Spring Break
Students reflect on trip
by Jillian Wagner
News Editor
News | 3/4/08
Posted online at 5:41 AM EST on 3/4/08
/ Last updated at 7:05 PM EST on 3/4/08
Students who traveled to the Palestinian territories during February break on a trip funded by former President Jimmy Carter's Nobel Peace Prize called the journey "a once-in-a-lifetime experience" that offered them a unique perspective on the Middle East.
Eleven Brandeis students went on the trip, an initiative of the campus club Students Crossing Boundaries. SCB hired an organization called Birthright Unplugged to help them make the finishing touches on the trip's itinerary.
Justin Kang '09, founder of SCB, said, "We hired Birthright Unplugged as an important asset because of their access and expertise of the area."
Birthright Unplugged is an organization that helps groups plan and facilitate travel programs within the Palestinian territories. According to its Web site, "Birthright Unplugged offers opportunities for people to gain knowledge through first-hand experiences and to use that knowledge to make positive change in the world."
Members of SCB emphasized that the club doesn't have any particular political affiliation, and that every student on the trip came in with a different perspective.
Participant Alison Schwartzbaum '08 said she approached this trip from different points of view. "I so much feel like I went on this trip for myself, to learn, to have this experience and this opportunity for me," she said. "Another part of me feels like I went as part of this unit, this group of people, and together we were experiencing."
Noam Shuster '10 said the trip provided her with a perspective that is usually not available. "This trip gave us the initiative and we saw human suffering … We went and we met real people. We went to see what is not available for us to see; we saw the real people," she said.
For Deborah Laufer '08, being able to have tangible imagery about the situation in the Palestinian territories was a valuable aspect of the trip. "To seek out an opportunity that challenges your core identity and everything you may or may not have believed is something that I would encourage anyone to do," she said.
Eleven Brandeis students went on the trip, an initiative of the campus club Students Crossing Boundaries. SCB hired an organization called Birthright Unplugged to help them make the finishing touches on the trip's itinerary.
Justin Kang '09, founder of SCB, said, "We hired Birthright Unplugged as an important asset because of their access and expertise of the area."
Birthright Unplugged is an organization that helps groups plan and facilitate travel programs within the Palestinian territories. According to its Web site, "Birthright Unplugged offers opportunities for people to gain knowledge through first-hand experiences and to use that knowledge to make positive change in the world."
Members of SCB emphasized that the club doesn't have any particular political affiliation, and that every student on the trip came in with a different perspective.
Participant Alison Schwartzbaum '08 said she approached this trip from different points of view. "I so much feel like I went on this trip for myself, to learn, to have this experience and this opportunity for me," she said. "Another part of me feels like I went as part of this unit, this group of people, and together we were experiencing."
Noam Shuster '10 said the trip provided her with a perspective that is usually not available. "This trip gave us the initiative and we saw human suffering … We went and we met real people. We went to see what is not available for us to see; we saw the real people," she said.
For Deborah Laufer '08, being able to have tangible imagery about the situation in the Palestinian territories was a valuable aspect of the trip. "To seek out an opportunity that challenges your core identity and everything you may or may not have believed is something that I would encourage anyone to do," she said.
Viewing Comments 1 - 5 of 5
Elena
posted 3/05/08 @ 1:23 PM EST
This article says practically nothing. Most of the comments could have been given before the trip.
Did the reporter ask any difficult questions? Did the trip make any of the participants feel that the comments about apartheid in Carter's book were justified? What was the political agenda put forward by the trip? How did the Palestinian hosts feel about what is going on in Gaza and the bombing of Sredot? What kind of questions were posed to students coming from a US University perceived as being a very "Jewish" institution?
Kenneth C:Scalf
posted 7/12/08 @ 2:13 PM EST
I am greatly impressed by these youmg students ,given this wonderful opportunity to visit a country of extrems, and to voice ther own honest conclusions of what they observed, and ther honest gut reactions. (Continued…)
Lexa Jaffe-Klusman
posted 3/10/09 @ 5:35 AM EST
In 1959-1960 I was at Brandeis as a Wien scholarship student. There I learned quite a bit about Jewish identity. I already had quite a few Jewish friends, but somehow we never talked much about their Jewishness. (Continued…)
Destinations in Turkey
posted 3/19/09 @ 6:36 AM EST
We like to think that Middle East is an undeveloped region where you can?t find anything great to see. It?s a wrong preconception we have. I?ve been there 3 years ago and fell in love with that part of the world. (Continued…)
Daniel Ortner
posted 3/19/09 @ 7:45 AM EST
This trip sounds like an incredible event but I am a bit let down by this article. The organization is quite poor in this article as information comes about almost at random and does not build a coherent story. (Continued…)
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