Since it launched in December 1999, Taglit-Birthright Israel has taken more than 300,000 participants on a free ten-day tour of Israel. How has a fairly young program touched so many young lives? Why is its popularity continuing to rise at a drastic rate?

When speaking to my peers about why they have gone on Birthright, or why they want to go, most of the answers border on, “Well it’s a free trip to Israel.” After coming back from abroad, however,  their feelings have almost always changed. “Eye-opening, inspiring, prideful, and life-changing” are some of the phrases used to describe the experience. As a 21-year-old about to graduate college, I feel that it is my time to join ranks among those who have taken advantage of this tour. I am applying for a trip in June.

Before I do, I plan on viewing “Mifgash: Encountering Jewish Identity in the 21^st century” with director Seth Kroll in person and I, along with the Boulder Jewish Community Center, invite you to join us for this  experience. Both an enlightening documentary about the most radical philanthropic venture in Jewish life today and a testament to its transformative impact, “Mifgash” offers a heartening experience to audiences of all ages. The screening is free for students.

Whether interested in learning more before applying or just learning more in general, come join us for a viewing and discussion with the director on Tuesday, February 21, 7:00 pm, at the Boulder JCC (3800 Kalmia Avenue). $10 at the door or register at www.boulderjcc.org. Free for students and Birthright alums.

It all started the summer before my last semester at UW-Madison.  I had heard good things concerning the technology entrepreneurship scene in Boulder, Colorado and I wanted to check it out.  Without any plans, I got on a plane and went to Boulder in hopes of networking with tech start-ups.

The first night I was in Boulder, I went to a group meditation and sparked up a conversation with a nice young man named Chris Thorne.  Chris just so happened to be working for a tech start-up called Spot Influence, and was nice enough to share the BOCC* with me—a networking event for the tech start-up industry. Tuesday morning came along and my socks were knocked off by how perfectly things fell together–the BOCC was EXACTLY what I was looking for.

As the BOCC concluded, I began a conversation with a smart dude who just so happened to be a graduate from UW-Madison–the college I was currently attending.  Not too far into the conversation, we also figured out that we were both Jewish. Perfect timing, for at that precise moment Cheryl Fellows from Boulder Jewish News was walking by and heard our conversation.  She clarified that we were Jewish, and simply handed me a sticker that said “Boulder Jewish News.”

About an hour later, I took that sticker out of my pocket, looked at it and placed it on the back of my Mac Book pro–I don’t know why I did, I don’t really like computer stickers.  Either way, my trip concluded – successfully – and I was off to Madison, WI for my last semester.

A few weeks into school, I was working on my start-up – WomStreet.com – with my business partner, Alex, who just so happens to be Jewish as well.  As we were talking, we were approached by a nice Jewish lady named Chava Cohen.  She saw the Boulder Jewish News sticker, asked if we were Jewish and then proceeded to talk to us about her Jewish student organization JEM.  It just so happened that Alex knew all about JEM and actually went on his Birthright trip through them.  Because of that conversation, I found out about Birthright – an amazing opportunity for young Jewish adults to escape to the motherland for free – and signed up for my Birthright trip through JEM.  My trip starts in three days.   (Follow my trip on twitter: @VfordVendetta.)

Let’s connect all the dots:

1.  I went to Boulder wanting to network with Tech Start-ups, and I had no idea how it was going to happen.

2.  I met a random guy at a random meditation who told me about the EXACT event that I was looking for.

3.  After this amazing event, I sparked a random conversation with a random guy who just so happened to graduate from the school I was currently attending, and we both shared the same Jewish heritage.

4.  While I was conversing with this random guy, the second we realized that we were both Jewish, Cheryl from Boulder Jewish News walked by, heard our conversation, and gave me a sticker that said Boulder Jewish News.

5.  For no reason at all, I placed that sticker on my Mac Book pro, which I never do.

6.  Back in Madison, while working at a coffee shop with my Jewish partner, a nice Jewish lady from JEM told us about Birthright.

7.  It just so happened that my partner knew about Birthright, because he went to Israel with them.

8.  Now I’m going to Israel.

Steve Jobs – one of my heroes – once said that it’s impossible to look forward and see how things will work, you can only look back and connect the dots.  These were some serious dots.

*BOCC (Boulder Open Coffee Club) is an open conversation between tech enthusiasts/entrepreneurs at 8:00 am every other Tuesday at the Atlas Purveyors Coffee Shop on Pearl Street, Boulder Colorado.

One of my favorite parts was being welcomed to Shabbat dinner and lunch of one of the community members in Mumbai and being able to see how they do services and enjoying a delicious Shabbat meal with them.  After our week in Mumbai we took an overnight train to the city we live in, Hyderabad.

The two weeks I have been here have been an experience I would describe as the Olympics for the senses. The aroma of delicious home cooked Indian food with dashes of all the right spices added to the mixed of the smell of pollution and urine permeating the streets, I dare not ask what splashed up on the back of my leg.

