Israel Programs — What's the Future

Introduction

In 1967, participants in the Cleveland Bureau of Jewish Education's Israel Study program paid $750 to cover the total cost of the two-way flight and seven weeks in Israel. In 1981, the cost is $2025 for six weeks. One outcome of the sharply rising costs, in addition to the loss of seven days of programming in Israel, has been the decrease in the number of groups and in the number of participants. If we sincerely believe that students' experiences in Israel are significant, some hard thinking is needed to stem the attrition. One need not be a trained economist to prognosticate that in less than ten years the cost of an Israel summer program will double. Of course, there is another alternative: cut back on expenses by abbreviating the stay in Israel but at the risk of weakening the impact of the experience.