The Highest Example of Godliness
Koach’s Special Needs Trip to Israel
You remember the moments vividly, starkly clear against the backdrop of all other memories. The first time you stepped off an airplane onto the tarmac of Ben Gurion International Airport. Your first glimpse of the Kotel, golden in the sun. The heat and intensity of a tiny desert nation bearing down upon you. A place that was simultaneously totally foreign and totally home.
Since 2000, Koach has been uniquely privileged to accompany 17 busloads of young people on the journey of a lifetime, their first visit to their ancestral homeland. It’s hard to fathom. Taglit-Birthright Israel, which is a consortium of private donors, federations and the Israeli government, has funded visits for 200,000 young Jews over the past eight years, many of them disaffected and some even negatively disposed to all things Jewish, leaving their souls deeply touched and their identities transformed.
Standing in front of the biggest Jewish mosh pit in history at a Taglit-Birthright Israel Mega Event (the program brings thousands of participants together for a cultural event and a dance), a high-ranking official was heard to say that this powerful experience could be replicated anywhere and that Israel was almost superfluous to the moment. That idea is debatable – and you can be sure he was thrilled to offer the moment as it was, heavy with the richness of culture and history – but the value of giving young people the opportunity to share that moment together was not lost on him. It’s one thing to visit Israel with your parents. It’s entirely different to discover Israel in the company of your peers.
If the power of a peer Israel experience has been patently obvious, what has been less simple to formulate is how to open that idea up to serve populations for whom peer travel is more of a challenge, either physically or socially. Various organizations have offered programs for people with a variety of physical and or developmental limitations. Following discussions between Koach’s director, Richard Moline, and Camp Ramah in Wisconsin’s Rabbi David Soloff, in 2006 Koach made small inroads to fill this void by offering a Taglit-Birthright Israel track for participants with Asperger’s Syndrome. It was a logical outgrowth of the Tikvah program offered by Camp Ramah. Rabbi Soloff designated Rose Sharon, one of Tikvah’s coordinators, to help bring this dream to reality, and it proved to be a breathtaking success.
In the winter of 2008, in cooperation with Shorashim, an educational tourism company that handles ground arrangements, Koach proudly offered this opportunity again, to the delight of 17 participants and their parents.
The standard Taglit-Birthright Israel experience is a whirlwind tour, characterized by early mornings, late nights, close quarters, long bus rides, and all the Israel you can possibly take in (and then some!) in about 10 days. Much of this would pose a problem for participants with Asperger’s Syndrome, a developmental disorder on the autism spectrum. Characterized by difficulty with social interaction, poor nonverbal communication skills, and intense absorption in particular subjects, Asperger’s Syndrome creates real stumbling blocks to social networking. A travel program for participants with Asperger’s Syndrome would require a smaller group and higher staff ratio (the usual Taglit-Birthright Israel group has 40 participants and two American staff ), a shorter day, and an itinerary that opened the doors to Israel through museums rather than hiking, using such tools as drama and participatory learning.
The logistics for such an undertaking are not insignificant. Each participant and his or her parents must be interviewed extensively. His or her case workers, therapists, and life skills coordinators are consulted to confirm that the trip can be a successful experience. Detailed medication forms must be filled out to enable staff to administer drugs accurately. Participants who get to the departure city by air must be met at their gates and escorted to a waiting area. Itinerary elements must be reviewed and modified to ensure that they are a good fit. Staff must be experienced with this population, prepared to offer all the necessary supervision and to patiently answer questions – often the same questions, over and over again. (This phenomenon, known as perseverating, is a hallmark of Asperger’s Syndrome.)
Costs are also notable – while Taglit-Birthright Israel covers flight and most ground expenses, those costs are based on a larger participant/staff ratio. More staff – and specially trained staff at that – means extra expenses as well. So too does the additional programming that makes this trip work for this population. Where Taglit- Birthright Israel contributed a significant amount of money, we are grateful to the donors who provided the additional $20,000 needed to bring the trip to life.
On December 16, 2008, participants who came from across the Unites States, from Minneapolis to Tampa, were met at JFK International Airport by trip staff and United Synagogue staff volunteers. They gathered in the International Synagogue, hosted by the synagogue’s rabbi, Bennett Rackman. For many, this was a reunion with friends from their summers at Camp Ramah in Wisconsin. Others hung back on the periphery, reading books, listening to music, and waiting, sometimes patiently, sometimes less so. They passed the time chatting and snacking, celebrating a birthday, and playing getting- to-know-you games.
Finally it was time to go through security. Briefed in the details of Asperger’s Syndrome by Ms. Sharon, EL AL opened a separate check-in line for the group, speeding them through the process. Just a few snacks and sodas later, Rose and two additional North American staffers shepherded participants through security and their adventure began. Two additional madrichim (counselors), a tour guide, a medic, and three young Israelis awaited their arrival at the other end.
