Nineteen college-aged kids from the US and Germany just completed a 3 week tour of israel. The tour meant to foster deeper ties with Israel and study issues related to the Israel/Palestine conflict. It’s just like birthright israel. Except these guys didn’t get a speech from Momo about Jewish babies. Why? Because these guys were Christians.
The Israel Experience Program, dubbed the ‘Christian Birthright,’ is a Christian spin-off on the highly successful Taglit-birthright israel program, which brings young Jews on free 10-day trips to Israel. The program, which is the vision of the prominent Evangelical Christian leader Robert Stearns and is carried out in coordination with the Foreign Ministry and the Knesset’s Christian Allies Caucus, aims to teach participants the Jewish roots of Christianity, and offers them brief introductory courses covering the Holocaust, Zionism, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the agenda of radical Islam.
The trip is sponsored by the New York-based Eagles’ Wings Ministry, and its itinerary included a visit to the Knesset, meetings with MKs and Foreign Ministry officials and touring key religious sites.
The participants are meant to go back to their campuses better informed about the situation in Israel. This is meant of course, to counter increasing anti-Israel activity by various groups and represents a new aspect of the Israeli Christian tourist industry.
Yes,yes. very interesting….
OK, OK, I just wanted a reason to make that birthright jesus logo. I hope Gidi Mark can forgive me.
Puirm Hero
6/29/2006
Awesome Logo CK… Awesome!
I wonder if there is now going to be a Christian Birthright Unplugged… Though I guess it would lack that self-deprecating charm.
esther
6/29/2006
CK…your genius surfaces again. Great logo and tagline. Knowing what Christian travel has meant to Israel, especially in times like the intifadas when larger Jewish groups stopped going, I think this is great.
themiddle
6/29/2006
That is a great logo.
Nina
6/29/2006
I want to go but I don’t know if they would take a very lapsed Catholic. Either way I will go to Israel one day.
Tom Morrissey
6/29/2006
Probably wouldn’t take any prelapsarian Catholics, either, Nina. If you sign up, remember to study the Book of Revelation (largely ignored in Catholic theology).
Ben-David
6/29/2006
Love the logo. Will there be a t-shirt?
ck
6/29/2006
Ben-David: Uh… decidedly not. Nope. No t-shirt.