In Israel, every young person, male or female, enters the army after high school. The entrance into the military at age eighteen is very hard emotionally on themselves and their families. The differences between young people in the states and young people in Israel is striking.
Ella, our soldier roommate on Taglit Birthright Oranim
Overall, I found that the youth in Israel tends to be much more mature. Ella, my roommate on the trip, works as an officer in the Israeli army. When I asked her what she thought of the people on our program, she said that most of the girls were nice, but the boys tended to be slightly more immature than she was used to. She says that due to the army experience, the youth in Israel has to grow up much faster. They face more responsibility than the youth in America. Our four years of college consists of occasionally attending class in between regular abusive consumption of alcohol. Their college experience is coupled with serving in the army. They barely have free time to enjoy socializing, let alone destroying their livers.
Another main difference I noticed between the youth in Israel versus the youth in America was the age of marriage. Another solider girl on the trip, Sveta, was only 22 years old but was already living with a man she was planning on marrying. Young Jews living in Israel get married between the ages of 22-26 and tend to have children shortly there after. Most Americans I know have no intention of getting married until they are roughly 30. New Yorkers are so career driven that starting a family is something that is in the distant horizon for most of us. Sometimes it is important to step back and realize what are the important things in life. Is it love and family, or money and a career? I know what I’d choose.
Avital Perry, another solider on our trip, has a very interesting perspective on Jewish youth in both the states and Israel, because she grew up in Israel but then went to college at the University of Maryland. She came back to Israel after finishing her degree and is serving in the army. Upon her completion of her service, she will be returning to America to attend Yale Medical School. Her views on the cultural differences were striking. She found Americans to be much more apathetic when it came to politics. She described to me how everyone in Israel has a strong passion for politics. One of the main issues right now in Israel is protection of the Golan Heights. The Golan is located in the north and is absolutely beautiful:
Not only is the Golan one of the most magnificent places in Israel, but it is also located very strategically. The Golan borders Syria and Lebanon. In the above image, you can see the hills in the distance. Those hills are Syrian. Syria and Lebanon are Arab countries that have been fighting with Israel since the nations inception in 1948. Arab nations refuse to accept Israel as having a right to exist. One of the main pressing political issues in Israel right now is – Should we give up the Golan for peace with Syria?
The nation of Israel is torn on this issue. Avital thinks that we should not give up the Golan for peace. Not only is it an amazing part of the State of Israel (that the Jews aggregated themselves), but also the location is too strategic to give up. If the Arabs take control of the Golan, that means they are dramatically closer to attacking cities like Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. She also feels that the Syrians will not hold up their end of the bargain, and peace will not be brought to Israel.
Avital has formed educated and strong political opinions at a very young age. This is not uncommon for most young Jewish people in Israel. On the contrary in America, most young people I know are extremely apathetic. I know in places like Washington D.C., it is much different, but at Tulane University, no one cared to know about what was going on in the world. We were much more focused on where our next alcoholic beverage was coming from then peace in the Middle East. I guess it is hard to be so concerned with something that is so unrelalatable to your everyday life, but as Jews, this IS your life.
The importance of having a peaceful Jewish state is paramount. In order to prevent something that happened merely sixty years ago, we need to have a nation of our own. This is something that I would fight for. I would much rather go to the army in Israel and fight for something I truly believed in, then fight in an American war.
It is so natural for young men and women to go into the army in Israel that we forget how emotionally taxing it is for them and their families. We spoke to a mother on our trip, and she told us that despite its standardization, it is never easy to send your child to the army. At Yad Vasem, one of the soldiers on our trip told us a heart wrenching story about a boy in his troop.
Yad Vasem Soldier Memorial
Yad Vasem is the holocaust museum in Jerusalem and it also houses the Soldier memorial cemetary. Here, in the midst of senseless Jewish bloodshed, Liran, a male soldier on our trip, told us the sad story of one of his friends who died in battle:
Liran’s troop was sent on a top secret mission in the Gaza strip. He wasn’t able to tell us the details, only that is was very dangerous. The officer and his friend in the troop were testing out airforce tactics and using parachutes to jump out of planes. One time, Liran’s friend and their officer jumped out of the plane at the same time, their parachutes got intertwined, and his friend had to release himself and break free in order to save the officers life. Liran’s friend plummeted to his death.
Almost every soldier in Israel has a story like this. We need to fight for Israel’s right to exist but we also need to end the wars and come up with a resolution, so that no more senseless young Jews have to die! I feel so passionate about this that I could go on forever, but there is much more to discuss from my Birthright trip, so I’ll be back with another post shortly, hopefully a funnier/more uplifting one! I definitely learned a lot from spending time with these soldiers. We need to understand how fortunate we are that we as Americans don’t need to fight for our right to exist. We have freedoms, we have liberties, we have rights. We need to never take this for granted, and constantly keep our eyes and minds alert to the issues that our world faces. As Americans, we get very Western World centric and forget what else is out there. Young people all over the world live very different lives, but despite all of our differences, we can always find common ground and ways to get along.
