Tour is not just for teenagers
MOVE OVER now, teenagers — the mums are coming. For years, parents have been waving off their children as they head to Israel on educational trips. Today, more and more of the grown ups are getting in on the act and going “on tour”.
The trend has received a major boost since 2008, when an American organisation called the Jewish Women’s Renaissance Project was established, urging mothers to take time out to visit Israel — and offering to take care of all the arrangements and subsidise the cost.
More than 10,000 Jewish mothers from 26 countries have participated in its Momentum trips. They tour the country and take part in educational programmes encompassing everything from Jewish values to contemporary Israeli society.
This summer — in a historic location between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea — 50 Jewish mothers took part in emotional ceremonies to receive a Hebrew name, one of the highlights of their eight-day trip around Israel.
“I was unaware of my origins until I was learning about the Holocaust at age 11 and then my mother finally told me,” says Nathalie Scipioni, an interior designer from Sydney, who opted for the name Shirel. “Getting a Hebrew name in Israel takes me one step closer to feeling complete in my Jewish identity.”
In a few days’ time, 22 women from Mill Hill, Borehamwood and Woodside Park will set out to Israel on one of these JWRP trips — this one recruited by Mizrachi UK, the British religious- Zionist organisation. “So far Mizrachi has sent one group with JWRP — 20 women from Barnet Synagogue and Hampstead Garden Suburb Synagogue. The trip was superb and perfectly geared to the 40-plus age group at which it was targeted,” says Andrew Shaw, CEO of Mizrachi UK.
He is enthusiastic about the educational value of the trips, saying: “As someone who spent 15 years as a rabbi in a community, I can attest to the Jewish home being the single most important factor in strengthening Jewish identity and passing on our heritage to the next generation. In the home, the mother is the crucial factor. She nurtures and raises her children and therefore has the potential to be the greatest influence on the direction of the Jewish people.”
“From this was born JWRP, to empower and inspire women from all over the world. The core of the project is an eight-day trip of a lifetime to Israel. It is a life-changing trip and participants return home with a deep eternal connection to Israel and a strengthened Jewish identity to pass on to their families and communities.”
The trips have proved so popular that JWRP has branched into men’s trips, dubbed MoMENtum, after husbands declared they needed to share their wives’ experiences.
Lori Palatnik, JWRP’s founding director, says: “We created MoMENtum experiences after getting hundreds upon hundreds of requests pleading with us to give men the chance to experience the same magic their wives had in Israel.
“We are happy to give these men the opportunity to get a taste of what their wives have and work together on enacting change within their family and community.”
In the home, the mother is the crucial factor
Connecting to Israel through the Jewish Women’s Renaissance Project