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Birthright Alumni to Be Israel Advocates

In new ‘Diplomatic Fellowship’ program

by
Ari M. Brostoff
August 27, 2009

Birthright has unveiled a new initiative for alumni of the tour program who want to do advocacy work for Israel, Haaretz reports. The Israel Diplomatic Fellowship is being cosponsored by the Israeli consulate in New York. “the Foreign Ministry’s fingerprints are visible in the program’s stated goals of providing participants with ‘access to high-level Israeli officials and connecting them to young Israelis working as ambassadors for Israel,” the paper says. Birthright hasn’t previously employed participants directly in advocacy work, and indeed, one fellow in the new program told the paper that “Israel advocacy at Birthright did not work. We got images of the waving Israeli flag and 1980s music. It was hilariously bad.” Still, that didn’t stop him—or the other 90 alumni in the program—from signing up for the initiative, which offered them another freea subsidized trip to the Holy Land.

Ari M. Brostoff is Culture Editor at Jewish Currents.