The tastes are incredible; I have yet to find a dish that I did not have the desire to eat more than the capacity of my stomach and the sting that accompanies each meal on my tongue. The colors are amazing everywhere is brightly colored cloths that shimmer from a mile away. The loud sounds of honking horns and rick-shaws chugging down the street coupled by the exhilaration of negotiating over what in the end ends up being over 20 cents with each new driver; sometimes I win and sometimes they win, the key to the game is time.

1. Which two New York-born baseball players famously refused to play on Yom Kippur?

A: Sandy Koufax and Hank Greenberg.

2. What New York arrival point is named after a half-Jewish politician?

A: Laguardia Airport. (Fiorello LaGuardia was born in Greenwich Village to an Italian lapsed-Catholic father from Italy and a Triestine mother of Jewish origin, Irene Coen Luzzato. He was raised an Episcopalian and practiced that religion all his life. )

3. What is the fare on the Staten Island Ferry?

A: Free

4. Who is Dr. Zismor?

A: A dermatologist famous for his ads on the NY subway

5. What comes next in this series: 34, 28, 23, 14, 8 …

A: “Prince.”  These are consecutive stops on the downtown N and R trains.

6.  What do New Yorkers call the Avenue of the Americas?

A: 6^th Ave

7. What is the largest group of immigrants that settled in New York?
A: Eastern European Jews.

By 1914, there were more than 1.5 million Jews in New York city. Why New York?
1. Eastern Europe Jews came to New York harbor and stayed there, mainly in the east side.
2. New York was the center of the dressing industry which was the Jews preferred business.
3. In New York there was already a large Jewish community.

8.  If the sculptor of the Statue of Liberty had his way, where would the Statue be located?

A: The entrance of the Suez Canal (This plan collapsed for financial reasons)

9. What is the world’s largest synagogue?

A: Temple Emanu-El on 5^th Ave. on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. (Built in 1929, and with 2,500 seats, it is larger than St. Patrick’s Cathedral and slightly larger than the Budapest Great Synagogue, the largest in Eurasia. The first Reform Jewish congregation in New York City, founded in 1845, it has served as a flagship congregation in the Reform branch of Judaism and now boasts 3,000 members. Its landmark Romanesque Revival building on Fifth Avenue is widely admired as the largest, and one of the most beautiful synagogues in the world. Emanu-El means “God is with us” in Hebrew.)

10. The first bike path in the US was created on what New York thoroughfare?
A: Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn added a bike and pedestrian path in 1894.

11. What game was played at the Polo Grounds?

A: Baseball. This stadium in the Bronx was home of the NY Giants (MLB) until they moved to San Francisco in 1957 (along with the Brooklyn Dodgers to LA).  The Mets played there for 2 seasons, 1962 and 1963, before Shea Stadium was ready.

12. What is the origin of Wall Street’s name?

A: There was a wall there! When the Dutch still controlled the region, Wall Street was the city limit and there was actually a wall there. The vaults 80 feet beneath the Federal Reserve Bank on Wall Street store more than 25% of the world’s gold bullion.

13. What nickname did Brighton Beach acquire in the 1970s?

A: Little Odessa, due to the influx of Russian Jews.

14. Which of the following is NOT an acronym for a New York City neighborhood: Soho, DUMBO, Nolita, and Redho?

A: Redho.

(Soho: South of Houston. DUMBO: Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. Nolita: North of Little Italy.)

15. What is the largest park in New York City?

A: Pelham Bay Park, with 2,765 acres. (Central Park is the city’s 5^th largest at 843 acres.)

16. Which of these novels is NOT set in New York? “Native Son,” “The Age of Innocence,” “The Great Gatsby,” “Washington Square.”
A: Native Son (Chicago

But if you’ve only got 30 minutes, check out the shuk (market) in Ramle. It’s closer to the airport. Pound for pound, there’s more IL packed into this down home shuk than anywhere east of the beach. While  trendy cafes and boutiques infiltrate Jerusalem’s shuk Mahane Yehuda, the shuk Ramle stays the real deal. Health Department hasn’t cracked down here, yet. No sneeze guards, plastic gloves, tongs. Elbow your way in. Grab/Bag/Cash&Carry. Gleanings feed the needy. Leviticus 19:9-10.

Photographer Irus Hayoun Rosenfeld suggested our Ramle drive-by as a pretext to visit her mother in nearby Lod. More incentive: mom’s Tunisian dishes are best in show. I didn’t get much other local lore in my half-hour. But historic conquerors of Ramle had cool names for your kid’s garage band or your grandchildren (b’shaa tova): Ikhshidid, Fatamid, Seljuq, Crusader, Mameluk, Turk and Brit.

