Spend year in Israel for $500

By DEBORAH MOON

article created on: 2009-02-15T00:00:00

A gap year in Israel for just $500 plus airfare?

It’s true; and that’s why Dan Hart, director of Israel Gap Year, expects the program for high school graduates who want to spend a year in community service in Israel before starting college to grow from eight to 50 participants next year.

“It’s the economy,” he said. “People are suffering. If you have to spend $20,000 for a gap year or $500,” he trailed off before adding that private donors and funding from the Israeli government make the low cost possible.

He said Israel Gap Year also appeals to many teens because it’s not religious and not pushing aliyah. But it provides teens with a first-hand experience with Israeli culture. American teens volunteer alongside their Israeli peers, living and working in disadvantaged neighborhoods in a wide variety of community service projects.

Hart was in Portland Jan. 28 to interview four teenagers who are interested in the program. He said he is in the United States once a month and would gladly return to Portland if more teenagers are interested.

Israel Gap Year is a project of the charity “Tnufa for a Strong Israel,” which was created in 2005 to regenerate deprived neighborhoods in Israel. Originally the neighborhood regeneration project used Israeli volunteers, many of whom defer their mandatory military service for one year by volunteering in the project.

Hart said Jewish teens from around the world now can work side by side with their Israeli peers. Additionally, teens coming to Israel benefit from the ties already established by the program.

“We are already involved in the neighborhoods, so we have a lot of volunteer options,” said Hart, noting he thinks people give more if they are volunteering in an area they love.

Volunteer options include teaching English, art or sports; tutoring; working with elderly or youth-at-risk, or volunteering in pet shelters, Magen David Adam (Israel’s version of the Red Cross) or fire stations.

Gap year participants live in the neighborhoods where they work. Four teens of the same gender share an apartment.

In addition to volunteering five days a week, teens go on one overnight hike each month to different parts of Israel. Tuesdays are devoted to educational programs in Hebrew, Judaism and Zionism.

Applicants must be intermediate Hebrew speakers able to communicate in simple sentences, according to Hart, who added that fluency is not required.

And while the program is designed to strengthen Jewish identity and teens’ bonds to Israel, aliyah and religion are not pressed.

“This is not a religious program,” Hart emphasized. “There is no non-kosher food on the table, but there is only one sink in the kitchen. They live in neighborhoods that observe Shabbat, but everyone can practice their own level of beliefs.”

This year, all Gap Year participants were in Ber Sheva. Next year the program will be expanded to Haifa.

Co-existence and the knowledge of “the different” are also important aspects of the program, he said.

“I introduce them to Arabic cultures,” he said. “If you don’t know the other, you are afraid and that leads to hostility.”

For more information on Israel Gap Year, visit Israelgapyear.com or contact Hart at dhart@isralegapyear.com or 888-500-8188.