Core Investments / Operating Programs

birthright-israel
Pdf

Letter from Program Director

This letter will provide you with insight into what ACBP’s financial investment and additional involvement has meant to this organization from their inception until now.



Video
VIDEO: “Going broke” together
Charles Bronfman and Michael Steinhardt make a big bet on sending young Jewish adults to Israel

Birthright Israel www.birthrightisrael.com

At the 1998 General Assembly of the United Jewish Communities held in Jerusalem to mark Israel’s fifty years of independence, Charles Bronfman joined with philanthropist Michael Steinhardt to announce the creation of Birthright Israel. Birthright Israel is a unique, historical partnership between the people of Israel through their government, local Jewish communities (North American Jewish Federations through the United Jewish Communities; Keren Hayesod; and The Jewish Agency for Israel), and leading Jewish philanthropists.

Birthright Israel believes that it is every Jewish person's birthright to visit Israel and provides a gift of a first time, peer group, educational 10-day trip to Israel for Jewish young adults between the ages of 18 and 26. The goal of the experience is to diminish the growing division between Israel and Jewish communities around the world; to strengthen the sense of solidarity among world Jewry; and to strengthen participants' personal Jewish identity and connection to the Jewish people. In addition to trip participants, Birthright Israel has had a positive impact on tens of thousands of Israelis who also participate and help implement the trips, as well as on the Israeli economy in general.

Since the inaugural trips in the winter of 2000, Birthright Israel has grown from a core of college students in the United States and Canada to reach over 300,000 participants from 60 countries throughout the world. This program—originally launched as an experiment—has been extraordinarily successful in enhancing the vibrancy of Jewish life in North America and other centers of Jewish life around the globe.