They could not have imagined what lay ahead. From shacharit at the Southern Wall with Rabbi Ed Romm, the director of the Center on Campus at United Synagogue’s Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center, to hiking up Masada, each day was a dream come true. They celebrated Hanukkah by lighting candles and eating sufganiot (donuts). They stood in Independence Hall and heard the founding of the state declared; they learned about the history of their people at the Time Elevator (where for the second time in as many trips, participants pointed out errors in the film). They lived and breathed Israel. By the end of the trip, one participant asked what kind of programs were available that would allow him to come back and spend the year. Another whispered to a member of the staff that when he dies, he wants to be buried in Israel. None of this comes as a surprise, until you consider that this is not your typical group of young Jews.
When two participants with physical challenges struggled to make it to the top of Masada, no one complained that they were holding everyone else back. Instead, the rest of the group waited at the top, shouting their encouragement and greeting them with raucous applause. Accustomed to being criticized for such delays, the participants glowed with delight over their welcome.
One young man was unable to pull his suitcase or carry it anywhere, from start to finish. Without being asked, another participant took charge of his luggage, along with his own, ensuring that he was never left to struggle alone.
And while in so very many ways this trip looked just like any other Taglit- Birthright Israel program, no other group attended an English-language performance of My FairLady performed by a troupe of Israeli actors with Asperger’s Syndrome. No other group spent its last day in Israel at Bet Ekstein, an organization providing services to people with intellectual and emotional challenges, particularly those with Asperger’s. Our travelers had the opportunity to meet and get to know Israelis with Asperger’s Syndrome, to celebrate Hanukkah with them with songs and games. It was an incredibly moving experience, validating for the participants, reassuring them that they are not alone.
In reflecting on their whirlwind tour, Ms. Sharon said, “We formed a community that was interested in Israel and wanted to make the most of every minute… Best of all – many of these kids are communicating with one another via facebook, email and phone. I have heard from several and they are still so excited about the trip and the friends they made.” Taglit-Birthright Israel refers to its program as a gift from the Jewish community. After just 10 minutes in this group’s company it becomes eminently clear that some gifts are better than others, even when the gift is the same.
There have been people in the Jewish community who have questioned Taglit-Birthright Israel’s merits. Should such a significant portion of our communal resources go toward a mere 10 days? In their book Ten Days of Birthright Israel, Leonard Saxe and Barry Chazan respond: “The program’s initial goals – to promote Jewish identity, create a sense of Jewish peoplehood, and to create love of Israel – have, at least in the short run, been met. Although the story of Birthright Israel’s long-term impact is yet to be written, and can only be discerned over the next decade, its short-term effects have far exceeded what its founding philanthropists [Charles] Bronfman and [Michael] Steinhardt could have hoped.”
You don’t have to be a social scientist to come to this conclusion. On his return from Israel, one participant asked his very secular parents if he could light Shabbat candles on Friday night. Flabbergasted, the parents agreed.
Susan Glass, the parent of a participant from Glenview, Illinois, wrote following the trip: “Our kids have never before and most likely will never again have the opportunity to travel with their peers (outside of the Tikvah day and camping trips). In fact, without Tikvah Wisconsin, Renee would not have a true peer group at all. What the school district, the state and social service agencies call her peer group is an administrative convenience, not a group of people she can meaningfully socialize with. Virtually Renee’s entire social and positive emotional life revolves around the friends she has from Tikvah, the memories of past summers and the anticipation of the next. Her now strong and proud Jewish identity is entirely due to Tikvah (try as we did, family and synagogue couldn’t do it, because she always felt left out) and the Koach trip. High functioning, developmentally disabled children and adults, almost never fit in anywhere – not with the normally developed community, not with the majority of the developmentally disabled community. And finding a right-fitting community of Jews is so much more remote a possibility. To surround them with loving, nurturing and skillful American and Israeli staff, a professional developmental curriculum of the highest order tailored to their specific needs, and infuse it with the unique magic of Jewish overnight camp and now a trip to Israel, or as Renee and her sisters now call it, the Holy Land, is surely among the highest examples of Godliness.”
Given the realities of the economy and the current condition of Jewish philanthropy, it’s hard to know when we will once again be able to offer this gift to young Jewish adults with Asperger’s Syndrome. That, of course, has no impact on the regular requests Koach fields for the next one, or the one for the current high school sophomore who can’t wait to come of age. What remains clear is that this is sacred and holy work, in which it is a privilege for us to take part.
Rabbi Elyse Winick is the associate director of Koach, United Synagogue’s program for college students.
