MESSAGE
| DATE | 2020-10-01 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] Young and Free and In Israel over the Pandemic
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/israel-emerges-as-top-destination-for-american-teens-amid-pandemic-11601292665
Israel Emerges as Top Destination for American Teens Amid Pandemic
Felicia Schwartz | Photographs by Heidi Levine for The Wall Street Journal
10-12 minutes
TEL AVIV—After she was accepted to Yale University, Tess Levy was
excited at the prospect of leaving home in Los Angeles for the first
time and joining the freshman class this fall on the leafy Ivy League
college campus.
Instead, the 18-year-old is now ensconced in one of Tel Aviv’s hippest
neighborhoods, Florentin, known for its trendy cafes, bars and
restaurants. She had been exploring gap-year options once she got the
sense that her first year at Yale would be radically different from what
she imagined, with Yale’s decision to allow freshmen on campus only for
the fall semester cementing her decision to defer her start for a year
and spend a gap year in Israel.
“There’s a culture here that every mother and their dog sitter has a
family that’s willing to take you in and care for you, which made me and
my parents feel very comfortable about sending me here in such a
tumultuous time,” said Ms. Levy.
Tess Levy takes a morning walk in the Mediterranean off Tel Aviv, where
she has gone after Yale limited freshmen’s on-campus presence to the fall.
Long a destination for young Jews yearning to explore their religion and
create a connection to the Jewish state, Israel is seeing a fresh
explosion in gap-year students arriving from the U.S. and other
countries. With few other countries accepting American students, Israel
has emerged as a top destination for those seeking meaningful
experiences beyond the confines of online learning from family couches.
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
If you or someone in your family is taking a gap year, how are you
structuring the year? Join the conversation below.
They are coming even though the country has just entered its second
nationwide lockdown as cases of Covid-19 hit record levels and daily new
cases are currently hovering at roughly 7,000 a day. The three-week
lockdown, which started in mid-September, has disrupted some of the
activities and work experiences the young people have planned for their
year abroad but hasn’t deterred them.
Masa Israel, the organization overseeing nonreligious gap-year
programming in the country, said it is seeing a 40% increase in gap-year
participants compared with last year, of whom two-thirds are American.
Israel has the most American students taking gap years, in part because
only a handful of others are allowing foreign students, including the
U.K., Ireland and Jamaica, according to Ethan Knight, executive director
of the U.S.-based Gap Year Association.
“This year Israel is the number one international destination by far,”
he said.
Protective masks lie near shofars in the apartment that Tess Levy shares
with roommates during her gap year in Israel.
Under Israel’s current visa rules, only Jewish students are allowed to
come for extended periods, organizers said. The government decided this
year to grant permission to 21,000 foreign students to study in Israel,
including those at Jewish seminaries and yeshivas as well as those doing
nonreligious programming. The education ministry doesn’t have final
numbers this year, but Masa Israel said it has about 5,000 students
already in Israel on gap years and other programming for older people,
and expects more than 2,000 by the end of the year.
Israeli gap-year organizers say their overall numbers of gap-year
students have increased, even as the total number of American students
spending gap years overseas has dropped.
Matthew Cooper, 18, from Harrison, N.Y., is living with his twin
brother, Josh, in Tel Aviv after they deferred their admission to Duke
University.
Matthew Cooper and his 18-year-old twin brother, Josh, from Harrison,
N.Y., decided earlier this summer to defer admissions to Duke
University. Their mom, Sharon, began exploring gap-year options after
she realized their Duke experience wouldn’t be as they imagined it. The
twin brothers are living in Tel Aviv with two other future Duke students
and plan to move to Jerusalem for the second half of the academic year.
“Taking a gap year is a big insurance policy against college,” Matthew
Cooper said. “If the gap year is great, it’s a life-changing experience.
If the gap year kind of stinks, then you still have four years of
college, and it’s hopefully more normal than starting college in 2020.”
The students take internships, volunteer or attend classes, which have
mostly proceeded, albeit with modifications.
Mr. Cooper was meant to intern at a tech company in Herzliya, a seaside
tech hub about 6 miles north of their apartment in Tel Aviv. The
coronavirus pandemic has pushed back the start date and has made
commuting there complicated.
Before lockdown and after a two-week quarantine, he spent a few days
exploring Tel Aviv. Now he and his roommates are playing pickup
basketball and hosting small gatherings on their apartment’s balcony, in
line with coronavirus restrictions. He worries that the good times might
be short-lived.
“I fear that the whole thing can kind of be in jeopardy if they decide
to test a couple of kids,” he said. “Social distancing has been super lax.”
Debbie Goldsmith, head of Aardvark Israel, which runs Mr. Cooper’s
program, said seven of 170 students in the program tested positive for
coronavirus about one week into a mandatory quarantine, after receiving
negative test results before traveling to Israel. Four of the students
had symptoms and three were asymptomatic. All have recovered, she said.
Sophie Dauerman, 18, from Vermont, is enrolled in a leadership program
at a kibbutz, along with other international and Israeli students.
Sophie Dauerman wanted to live in a communal-style village to bolster
her life and leadership skills before college. The 18-year-old Vermont
native enrolled in a leadership program called Kol Ami, in which she is
living on an Israeli kibbutz, Kiryat Anavim, along with international
and Israeli students.
Ms. Dauerman opted for a gap year when she learned in July that Yale
would allow freshmen on campus only for the fall and that all classes
would be online, leaving her scrambling to find a program quickly.
In exploring her connection to Judaism, Ms. Dauerman is also observing
the Jewish sabbath, called shabbat in Hebrew, for the first time. That
has meant not using her phone and other electronics from sundown on
Fridays to sunset on Saturdays.
“At home it would be extremely difficult for me to keep shabbat,” she
said. “This is my opportunity to try it, and I really enjoy it.” Her
program has proceeded largely as planned.
Israeli officials say they hope the programs can forge enduring ties
between American Jews and Israel.
Tess Levy joins others in a run along a Mediterranean beach in Tel Aviv.
“The silver lining these graduates have found by coming to spend a gap
year in Israel will provide them with the experience of a lifetime,
creating lasting bonds with their program participants and with
whichever part of the Israeli mosaic they’ve chosen to explore,” said
Isaac Herzog, chairman of the Jewish Agency, a quasigovernment
organization that oversees programming and projects to connect the
Jewish diaspora to Israel, including the gap-year programs.
Sharon Cooper, Matthew and Josh Cooper’s mother, said that though the
coronavirus situation in Israel was much more under control when she
decided to send her sons there, she is still glad she did.
Mrs. Cooper said she hoped her sons would develop the same deep
appreciation for the country that has meant so much to her family. Her
mother fled to Israel from Iraq in 1948, said Mrs. Cooper, who grew up
in the U.S. but has extended family in Israel.
”I really want them to develop a love for the country—to live there and
actually immerse yourself in the culture is a unique opportunity,” she
said. “I am thrilled for them.”
What Does a Second Coronavirus Lockdown Look Like? Ask Israel
0:00 / 4:59
4:59
What Does a Second Coronavirus Lockdown Look Like? Ask Israel
What Does a Second Coronavirus Lockdown Look Like? Ask Israel
Israel became the first developed country to impose a second nationwide
lockdown amid rising Covid-19 cases. As businesses are forced to close
ahead of major Jewish festivals, WSJ's Dov Lieber meets restaurant
owners who worry they may never reopen. Photo: Amir Cohen/Reuters
—Dov Lieber in Tel Aviv contributed to this article.
Write to Felicia Schwartz at Felicia.Schwartz-at-wsj.com
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