Departure / Day 1 – Monday 12 / Tuesday 13 January
For many years I had thought that the opportunity to participate in a Birthright program to Israel had
passed me by. After all, Birthright had strict rules about age limits and previous Israel experiences, and
I was now older and in the fortunate position to have been to Israel numerous times. But then after
October 7 the world changed for Jewish communities everywhere, and organisations like Birthright had
to adapt as well. One of their innovations in recent years was to change the nature of the programs.
Whilst the regular Birthright touring program for under 26 year olds still exists, Birthright now offers
volunteering programs for people older and those that have previously been to Israel – though maybe
not within the last year or since October 7. The upshot is that after thinking I would never be able to go
on such a program, I now find myself at the airport about to join a 10-day volunteering and solidarity trip
with a group of fellow Aussies in their 30s to 50s, most of whom I have never met.
Whilst some things change, others stay the same. One of Birthright’s remaining rules is that
participants need to get to the airport four hours in advance of their flights. Personally, I have never
arrived at the airport that far ahead of a flight, but I followed the rule and arrived before the check-in
counter even opened. And so did most of the rest of the contingent. It took just a few minutes but soon
enough we all found each other and started to chat. Seemingly within moments we also started to
bond. It is very likely that the four hour rule imposed by Birthright is because historically most of the
groups were younger, first time travellers and North American, and getting to the airport super early for
such groups makes sense. For us though, it seemed unnecessarily early and before anything, our first
utterances as a group were words of complaint. That however dissipated very quickly as we started to
bond, interact and get to know each other. And thus maybe the four hour rule was a maniacally genius
way on the part of the organisers designed specifically for that purpose, because before we even got on
the plane in Melbourne, we knew most people’s names, we knew where they came from and we knew
who were the organised ones and who were the ones prone to more chaos in their lives.
As scheduled, after a long flight to Abu Dhabi and a short transfer at a busy, modern airport, our
flight landed on time, just before 6am at Ben Gurion. The plan at that stage, which had been
communicated to us enroute, was that by 6:30 or so we would be on our way to our first destination up
north. But on arrival, after meeting our guide, we discovered that the plan had changed and realised
very quickly that even confirmed plans in Israel don’t necessarily happen as anticipated, until they
actually happen. Instead of leaving straight away, we would now be waiting at the airport for at least a
few hours for one more participant who was arriving on a different, later flight. This was of course
frustrating and inconvenient, and some of us thought about leaving the airport, but given the early hour
and the heavy rain, we thought better of it. Instead, though most of us went for some short walks
around the terminal, we mostly spent the time further getting to know each other and exchanging detail-
filled and very personal stories with people who were strangers mere hours earlier. We discovered that
one within our group was already a grandmother, three had never been to Israel before, a few could
speak Hebrew almost fluently, many were parents leaving kids at home, many were of South African or
Russian descent, most of us within the group had just one or two degrees of separation, and everyone
was excited and uninhibited to share and interact. But as I observed this, I thought that maybe this
delay – although it seemed somewhat spontaneous and unplanned – had actually come from the
twisted recesses of someone’s mind, designed intentionally for us to be as familiar with each other as
possible before the program even began... And it worked, except of course for the one for whom we
were waiting, and one more who was due to arrive later. But it didn’t take long for them to feel part of
our group too.
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There is something about the human condition that necessitates bonding. People often struggle when
they are on their own and look out for others who are like them. This seems to be especially true for
Jews, and even more so in Israel. After a few hours of driving, with a stop for lunch at a shopping
centre somewhere in Israel’s northern heartland, we ended up in the town of Shlomi, essentially on the

Lebanon border. Our first volunteering activity was to assist a community organisation that helps
schools and communities by teaching them life skills like gardening, woodworking, sewing and other
creative pursuits, and our duty was to help them build some benches and varnish some other pieces of
wood, ready for a future project. The people who do this on a regular basis are post-high school teens
who spend a few months in such communities ahead of their conscripted army service. The building
task made us feel like we were contributing something tangible to their community, but the interactions
with the teens made the experience so much more enriching. They told us about their lives, dreams
and expectations, and about life in the north of Israel, and the challenges that come with it. Before we
left, we felt a bond – the kind that one normally doesn’t feel when meeting teens for the first time. Was it
because they were Jewish or in Israel, or was it on some other metaphysical level? Many of us even
exchanged Instagram handles and added them on Facebook or WhatsApp – these people that in all
honestly we are never likely to meet again.
And that sense of familiarity with strangers was the continuing theme of our first day. Between
the end of the activity and dinner, a few of us went to the local minimart to look around a buy a few
supplies. But on the way, one of the guys within our group asked for directions from a local, and within
minutes the two of them began a conversation about life and family. This neighbourly stranger from this
small town in Israel’s north then invited the three of us to his home for a drink. I felt a little reluctant but
went along anyway, constantly thinking that this is not the kind of thing I could imagine doing anywhere
else in the world. The guy brought in three unfamiliar Aussies into his home and introduced us to his
girlfriend, who not only didn’t wince about strangers in her living room, but proceeded to cut up veggies
and put out snacks for us, whilst her partner poured drinks and encouraged conversation. We stayed
only for thirty minutes, but left feeling like we had been enriched by this experience with these people
who were no longer strangers.
Then after dinner on this very long first day, this sense of bonding with strangers continued. In
the dining room of the hotel was a group of Brazilians on a similar program, and after our evening
session, a few of us decided to chat over a few drinks in a side room before bed, to get to know each
other even better, and on the way we saw four of the Brazilian girls and invited them to join us. They
were on an equivalent program for the same age group and many of them had also only met at the
airport a day earlier. Their English was superb and their willingness to share was just as enthusiastic as
ours, so within just half an hour or so, we felt connected in a way that it is hard to imagine other random
people from other cultures ever could be. In fact, It felt like we were all living in a parallel universe, with
their lives and Jewish communities so similar to our own, just in Portuguese. If this was just the first
day, I can only imagine how much more intense, engaging and engrossing the rest of the program will
be.