Eighth-graders from Chicago Jewish Day School visit the Magen David Adam facility in Ramla, Israel. (Hagit Lewis via JTA.org)
Jacob Gervis
Teddy Gutstein’s first visit to Israel, when he was in kindergarten, included all the classics: El Al flights, falafel and a visit to Jerusalem’s famous Mahane Yehuda Market.
The only catch: This whole experience took place in a classroom at the Chicago Jewish Day School, which sends its eighth-graders on a trip to Israel every year, but as a kindergartener, Gutstein was content with flight-simulation videos and Bisli.
Fast forward to this school year, and Gutstein, 14, is finally ready to take the actual trip. The trip is run by the Jewish Federation of Chicago and IsraelNow, an organization that sends Jewish eighth-graders from cities across the U.S. to Israel. About 200 Chicago-area students take the trip each year, and CJDS is the only school to send its own group.
Gutstein couldn’t wait to experience Israel for the first time.
“We’ve been studying Hebrew and learning about Israel for years,” Gutstein said, “and we’ve always wanted to go. Some of my friends have been there, but I’ve never been, so I really wanted to experience it.”
But with the war between Israel and Hamas escalating into early 2024, Israel Now has decided to cancel its February and March trips to Israel for all participating cities. The cancellations make Gutstein’s trip one of a series of Israel trips that have been upended since Oct. 7. Airlines have canceled flights ahead of the rocket attacks, and some Jewish organizations have been hesitant to take members near the combat zone, while others have gone ahead despite the risks.
When it looked like CJDS would join the ranks of agencies canceling trips, the choice didn’t sit well with everyone.
From left: Damien Conover, Teddy Gutstein and Josh Gutstein pack tomatoes at a farm in southern Israel. (Hagit Lewis via JTA.org)
“We work so hard to connect our students to this country and help them understand that they are part of this larger Jewish nation, and at a time when the country is in its most difficult period, we are distancing ourselves from that,” said Tamar Saitlin, director of Jewish studies at CJDS. “It just felt counter to who we are as an institution and what our goals are.”
Sam Rodin, director of Israel Now Chicago, said the group decided to cancel the trip out of concern for the mental and physical health and safety of the students. Rodin said the group determined it “could not provide a safe and meaningful educational experience.”
In lieu of a trip to Israel, Israel Now offered a program in Northern California that several CJDS students participated in.
Initially, the decision meant an already difficult school year would end in disappointment for Gutstein and his classmates, but Saitlin said school officials, inspired by the Jewish National Fund’s mission trips that allowed American Jews to safely volunteer throughout Israel, began exploring avenues to make the trip happen.
CJDS staff began making calls to community members and donors, selling their vision for the trip — to give students a taste of life in Israel before and after Oct. 7, Saitlon said — and soon funds began coming in, including from the federation.
The school eventually raised enough funds to send 16 students to Israel (each with a parent or grandparent and four faculty and staff members) at a cost of about $6,500 per participant. (Families are responsible for up to $2,750 in travel expenses while their child is enrolled at CJDS.)
After CJDS raised the funds needed to make this unique trip, the first of its kind by a school, a series of flight cancellations complicated things further. But after frantic phone calls with donors, parents and the school’s travel agency, everything finally fell into place 48 hours before the students and parents were due to board the plane on May 14.
“It was a rollercoaster ride,” Saitlin said. “I tried to go, then it was cancelled, then I tried to go again, then I bought tickets, then it was cancelled, then I tried to get additional tickets, then I didn’t have the money. And then finally, somehow, miraculously, it worked out.”
From left: Cindy Zadikoff, CJDS Principal Judy Finkelstein Taff, Sheri Kushner and Margalit Segal harvest kohlrabi on an Israeli farm. (Hagit Lewis via JTA.org)
During the nine-day trip, participants visited popular tourist and holy sites, including the Western Wall, the Dead Sea and Tel Aviv beaches, and volunteered with organizations affected by the war. Participants worked with Hashomer Hachadash, an organization that supports volunteers on farms in the Galilee and Negev, harvested kohlrabi and sorted cucumbers and tomatoes. They also prepared first aid kits with Magen David Adom, Israel’s emergency response service.
At each session, Israelis shared their experiences from October 7, including Omri, a security officer with the group who served in Gaza for six and a half weeks during the war. They also visited Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square and met with families of victims of the Nova music festival massacre.
Many Jewish day schools canceled their annual trips this year in response to the war, but some are continuing to send students despite the chaos. Eighth-graders from Hannah Senesh Community Day School in Brooklyn, New York, are believed to be the first middle school students from a U.S. day school to visit Israel since April, arriving in Israel on October 7. Later that month, eighth-graders from the Leffel School in Westchester County were in Israel when Iran fired a volley of rockets at Israel. Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School outside Washington, D.C., followed the school’s tradition of sending its high school seniors for three months, who returned last month.
Saitlin said witnessing Israel in such a complicated situation reminded her of her life in America after 9/11.
“There’s a tension with the fact that life goes on. One day we went to the beach and there were a lot of Israelis on the beach,” Saitlin said. “Then you remember the reality that there are still hostages in Gaza, the country is still at war, and you have to think about how to deal with those two opposing tensions.”
For Gutstein, this dichotomy was difficult to understand.
“On the one hand, the country is fighting terrorist organisations, but on the other hand, life has to go on. I don’t really know how Israelis balance that, but I follow the example of the security guards and teachers. Three of the teachers who came to our school were Israeli.”
Cindy Zadikoff, who went on the trip with her daughter, Eden, said watching the children experience such extreme emotions was especially meaningful for her and the other adults.
“I think it’s really helpful for all of us to reflect on that night after we get back from Hostage Square,” said Zadikoff, 52. “And we had talked about how there would come a time when we would need to reflect on this with our kids. Right after was not the time. They will probably want to talk about this at their own time, too. But because we were there with them and really felt it, I think it will help us have conversations that we might not have had.”
Zadikoff also said the trip would be helpful for students preparing to graduate from Jewish day schools, many of whom will go on to public high schools in the fall, where they may be exposed to anti-Semitic and anti-Israel rhetoric.
“They’re going to feel proud to be Jewish. They’re going to see that the stories they’ve been hearing aren’t true,” Zadikoff said. “They’re going to have that love of Zionism and Judaism that the schools have been instilling in them all this time. But I think that love has grown even deeper now that they’ve seen Israel, met Israelis and seen what the reality is.”
For Gutstein, that change has already begun. He lives in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, where Northwestern University has drawn attention for its handling of a pro-Palestinian encampment on campus. He said he came across the encampment while running and was surprised, and a little scared, to see the protests reaching his hometown.
But while he was in Israel, Mr. Gutstein said he felt more outgoing and proudly Jewish. After Shabbat, he and some friends joined a dance circle at the Western Wall.
“Especially in America, with anti-Semitism so prevalent, even on college campuses, it’s sometimes hard to be fully Jewish,” Gutstein said, “but in that moment, I felt fully Jewish, and that meant a lot.”
Saitlin said some of her students expressed similar sentiments.
“Many of the students at the first reflection session spoke of struggling with the irony of coming to a country where there is war, where they are grieving the loss of family and friends, where people are still actively working to free hostages from Gaza, and then feeling safer as Jews walking around this country than they would be in America,” she said.
Minutes before flying into Ben Gurion Airport to begin his flight home, Gutstein said he already misses Israel.
“While I was here, I didn’t really realize that I was in Israel, you know?” Gutstein said. “But I know that the minute I leave here, I’m going to miss it so much. I don’t usually feel that way. Camp is special, school is special, but I don’t miss those places as much as I miss Israel.”
