Scores of American university students from Ivy League Colleges toured Israel this week on a faith-based Christian trip following a volatile period of antisemitism raking U.S. college campuses triggered by the Hamas onslaught on Israel.
The renewal of the trips dubbed “Christian Birthright” this year for the first time since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks came at a moment of regional uncertainty, and even as the ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza was crumbling.
“There is a great hunger and desire out there for students to get back to Israel,” Zach Bauer, CEO of Passages, which organizes the Israel trips, told JNS. “October 7 was a real awakening for a lot of people in an alarming way about what is happening on our college campuses and the need to push back against the nonsense and lies against the Jewish people.”
“Everything I experienced allows me to be a witness for Israel,” said Daniel Jeon, 21, an engineering student at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, in an interview in Jerusalem on Wednesday evening, a week into their nine-day trip. “Seeing Israel through social media or the mainstream media always distorts your perspective and gives you a pretty convoluted view.”
He noted that he was struck if not surprised by the day-to-day life of Jews and Arabs working together in Jerusalem “pretty much in harmony” in the city, whether at the hotel bar or around town.
The New York native noted that his Korean parents shocked him by being fine with him coming to Israel. “They had a sense that there was something very beautiful about Israel, feeling as Christians should go there,” he said.
Connecting faith and the Land of the Bible in wartime
Seeking to connect the biblical roots of the Christian faith with the story that is modern Israel, Passages was founded in 2016 by Rivka Kidron, previously an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Robert Nicholson, former executive director of the Philos Project, an American nonprofit that strives to promote Christian engagement in the Middle East.
For the last decade, the group has brought over 10,000 Christian students to Israel.
The heavily-subsidized trips are supported by a variety of Jewish and Christian private donors.
Last year, when their trips to Israel were suspended during the war, the organization held 70 events throughout the U.S., impacting some 16,000 students, Bauer said, adding that the newly restored visits will now complement the U.S. events.
The group plans to bring 700 Christian students to Israel this year, down from thousands in years past, he said.
No stranger to Israel, the organization’s CEO visited Israel right after high school. He then went to work under former Vice President Mike Pence—a staunch supporter of Israel.
In the Holy Land at a time of uncertainty
For those on the trip, the experience has been both spiritually and historically rewarding, even if the renewed fighting in Gaza interrupted parts of their trip.
A Thursday visit to southern Israeli communities hard-hit in the Hamas attack 15 months ago was nixed in favor of a visit to Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square which highlights the plight of the 251 people abducted by Hamas during the attack, 59 of who are still being held in Gaza. While in Israel’s commercial hub, shrapnel from an intercepted Hamas rocket fired from Gaza landed in a Tel Aviv suburb.
“The Bible tells you do not be afraid and it has been great to come back,” said Alma Conway, 24 of Virginia Beach, a Harvard graduate who came as an undergrad, but conceded that this time her fiancé back home was nervous for her and that her church offered prayers.
“As a Christian, my family always wanted to see this Land, and I am the first,” offered Noah Sofio, 27, who graduated from Dartmouth. He has been living in New York where he worked in finance and co-founded the David Network, a pro-life non-profit that partnered with Passages in bringing Christian students from the Ivy Leagues to Israel.
“I feel a greater desire to read my Bible,” he said after his visit.
All the participants said that the Oct. 7 attack and the burst of antisemitism in the U.S. impacted their view on life even from their vantage point outside the Jewish community directly impacted by antisemitism.
“I could see a lot of shock from corporate America about what was happening on campuses, and it was shocking to see such animosity [on New York City streets] just a block away,” Sofio said.