There already exists a range of resources on why Birthright is such a dangerous project, in both reinforcing Colonization and Apartheid in Palestine, but also in its role of propping up a hegemonic notion of Jewish individual and community, identity and history & marginalizing and erasing the experiences of jews and jewish communities who operate outside of those confines. Here are several sources, if you have any suggestions, please send them to: renouncebirthright@gmail.com
Videos and Radio Shows
‘‘Birthright’ ecstasy in Jerusalem — Ziojuana, no occupation, lotta Jewish babies”
http://mondoweiss.net/2013/01/birthright-jerusalem-occupation.html
“Real News segment produced by Lia Tarachansky and featuring Netanyahu’s call for a majority of “the Jewish people” to live in the Jewish state, dancing of American recruits with Israeli soldiers and the Israeli army band, and Max Blumenthal’s interviews of Michael Steinhardt, the American Birthright sponsor, and of young American innocents proclaiming that they’ve found their home.”
“‘Occupy the Occupiers’ disrupts Birthright Israel event” by Adam Horowitz
http://mondoweiss.net/2011/11/occupy-the-occupiers-disrupts-birthright-israel-event.html
“A group of 10 young Jews with YJP: the young adult wing of Jewish Voice for Peace issued their new declaration “Occupy the Occupiers: a Jewish Call to Action” in novel form last night. Using the “human microphone” or “people’s microphone” made famous by the Occupy Wall Street protests they interrupted a Birthright Israel Next-sponsored event.”
“Episode 9 Levinas and Solidarity” by Radio 613 Collective (Jewish Politics, Culture, Religious Life)
http://radio613.wordpress.com/2008/12/15/episode-9-levinas-and-solidarity/
Related to this, we air on an interview by Aaron from CKUT with Hannah Mermelstein of the Birthright Unplugged program, which takes Jewish youth on tours through the Occupied Palestinian Territories”
Blogs and Op-eds
“The Birthright Project: relocation and procreation: A Birthright programme that sends youth to Israel promulgates a sense of “fabricated entitlement” by Belen Fernandez
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/01/2013130134715332154.html
“The structuring of the Birthright programme around a fabricated entitlement exonerates the policy of ethnic cleansing upon which the Jewish state was erected and underscores the difficulty with which any sliver of unadulterated reality can penetrate the 10-day itinerary.”
“Operation Birthright” by Kiera Feldman
“How a small group of wealthy American Jews and Israeli politicians set out to create the next generation of Zionists.”
“So you’re thinking of Birthright: A primer by students who went on birthright for those still considering the trip” by Tufts University Students for Justice in Palestine
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/12/birthright-birthright-considering.html
“However, Israel does not exist within an isolation chamber, and unfortunately it is impossible to porce Israel from the political reality of the region.”
“A Palestinian student asks, ‘Can I go on Birthright?’” by Jamil Sbitan
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/03/a-palestinian-student-asks-can-i-go-on-birthright.html
“Birthright, although sounds like a harmless free trip, actually has stark similarity to the state it seeks to cement a bond with: one of maintaining ethnoreligious supremacy and settler-colonial apartheid. Indeed, the trip sounds similar to a hypothetical scenario, in which Apartheid South Africa is funding exclusive trips for young whites to go visit the country’s white enclaves, while denying its history of colonialism and its then-present apartheid structure.”
“Introducing Birthright Palestine” by PROGRAMMER BUYDATTI
http://www.kabobfest.com/2008/02/introducing-birthright-palestine.html
“A project of the Palestine Center for National Strategic Studies, Birthright Palestine “is meant to gather first generation, western‐born Palestinians (over the age of 18‐years old) in their ancestral homeland, so that they can reunite and witness firsthand how their brethren are living under illegal Israeli military occupation.”
“Why Taglit-Birthright Doesn’t Deserve Hip Hop” by Alexander Billet
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/alexander-billet/why-taglit-birthright-doesnt-deserve-hip-hop
“I didn’t think about her again until last week when +972 Magazine reported that Taglit-Birthright, in collaboration with a group called “Artists 4 Israel,” was now planning tours“specifically offered to hip-hop heads.” That’s right: hip-hop tours of Israel. A music and style that gestated in reaction to the willful neglect and apartheid treatment of African-Americans and people of color is being used to burnish the image of an apartheid regime among young people.”
“Birthshite” by Geoffrey Cohen
http://www.jewdas.org/2009/06/birthshite/
“To deconstruct one by one: a) it is not necessary to have more connection between Israel and Jewish communities round the world, we need to build local Jewish identities, to strengthen diaspora, so small Jewish communities are no decimated by ‘aliyah’. b) solidarity amongst Jewry can be deeply negative, when many Jews have become taken in by racism, unthinking nationalism, and quasi-fascism, it is imperative to speak out against those Jews, and not be in solidarity with them. Adherence to Judaism demands solidarity with the oppressed, not with the privileged. c) The old canard – Jewish identity and continuity. Now we at Jewdas may be willing to concede that this can be a good thing, provided a sense of Judaism’s radical tradition and history is also gained. But is it really necessary to fly them half way round the world and indoctrinate them into supporting brutal nationalism in order to do this? We think not, see later for a better way.”
“Affirming a Judaism and Jewish Identity Without Zionism” by Rabbi Brian Walt
http://palestiniantalmud.com/2012/06/01/affirming-a-judaism-and-jewish-identity-without-zionism/
“This fusion of Judaism with the interests of that nation state is a tragedy for Judaism. Judaism is a religion. Zionism is a political movement associated with a particular nation state. And we need to separate the two – to create daylight between Judaism and Zionism.”
Books
Kellner, Shaul. Tours That Bind: Diaspora, Pilgrimage, and Israeli Birthright Tourism. Shaul Kellner, New York University Press: New York, 2012
“Based on over seven years of first-hand observation in modern day Israel, Shaul Kelner provides an on-the-ground look at this much-debated and much-emulated effort to use tourism to forge transnational ties…..By looking at the broader meaning of tourism, Kelner brings to light the contradictions inherent in the tours and the ways that people understand their relationship to place both materially and symbolically. Rich in detail, engagingly written, and sensitive to the complexities of modern Jewish identity, Tours that Bind offers a new way of thinking about tourism as a way through which people develop understandings of place, society, and self. “
Other stuff to check out
Birthright Unplugged
http://www.birthrightunplugged.org
“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. The organization began, in part, as a response to fully-funded, Jewish-only trips to Israel and as a rejection of the notion of a “birthright” for Jewish people to the land of Israel/Palestine. Israel has denied Palestinians the internationally recognized right of return for refugees, instead creating a “Law of Return” that extends citizenship benefits to any person of Jewish heritage, thereby excluding millions of Palestinians from living in the land in which they were born.”
renouncebirthright 