Introduction
The Israel Year shapes students into rabbis by through the experience of living in this very particular place. Whereas institutional contexts operate primarily through formal (overt and implicit) educational goals, Israel itself forms the larger arena in which
learning and formation occur. As Dewey ([1938] 1997) and Chazan (2003) argue, people learn best when they are engaged in a multisensory way. There is no assured causality between this kind of involvement and having a meaningful experience—defined
subjectively by each student him or herself—but a basic building block is present through active, rather than passive, engagement (Reimer 2003). The rabbinical students engaged with and encountered Israel through two main pathways: mediated experiences and unmediated exploration. The former were structured through Hebrew Union College’s weekly Israel Seminar and the inter-seminary Israel Experience Program (IEP). Unmediated experiences of Israel encompassed students’ own wanderings around Jerusalem and self-guided excursions to other parts of the country, either alone or in small groups.
Regardless of whether the students were, in a given moment, part of a group excursion or exploring Israel alone, their personal emplacement colored their
were neither Israeli citizens79 nor tourists or even homeland tourists, but temporary
residents. They exhibited characteristics of study abroad students, but theirs was an experience that integrated professional training and religious life and identity. They were full-time students enrolled in Jerusalem-based institutions, but they were there as future American rabbis. The students were alternately on and off the bus, to apply a tourism metaphor that highlights the insularity of tour groups. Both mediated and unmediated experiences of Israel exposed the students’ liminality in, and impacted how they interacted with, the Israeli context.
Hebrew Union College’s weekly Israel Seminar and the inter-seminary Israel Experience Program (IEP) provided mediated experiences of Israel that echoed themes from the tradition of a youth group tiyul [outing; hike], but with academic overtones, institutional ties, and professional training goals. From an institutional perspective, the programs were guided by the goals of theological education and the respective rabbinical schools’ desired outcomes for their students’ Israel Year experiences. These programs gave students opportunities to engage with Israel from the traditional tripartite angles of land, state, and people. Having relationships with Israel on these levels is important social capital for an American rabbi and, thus, integral to their professional formation. Together, the students traveled within and outside of Jerusalem; met with Israelis engaged in
community work; and, discussed concepts and ideas central to Israeli society, politics, identity, and their own relationships with the place. Mifgashim [encounters; sing.,
79 A handful of the students do have Israeli citizenship, but as they are enrolled in American programs, it often presents as of secondary or waning importance to their self-identification.
mifgash] with Israelis were a common curricular component of tourism programs such as Birthright Israel. The concept was utilized in HUC’s Israel Seminar and the IEP as well. Mifgashim are increasingly promoted by financial donors and Israel educators alike because they are believed to “promote emotional attachment, transcend political differences, and stabilize the contentious politics of Israel in the American Jewish
community” (Sasson 2014:156). Back in the United States, the students will undoubtedly have to engage with others about Israel on a political level, from inside and outside the Jewish community. Living in Israel and participating in mifgashim took politics away from the spotlight and allowed the students to interact with Israel on numerous levels, building a more rounded relationship. However, as a result, the students may have been underprepared for the political content in the United States that dominates the discourse on Israel.
Whereas co-curricular experiences were guided by the goals of theological education, the students’ extra-institutional experiences were guided by the students’ own goals for their Israel year. Based on a grounded assessment of the interview data gathered for this project, students’ goals for the year mirrored the goals of their institutions: to experience Israel and build or strengthen a relationship with Israel, where “relationship” was defined broadly and no specific type of relationship was specified, though it was implied to be left of center. The students also recognized the professional applicability— the take-home value—of their experiences. The rabbinical students’ goals shaped how they wanted to spend their time and what types of experiences they sought to have outside of institutional contexts. Exploring Israel on their own or with classmates, the
rabbinical students married the cultural knowledge and skills they developed as temporary residents with the curiosity of tourists.
The context of Israel—how it was utilized and experienced whether formally or informally and the relationships people felt that they had with Israel as a place, gave purpose and content to the Israel year of rabbinic studies. The rabbinical students interacted with Israel as places, institutions, people, time, and a combination of values, meanings, and ideas. Rabbinic formation emerged from the experiences of the year in the place. These interaction-based experiences and this process of searching for
understanding, meaning, and applicability yielded knowledge, skills, habits, and a sense of self as rabbinic.
Institution-Mediated Israel Experiences
Hebrew Union College’s Israel Seminar and the inter-seminary Israel Experience Program provided mediated co-curricular Israel experiences for the rabbinical students. In its entirety, the year of rabbinical studies in Israel may be classified as an “Israel experience,” in the tradition of youth and young adult Israel experience programs (Chazan 2003).80 As with other aspects of the Israel year curriculum at each school,
however, these programs aimed to foster knowledge, habits, and skills to will equip these students for their future work as rabbis. The knowledge, in this case, was based in both factual and practical experience with Israel.
80 The Israel Year diverges from the traditional model of Israel experience trips and programs through its rabbinic education components and focus on taking the Israel experience “home” to the United States as opposed to staying “home” in Israel, the historic Jewish homeland.
The Israel Seminar was essentially a class that took up the entirety of every Wednesday during the HUC academic year. The Israel Experience Program met less frequently, approximately once every month or two, and took students away from their regular classes. The HUC students participated in both the Israel Seminar and IEP; Schechter and the Conservative Yeshiva did not provide a comparably intensive and consistent Israel education component in their curricula, though Schechter had a class that included trips within Jerusalem during the fall semester, and both schools did have occasional guided outings.
All HUC Year in Israel students (rabbinic, cantorial, education, communal service) participated in the weekly Israel Seminar which was coordinated and facilitated by Steve and Jamie,81 scholar tour guides with long tenures on HUC’s faculty. The Israel
Seminar is a cornerstone of the curriculum for the Year in Israel, the one element that cannot be replicated in the United States. The goal of the Israel Seminar was to expose HUC students to Israeli society (religious, cultural, political, military, social services, and other angles and sectors) through either bringing guest speakers to campus or going off- campus to engage with Israelis and institutions. Topics ran the gamut of the diversity of Israeli society but were limited by access. Some groups—specifically those on the religious and political right that did not see engagement as potential outreach or public relations for their group—were not interested in meeting with Reform rabbinical students, Americans, or Jews. This prevented the students from encountering the full range of Israel’s diversity. They missed people and aspects of society that could further deepen