Birthright Study: Trips Have Powerful Impact on Continuity

Jacob Berkman
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

NEW YORK

LEONARD SAXE

Birthright Israel is hinging a major fundraising push on a new study that says that the program, which sends young Jews on free 10-day trips to Israel, has a major impact on Jewish continuity.

The study, released last week by Brandeis University's Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies, found that those who participated on Birthright trips are more likely to have stronger connections to Israel, raise their children as Jews and belong to a synagogue than their peers who have not made a Birthright trip.

Titled "Generation Birthright Israel: The Impact of an Israel Experience on Jewish Identity and Choices," the study is based on interviews with some 1,200 young people who applied for Birthright trips between 2001 and 2004 -- two-thirds of whom went on the trips, the rest whose applications were denied. The survey compared the answers of the two groups.

Of the 500 or so interviewed who are now married, some 72 percent who made the trip married Jews, while 46 percent of those who did not married Jews. This means that Birthright participants were 57 percent more likely to marry within the faith, according to Len Saxe, the head of the Cohen Center and the researcher who oversaw the survey.

When the study's results were presented publicly last week at a Brandeis-owned building on Manhattan's Upper East Side, the head of the Boston federation hailed Birthright as the only successful recent big idea in the Jewish community.

"People are looking for the next big thing; we ain't finding no other big thing at this level," said Barry Shrage, CEO of Combined Jewish Philanthropies.

North American Jewish federations are partners in Birth-right along with the Israeli government and private philanthropists.

One requisite for launching the program in 1999 was that it incorporates rigorous controls to gauge if it was working; the study is part of that effort.

Although Birthright paid for the study, Saxe said that as a tenured professor at Brandeis, he felt no pressure to find certain results to placate his funders.

The Cohen Center that Saxe heads also houses the Steinhardt Social Research Institute, funded by Michael Steinhardt, one of the philanthropists who gives to Birthright.

'Change Happened'
Saxe and Birthright officials acknowledge that there is a great deal of fundraising that hinges on his study's findings.

A number of Birthright's benefactors were in attendance last week, among them Steinhardt and Charles Bronfman, who are credited with founding the program, as well as Lynn Schusterman and Michael Bohnen, who runs the foundation of Birthright's largest funder, casino mogul Sheldon Adelson.

Immediately after Saxe had presented his findings, Steinhardt, Bronfman and Schusterman stood in a question-and-answer session, and made a pitch for more money from more people based on Saxe's results.

"I think this is a great report," said Bronfman. "Thirty years ago, we started hearing about the importance of informal Jewish education, and nothing happened. Then about continuity, and nothing happened. Then Birthright comes along, and change happened."

Steinhardt took a dig at the Jewish organizational establishment as he pointed to evidence of the program's success.

Birthright "was overwhelmingly disliked by the midstream and by the institutional Jewish world," he said. "Jews around the world should be appalled by the level of education in the non-Orthodox Jewish world. It has to be very different, and I don't hear anything different today. You ask about the impact of Jewish philanthropy -- well, the impact has been 'gornisht.' "

The Birthright Israel Foundation, which oversees the approximately $80 million in private money that will flow into the project this year, is now seeking more money from smaller donors, and specifically from the federation system.

It is still one of the best-funded Jewish philanthropic endeavors, but its budget has fallen in the past year. The program received a huge boost with $70 million in gifts from Adelson in 2007 and 2008, giving it a budget of $80 million in 2007 and $100 million in 2008. In 2009, the budget fell back to $80 million. The group expects a similar budget for 2010.

Birthright is attempting to make up for the drop in funding from Adelson and bring enough new money to grow the program so that by 2016, it can offer 51 percent of all Jews aged 18 to 26 a free trip to Israel at some point.

Birthright says that it's now reaching about 25 percent of that age group.

"Our No. 1 job is don't leave 20,000 kids on the ground each year," Shrage said of those who cannot go because spots are limited. "How can federations look themselves in the eye? These kids aren't coming back. This is our shot. This study gives us the tool to do that.

"If we act now," continued Shrage, "we are blessed. If not, it is another example of our failing."