Israel travel education

Scott Copeland

pp. 497-513

in: Helena Miller, Lisa Grant, Alex Pomson (eds), International handbook of Jewish education, Berlin, Springer, 2011

Abstract

Israel travel, particularly for students and young adults, has become a central rite of passage in Jewish communal life. With that said, the lion's share of the efforts around the rooting of Israel travel as an educational-communal norm have focused on the construction of umbrella organizations primarily concerned with financing, marketing, and recruitment. This chapter scans both some of the central elements that make up the current state of the field and also suggests a number of considerations towards the future. Cultivating Israel travel education as a unique branch of Jewish experiential learning, and as a dynamic, sophisticated meeting with the challenges of Israel, calls for moving from beyond the organizational to constructive work of articulating vision for practice. In building on existing achievements, Israel travel education should renew the emphasis on providing definitions for qualitative excellence, and on developing compelling educational expressions of Israel's foundational place in Jewish life – with all the celebration and challenges that this entails.