Taglit-Birthright Israel

exactly.

I mean, exogen is one thing, but I think, you know, in the newsroom, one of the big questions that journalists are trained to respond to is, do you have bias, and are you able to tell this story? So, you know, can you cover Black Lives Matter if you're a black person, you're too close to it? These are the kinds of things that journalists have had to deal with, right? Now, they never ask you, did you go on Birthright, right? Which is also a fully funded propaganda trip, right? It's not seen, it's not even in the mindset of the editorial crew to ask this question or to think about it as being biased.

So I don't even think we've gotten here, even after all of these years, to ask this question of your reporting team.

And so there is this very powerful Zionist capture of the Holocaust as being the thing that will prevent anyone from asking any questions.

So a year into the genocide.

So they were still not willing to look inward and ask hard questions of themselves.

My managing editor at The Breach, Martin Lukacs, likes to tell a story about his own experience going on Birthright Tour as a late teenager, I feel like.

It was almost maybe end of high school.

I did taglit.

I didn't like it.

Not Israel, but Taglit.

I left.

So for all the people out there that had a bad experience with Taglit, you should come back.

by yourself that would also be good, you know? And then I came back for holidays and I thought, okay, let's test.

Let's try it for a couple of months.

And I left Israel that summer really... decidedly uh negating my relationship to that place as a homeland and i think i was very you know i carried a lot of anger for a number of years and i felt very isolated in this political stance that i took and so when i saw David Berman, who I really idolized, sort of what I imagined is going through some of the stereotypical ways that young Jews fall in love with that place.

At that time, there was also, you know, Birthright happening.

He wasn't on Birthright in any way, he was on a tour, but I was so disgusted with that program and everything it represented.

And he has this like really stunning moment at the hotel where he just breaks down crying.

And, you know, it's like when you idolize a poet, songwriter, and you feel, you know, their lyrics are your lyrics or your emotions.

All of them were shut down.

But the one that stood out to me, especially contrasted with the recent Birthright Israel episode, is that she said they keep us far away from anything like that.

It really made me wonder just how much information the average person has in the States about what's really happening or what's really happening on Birthright.

Anyways, I just wanted to ramble a little bit on my personal experience with this topic.

Max was small in stature, 5'4", but what he lacked in size he made up for in courage.

A 2012 Taglit birthright trip to Israel, taken at age 22, changed the course of Max's life and inspired him to consider making Aliyah and enlisting in the IDF.

Despite attempts by the IDF to dissuade Max to enlist in a combat unit, Max was determined to join the Golani infantry unit and ultimately did.

Serving in Gaza in Operation Protective Shield in 2014, Max understood the danger he had undertaken.

This is sort of an unbelievably, a, like, in-depth email, and actually covers a couple of things, like some of the, the data around, like, abortion and how the State of Israel actually covers a lot of these procedures.

'Cause, uh, this episode is gonna be a lot about Birthright, and in doing my episode about Birthright in particular, I realized just how natalist-focused the State of Israel is.

Like, I knew, but I didn't quite understand, you know? Like, doing this really, uh, illustrated to me just how important it is across, like, the culture of the society.

But this is a, a, a amazing email.

And that's not specific to Israel, either.

Obviously, in Israel, the ultra-Orthodox are a significant constituency, but I mean, I, I live in New York, and down here in Brooklyn, uh, there are neighborhoods of the Haredim who, they've got so many [laughs] kids.

There, there's several big factors, but, uh, some of the most important ones, I think, are, like, the, the contributions of what the Birthright program does and the broad culture that prioritizes having children to grow Israel's Jewish population.

And obviously, in our first season, where we talked mostly about Christian natalism, lots and lots of parallels here.

For those who don't know, she's written, she's like the most successful romantasy author, perhaps like the most success- one of the most successful authors period right now, um, and Jewish.

And her crime was that she went to the Kotel on Birthright, so like a million years ago, and she put, [laughs] she said that she put two prayers in the wall, one for peace and one that she get published.

And, you know, she's sold 10 million copies of her books.

So I feel like one, [laughs] one is a win, right?