Twenty University students will receive the chance to go on all-expenses-paid trips to Israel during winter break thanks to the two-year-old Birthright Israel program.
The Birthright Israel program started when two Jewish philanthropists, Charles Bronfman and Michael Steinhardt, decided to give a gift to Jewish students, Rabbi Joe Blair of Hillel said.
The program's founders hope that visiting their homeland will reinforce students' ties to their Jewish heritage, since fewer Jews now visit Israel than in the past.
"This is an amazing opportunity for those who have never been to Israel to make a connection on their own terms at no cost," Blair said.
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Through Bronfman's and Steinhardt's donations and those of many other individuals in cooperation with the state of Israel and the Council of Jewish Federations, the program was able to raise enough money to send 6,000 students to Israel last winter.
Blair said the program gives students "a feeling of connection to the land of Israel."
"It is a gift to people who are born Jews or people who have become Jews," he said.
He added that there are a number of requirements to qualify for the program: students must be Jewish, accept the existence of the state of Israel and never previously have gone to Israel with a peer group.
Those applicants from the University who apply through Hillel's Web site and meet the criteria are put into a lottery in which 20 names are chosen randomly, Blair said.
Hillel is a nationwide college organization for Jewish students.
One University student who was selected to go last year is third-year College student David Radin, who said he was able to better understand the strong national pride of Israel after his visit.
The experience gave him "a deeper appreciation of why the Israelis want to hang on to their land as much as they do," Radin said.
He said he was able to "look at how the people are willing to fight to keep their nation."
He was impressed by the fact that Israeli citizens will join the army without protest to help out Israel, he added.
"It's amazing the unity of the Hebrew nation," Radin said.
He said some of the activities he was involved in included swimming - or, in reality, floating - in the Dead Sea, riding bikes around the Golan Heights and climbing the Massada, a legendary mountain on which Jewish rebels died heroically.
He added that because of the generosity of the sponsors, he spent "practically no money."
The deadline to apply for the program is Oct. 5.
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