Honeymoon Israel (HMI) announced that trips to Israel will resume this fall. The first trips will take place in November and will be comprised of participants who were scheduled to travel in 2020. Additionally, HMI will begin accepting applications for 2022 trips in August. The last HMI trip before they were put on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic took place in February of 2020.
“We’re thrilled to be heading back to Israel and to welcome new couples into the HMI community,” said Mike Wise, co-founder and Co-CEO of HMI. “We’ve witnessed over this past year that the support network and deep connections our couples establish with each other, with the HMI couples in their city, and to the broader Jewish community through their HMI experience are absolutely essential.”
HMI serves young couples with at least one Jewish partner who want to explore how to bring Judaism into their lives in a personal, meaningful way and who are looking to make connections with couples at a similar stage in life. A highly subsidized group trip to Israel serves as a catalyst to create community locally. Couples travel to Israel for nine days alongside 19 other couples from their city. During the trip, participants experience Israel’s main attractions like the Western Wall, Jerusalem’s Old City, the beaches of Tel Aviv, and visits to sites important to Jewish, Christian, and Muslim history. They also partake in uniquely curated activities like meals with local families and meetings with high-level public officials and business leaders. After the Israel trip, the cohesive community that was built there is sustained and nurtured in their city, both formally through HMI-organized efforts and informally by grassroots efforts from participants themselves.
“Our goal is to make couples of all backgrounds feel welcome in the Jewish community,” said Avi Rubel, Co-CEO of Honeymoon Israel. “We feel humbled to once again have the opportunity to provide this entry point into the folds of Jewish life for more young couples who may never have been engaged were it not for HMI.”
HMl’s participant base is made up of young couples with diverse cultural, racial, religious, gender, and sexual identities. Basic eligibility requirements include having at least one Jewish partner, being between the ages of 25 and 40, being married or part of a lifelong committed relationship for five years or less, and one partner must not have been to Israel before on a peer trip.
The health and safety of its participants and staff are top priorities for HMI. HMI has been working closely with Israel’s Ministry of Health and in adherence to its guidelines, HMI participants must be fully vaccinated with a COVID-19 FDA authorized vaccine prior to travel. All participants will be required to submit documented verification of a vaccine and will likely be required to undergo testing before, during, and after the trip.
For more information on Honeymoon Israel, visit www.honeymoonisrael.org.
