My Taglit Birthright Israel Experience
by Rachel Murray

From Christmas to Passover and everything in between, my parents, brother, and I celebrated the whole gamut of holidays while I was growing up. We didn't attend church. We didn't attend synagogue. I didn't learn about religion. I didn’t care about religion. My father's background is Irish Catholic and my mother's is Ashkenazi Jewish. Both of my parents rebelled against their religions while growing up. The end result was our household and family being completely devoid of religion. My parents always told my brother and me that if we ever felt the need to learn about a religion or go to a place of worship, they would take us — I never felt the need.

A few years ago, I met a Conservative Jewish boy who is now my fiancé. It's a good thing that I come from a “Jewish” family and have a “Jewish” mother, because otherwise, my fiancé, like any good Jewish boy, probably wouldn't have started dating me!

About six months ago, I was asked, during a discussion with my fiancé's parents, “Do you consider yourself Jewish?” I thought to myself, “What does it mean to be Jewish? What do you have to believe in? What do you have to do? What do you have to know?” At the time that I was asked, I felt that I couldn't confidently answer “yes,” because, honestly, I didn't know the first thing about what “being Jewish” even meant, and I didn't feel the slightest connection to any religion, including Judaism.

In May, my brother, two cousins, fiancé, and I set off on our Taglit-Birthright Israel trip. Even though I didn't feel Jewish or consider myself Jewish, I decided that I couldn't pass up a FREE trip — after all, I do love traveling! I figured that going to Israel would be like any other trip I've been on — I've been to Europe, I've been to Mexico, Canada, Jamaica... I was pretty sure my memories of this trip would be much like my memories of my other trips — enjoyable, beautiful, fun. Then I would come home to life as I knew it before I left, and carry on my day-to-day lifestyle with a couple memories of the trip and maybe a few souvenirs. Eventually the souvenirs would break and the memories would fade.

When I first got to Israel, my first perception was that it was quite different from America. It looked different, it smelled different, the cars were different, the food was different. I couldn't understand why, when I spoke to people who live in America about Israel, they always had this strong sense of Israeli nationalism. “Israel is amazing!” they would tell me. “You have to go to Israel. Israel is the best country!” For the life of me, I couldn't figure out why people were so passionate about it!

As I continued on my Birthright trip, I started to realize that I was really enjoying not just the trip but Israel in general. Our tour guide was enthusiastic, passionate, and knowledgeable. We did so much and saw so much in the 10 days of the tour! We went north to the Golan Heights, camped in Bedouin tents in the desert, crawled through caves, climbed Masada and watched a sunrise, experienced nightlife in Tel Aviv, ate falafel in our tour guide’s house in Be'er Sheva, floated in the Dead Sea, listened to newspaper headlines on Shabbat in Tiberias, ate Schwarma in Tzfat, learned about the Holocaust in Yad Vashem, perused the Jewish quarter in Old Jerusalem, met seven Israeli soldiers who stayed with us for five days, and rafted down the Jordan River — just to name a few of the activities!

I have heard from a lot of people that the Western Wall is a very touching place to visit. I always wondered how a wall could be so interesting. After all, it's not a building, it's a single wall! Call me a skeptic, but what is so moving about ONE wall?! But, as I started to walk closer and closer to the wall, I started to feel energy. Swirling all around me. In the air, in my body, everywhere. There were women bowing, some had tears in their eyes, some were silently mouthing prayers. The closer I got to the wall, the more energy I felt. By the time I was able to touch the wall and look straight up at the individual blocks and the crystal clear blue sky, the feelings I had were overwhelming. It was quiet there. There was a little breeze rustling the plant life growing through some of the cracks. I rested my head on a little piece of the 2,000-year-old wall, and reflected on all that I had seen and all that I had learned on my trip, and as I stood there, with all the energy around me, that's when I finally realized — “I’m Jewish.”

This trip was not like other trips. I flew back to America a changed person. A person with a new found respect and thirst for knowledge of a culture, a religion, a country, a language, and a cause. I feel the need to go back to Israel to learn more, see more, experience more. And I fully intend on doing all that I can to help other people, like myself, with little or no background in Judaism, understand why going on a Taglit-Birthright Israel trip is so important.

Rachel Murray lives in Montclair, New Jersey.
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