11 thoughts on “Iran to Israel

  1. I can’t tell if this video is meant to mock Birthright, and I never did the program.
    Still, after so many Jewschool comments ripping Birthright, I still can’t tell what all of the criticism is about. (If the issue is that funding should go to more worthy things–all of the poor people in Israel, day schools in the States–then that makes perfect sence.)
    Otherwise, what exactly is the problem? If you’re anti-Zionist, fine.
    But isn’t the whole idea that Birthright is a brainwashing tool aimed at 18-26 American Jews (because 25-year-old Americans are obviously so susceptible to brainwashing) a bit farfetched?

  2. Jonathan, do you need to review the Zionists=Monkeys cartoon? What bothers some is not that young Jews would be brainwashed to be Zionists. That’s understandable – young people are obviously helpless in the face of Zionist propaganda. That’s why places like Jewschool exist, to deprogram.
    What is beyond the pale is that, despite this high quality deprogramming, young Jews would still CHOOSE to be Zionists. It’s not enough to disagree – they must bludgeoned into submission, ridiculed out of existence, shamed into silence. Their choice is offensive, and for that, they must pay.

  3. The video is from Birthright and it is meant to mock Ahmadinejad’s concern for Palestinian rights. As for brainwashing, that is a bit strong of a term. However, Birthright is overtly focused on indoctrination into Zionist mentality, there is nothing far fetched about that.

  4. Maybe. But it’s farfetched that university-educated young adults, who were raised in one of the world’s most open society, can have their entire thinking transformed (against their better instincts of course) in 10 days.

  5. But it’s farfetched that university-educated young adults, who were raised in one of the world’s most open society, can have their entire thinking transformed (against their better instincts of course) in 10 days.
    Good point I don’t think I’ve seen been made before.

  6. One of my concerns, as someone working in the field of Jewish education, is that the rise of the 10-day beaches-and-booze free trip to Israel has caused a drop in the number of kids going on longer, more substantive trips to Israel.
    I think part of the picture missing from Jonathan1’s comment is that the trip doesn’t aim to transform thinking – thinking rarely enters the picture. It seeks to transform feeling. I’m all for transforming feeling, and engendering a love for Israel as a Jewish homeland or whathaveyou. But Birthright Israel by and large does this in the context of a very narrow political understanding of Israel, and that’s not healthy for the thinking that hopefully happens when the high of the trip wears off. Because the trip is (er, was) so well-funded, this means that a huge percentage of this generation is not learning to love Israel as an ideal – they’re learning to love everything Israel does, right or wrong, even when it’s wrong, because Israel can do no wrong. And that kind of feeling seems to defy thinking.

  7. Hm, I think it’s likelier that — instead of learning to love everything the Israeli govt does & everything that happens in Israel, because Israel can do no wrong — the trip participants just stop loving Israel as soon as something contradicts what they were taught.

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