In his recent piece “Who Benefits From Service Trips?” (November 16), Brent Spodek highlights an issue that has long troubled many of us in the Jewish volunteer world: Sometimes service-learning trips for Jews in their 20s and 30s focus more on cultivating “effective Jewish citizens” than on working with communities that could benefit from volunteer service.

Spodek explains that this is often by design and that the ultimate goal of these trips is to transform young Jews into lifelong advocates for curing social ills. This end-goal, we agree, is invaluable. But his assessment that “alleviating suffering, however, should not be the goal of most of these programs” is troubling. If we are training young people to think, to care and to act, they must also engage in genuine service.

Imagine that a hypothetical service organization takes a group to Hurricane Sandy-torn Rockaway Beach. Participants see the destruction, meet Sandy’s victims and are taught about the Jewish principle of helping the other. If they spend only a fraction or none of their time working with the people they meet, the lesson is hollow.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

Service-learning programs, our research shows, are most successful when they work actively with local partners to solve real problems and then engage with their participants over the long-term.

An organization that in any way minimizes the realities of those with whom participants are working — even if for positive long-term aspirations — is questionable, if not destructive.

Will Berkovitz
Interim CEO/Repair the World
New York

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$90 $180

$360

Other amount