This is the Forward’s coverage of Taglit-Birthright Israel, a free 10-day trip to Israel for young adults with Jewish heritage.
Birthright
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Life ‘Broad City’ Didn’t Just Go on Birthright — It Spent 21 Minutes Mocking It
When Ilana and Abby from “Broad City” announced last week that they were going on Birthright Israel, my heart sunk. For those who haven’t been watching, the show follows two young women from New York as they make their way through life in Manhattan. Main characters Abby and Ilana are Jewish, and their heritage is…
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Life Broad City’s ‘Jews on a Plane’ Finale Has In-Jokes For Everyone
As people of color continue to lunge against the tide of Hollywood’s systemic discrimination, the past three years of television have borne witness to a revolution of representation for a different hidden-in-plain site demographic: Jewish women. While the 1980s and 1990s ushered in an era of highly visible Jewish performers and programming, from Seinfeld to…
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The Schmooze ‘Broad City’ Goes on Birthright, Turns Jewish Anxieties Into Comic Gold
(JTA)—The “Broad City” ladies make some sort of Jewish reference or joke in almost every episode of their Comedy Central show. But Wednesday night the real-life Jews took on their Jewiest topic yet: the free Birthright trip to Israel. After spending most of the episode struggling to catch their flight, Abbi Abrams (Abbi Jacobson) and…
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Life Spoofing the Sex-Drenched Zionism of North American Jews
Good satire depends not only on distancing the viewer from the object of ridicule, but on making them identify with it, if only just a little. For North American Jews who’ve grown up with affection towards Israel, a new video blog (or vlog) does just that. is a sendup of sex-drenched Zionism which purports to…
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Fast Forward ‘Birthright for Moms’ Urges Return to Israel for ‘End of Days’
The founder of group that claims to have taken 7,300 Jewish mothers on subsidized tours of Israel has posted a video that references the end of days and urges Jews to move to Israel for safety reasons. Lori Palatnik, founder and director of the Jewish Women’s Renaissance Project, which runs trips that some have nicknamed…
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News Corporate-Style Bonuses Come to Jewish Charity World
The salary of the top executive at the Birthright Israel Foundation in 2014 was half a million dollars. He took home much more. First there was his bonus, a $90,000 chunk awarded, according to a vague statement from a Birthright spokesperson, based on “key metrics and benchmarks.” Then there was the deferred compensation he accrued,…
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News Will Ezra Schwartz Murder Cause Schools To Rethink Security in Israel?
As violence rises in Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, parents of American Jewish students studying there say that they are relying on the security protocols of the programs to which they have entrusted their children. It is not yet clear, however, whether such protocols were followed by Yeshivat Ashreinu, the school the American teenager…
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News Presidential Candidates Head to Israel — But Who Foots the Bill?
Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson visited Israel on a tour organized by a for-profit company that has since ceased most of its activity. Ted Cruz took the trip on the dime of a hawkish advocacy group with neoconservative ties. Rand Paul had an anti-gay Christian group pay his way to Jerusalem. And Carly Fiorina, a…
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