The Jewish Voice & Herald, by one of our friends from last summer’s (2011) trip, when we partnered with Brown University. (This May we’re going for an all-Yale Israel trip which promises to be sublime in all its custom-made-for-Yale glory! Click here for more.) Below is the original text of the article and a link to the original as well. Enjoy!
Click here to go to the original article
Rediscovering my Jewish identity
By Nava Winkler
Tuesday, 20 September 2011 02:48
Israel program reinforces desire for Jewish connections
This past summer, I was given the opportunity to take part in an amazing program in Israel called MEOR, which is Hebrew for “light.” My initial reasoning for participating in MEOR was its attractive cost ($500 for the entire program including roundtrip airfare), but by the end of the first week, I was thoroughly impressed.
For two-and-one-half weeks we were based in a four-star hotel in Jerusalem, only a 10-minute walk from the Old City. In the mornings, we heard lectures on different Jewish topics; in the afternoons, we traveled to different sites in Israel. Our speakers came from a variety of backgrounds and provided an atmosphere of open discussion. I was fortunate to be part of a group of bright students from Brown, Stanford, Berkeley, Yale and Northwestern universities. Although most of us were non-observant Jews, we all shared a sense of relief at having an outlet to discuss all of our deepest questions about Judaism.
Two years ago, I was 20 and exhausted; I had finished my military service in Israel and was eager to start a new chapter of my civilian life. Although I had just gone through a challenging period, I realized that I was as clueless about my identity as any other fresh face on campus. The question, “but who am I really?!” was the dominant theme of my first two years of college, and this struggle led me to courses with cliché titles, such as “On Being Human” and “Existentialism,” which I tackled with such urgency you’d think I was on death row. The feeling only increased after a friend of mine died. He had also been a former IDF soldier who moved to Rhode Island to study at Brown University. His tragic death caused me to reevaluate my life and what was truly important to me.
I focused my attention during this period on many different aspects of my identity, but there was one in particular that I had trouble figuring out on my own: my relationship to Judaism.
While growing up in Rhode Island, I would have called Judaism my most cherished association. It had characterized my set of values, provided me with a supportive community and gave me an outlet for my spirituality. But sometime during my travels, Judaism had lost its hold on me. For a while, I reveled in the relief of aimlessness, but by the time I returned to Providence from my military service in Israel, I had grown tired of feeling rootless. I felt less like a “free bird” and more like a “free balloon.”
During the MEOR trip, I was able to express this deep-seated urge to redefine what Judaism meant to me because there was a supportive atmosphere to ask all the questions for which I needed answers. Not only did MEOR successfully juggle Jewish learning with sightseeing, it was so carefully designed that it managed to hold the attention of 24 cynical students from several of America’s most prestigious universities. My fellow students impressed me; although we had diverse personalities and backgrounds, everyone was deeply curious and engaged in discussions of their Jewish identities. Some, like me, were already thinking about these issues before the program began, but for most, these concerns were newly revealed during the trip.
My desire to learn more about my Judaism stayed with me, even as I traveled back to Rhode Island. I plan to continue my Jewish learning throughout this fall semester and stay in touch with the friends I have made on the trip.
I am thankful to those individuals who designed the MEOR program and to the generous donors who make such a highly valuable trip affordable. I also owe much to the kind and supportive staff and to an amazing group of people who shared their insights and stories with me. Although I am still grappling with questions of identity, I am thankful to at least have Judaism back on the radar.
Nava Winkler, a junior at Brown University, is a resident of Pawtucket.
Contact her at nava_winkler@brown.edu.