Am HaZikaron Institute, in cooperation with Genesis Philanthropy Group, develops and implements the Generations educational project for Birthright Israel participants – young people visiting Israel as part of the Taglit-Birthright program.
In this two-hour workshop, step by step, participants are introduced to the most significant historical events and personalities of Jewish history. Our guides lead them from the most tragic episode of the destruction of the Second Temple to the prosperous and enlightened Babylonian era, then to the events of the Golden Age of Jewish culture in Spain and the subsequent exile, to the complex history of European and Russian Jews, and finally to the founding of the State of Israel and its modern life. Through this emotional retrospective, young people discover that the Jews involved in these events are not abstract historical figures, but their own ancestors, members of their own family. The seminar culminates with a story about the origins of the participants’ surnames and the handing out of personal testimonies about the history of their families.
This powerful emotional and intellectual experience stimulates further interest in Jews and Judaism among young people. Many are motivated to conduct their own family genealogy research.
The pride that young people feel in their personal and national past gives them a stronger sense of belonging to the Jewish people in general and to the local Jewish community in particular.
The Henrietta Szold Institute in Jerusalem (Israel’s National Institute for Behavioral Science Research) conducted a study that found that the seminar is comparable to a visit to the Yad Vashem museum in terms of its impact on Jewish self-identity.