Ramle today is mostly Jewish with a significant Arab minority – a flip-flop from pre-State days. For how that happened, you can try on various narratives and choose the one that suits you, or do some mixing and matching. That many younger Jews and Arabs are more interested in unveiling a cooperative future than prevailing about the past, may bode well. Here’s some place and face images.

More from Scene In Israel and This Year In Israel is here.

Built in the late-1920’s by merchant and artisan immigrants from Greece, Bulgaria and elsewhere in the Mediterranean Basin, crowded Florentin joined its neighbors in decline during subsequent decades of exile to the suburbs. Now, it’s emerged as an eclectic blend of trendsetting art&design types, holdover working class heroes, post-grads, oldsters and scenesters set among knocked-up, fixed-up and built-up apartments, studios and galleries.

High fashion, retread trashion, eco-chic – its all designed, sewn and worn on the same beat streets that serve deliciously cheap ethnic food (eat Levinsky street!) and overpriced cuisine. Furniture making, too, is inspired by dilapidated cool. “Florentin is where we discovered the beauty of decay,” scavenged furniture designer Joy van Erven told the Jerusalem Post. Take that, Ikea.

Lacking the know-how to verify that there’s quite the nightly pub&club scene here, I day-hopped trades & carpentry workshops to a buzzy band-saw soundtrack. Charly, a third-generation lathe shop owner, took a break to show me around a few blocks featuring some impressive graffiti riffs. A few of ‘em are in this filmstrip. Have a look.

More from Scene In Israel and This Year In Israel is here

It’s camouflaged on the valley slope below Highway 1 as you enter the city. If you’re willing to crash your car, you can crane your neck and see it out the driver’s side. Just a stony hillside at a glance, with time and focus, rough hewn blocks assemble into 55 or so broken quarters, compounds and vessels of old village life. Of all the Arab villages in Israel emptied in 1948, Lifta is the only one that was neither destroyed nor re-inhabited.

In mid-1940, Lifta was predominantly Muslim, with a population of 2,550. The village had a mosque, a shrine for Shaykh Badr (a local sage), two coffee houses, a social club, and a few shops. It also had an elementary school, one for boys and one for girls. The farmers of Lifta marketed their produce in Jerusalem markets and took advantage of the city’s services.” –Wikipedia.

Today, bathers and hikers take advantage of the cool spring-fed pool at the bottom.

Streaming traffic din and short-story dialog accompanied me as I tread around open wells and cisterns and thread through the wreckage. A mixture of elders’ artifacts and the pictographs and finery of Lifta’s recent squatters personalizes each vacancy. Best explore the brokenness early, before the midday heat reeks the refuse to shamayim. And soon. Planning is underway for a 212-unit luxury housing project, as are the lawsuits to halt it, filed by former Lifta families and NGOs. Whatever the outcome, neither Jerusalem gentrification nor preservation will revive Lifta’s character or chase away its rafayim.

For more about Lifta and the housing project, see

• Wikipedia
• Legal battle over an abandoned Palestinian Village
• Haaretz.com: Israel Moves To Turn Deserted Palestinian Village Into Luxury Housing Project

I have always liked a challenge, and this potential gem spoke to my creativity. Working to restore it was like a three dimensional art project. For over 10 months we tore out old lath and plaster, lowered ceilings, and replaced rotting floor boards. We needed to change door entrances to several rooms. For example, the kitchen had 4 doors leading into it…not great for having a serviceable kitchen! It was fun restoring the old world charm, yet making it comfortable, convenient, and beautiful.

I chose this fine old house as a way to earn some income, so I decided to make it a vacation rental here in Salida, Colorado. Since Salida is such a popular getaway in all seasons, being a lovely 3 hour drive from Boulder/Denver, it often has no rooms available for visitors. In my travels the last few years, I have found that staying in a vacation rental is much more comfortable and interesting than booking an ordinary motel room. Also, I prefer to cook some of my meals instead of eating out all the time.

Once the renovation was done, the next challenge was furnishing it. This can be an enormous expense, if you want good quality, attractive pieces. No problem…my grandchildren call me the “Craig’s List Queen”. I have gotten really good at finding everything from beds to rugs to dishes that others are ready to let go of, usually at a fraction of the original cost. It is a good thing I have our GPS to get me to all the unknown streets in the metropolitan area. I met some very interesting people in the months that I hunted up my treasures.

Concerning the walls, I am an artist, so I hung 8 of my paintings in the rooms. They are for my guests’ enjoyment and also for sale. My Dad was a great businessman. I seem to have his entrepreneurial spirit in my veins.

Salida, Colorado is famous for hot springs, restaurants, art galleries, skiing, hiking, biking, kayaking, rafting, fishing, swimming, dancing and tango. If you have not visited yet, you should plan a trip!

To see pictures, and availability of “Dvora’s Guest House”‘, you can visit my website or find it on VRBO.

I look forward to welcoming you to Salida.

Welcome!