November 9, 2001
by Sara Slater

Elizabeth Frommer looks on as her husband, Paul, asks a question during the Oct. 11 meeting about the current status of the senior Israel trip. The Frommers are parents of seniors Leah and Sam.

The annual senior trip to Israel and Poland is scheduled to take place despite growing concerns among students and parents about the recent escalation of violence in the Middle East.

“The situation in America and Israel and all around the world means that certainties of a few years ago are not certainties now, and while we cannot affect international policy, we can and will plan to send a trip [to Israel] on the hope and assumption that the world will look very different in a few months time,” Head of School Jonathan Cannon said at a meeting about the trip for seniors and their parents on Oct. 11.

Cannon emphasized that each individual family must decide whether its student will participate in the trip.

A working committee was formed in September with the primary goals of evaluating the trip’s programming and looking at the safety and security of the situation in Israel, according to Principal Rabbi Reuven Greenvald. The committee is composed of Greenvald, Cannon, School Life Coordinator Navah Kelman, Alumna Laura Blumenthal (’97), seventh grade parent Jonathan Band and former Board President Annette Forseter, who is also the mother of Karen, (’97).

Previously, Greenvald had been the school’s sole contact with the Ramah Programs in Israel, the organization that coordinates and runs the senior Israel trip. However, because of this year’s circumstances, the school felt it was important to bring in other perspectives, according to Greenvald.

The committee reviews information that will determine if the trip will be canceled.

“The people who run the Israel program do most of the consulting with security, working with governmental and educational agencies to determine the security status,” said Greenvald. “Then we discuss the information.”

“There is no one thing that will be making the decision unless it is an all out declaration of war [on Israel],” said Greenvald.

Despite the fact that the trip is scheduled to take place, seniors have varied opinions over whether they will be going on the trip, according to senior Yael May.

“There seem to be a lot of people who, for various reasons, are saying that they aren’t going,” said May, who added that there are others who say that they will go, whatever the circumstances may be.

“I would like to go. I think that the trip is a great experience,” said senior Jason Pickar. “If we don’t go then we will be breaking a great tradition of our school.”

However, for some, concern about safety outweighs the program’s attractions, according to senior Ilana Abrams.

“I know that I wouldn’t go even if the school went,” she said. “I know that my parents wouldn’t feel safe having me in Israel the way things are.”

Members of the senior class approached Greenvald and formed a student committee to discuss plans for the Israel trip, according to Kelman. The senior committee plans to distribute a survey to find out how many seniors are planning on attending the trip and to identify the reasons for which some seniors are planning not to go.

According to Pickar, the formation of the student committee is representative of the general concern of the senior class about whether the trip will take place.

Edwin Schonfeld, father of senior Diana, says that his primary concern is for the safety of the students, but he is also concerned that due to security precautions the students will not be able to get out of the trip what they had always hoped to.

The committee is discussing specific issues such as whether students will be able to go to Ben Yehuda Street or take public transportation, among other security restrictions, although nothing has been decided yet, according to Greenvald.

For Schonfeld, the recent attacks of Sept. 11 have heightened his concern, but have not created it.

“The general situation with the Intifada in Israel before Sept. 11, with the bombings and the randomness of it all, is what concerns me,” he said. “It has only been made worse.”

The general content of the trip is also being reviewed by the working committee. One of the main complaints about last year’s trip was the lack of communication between the staff and the students in Israel and between the staff and parents, according to Blumenthal.  

Cannon addressed this issue at the senior’s meeting.

“It would be foolish and pointless for the school to ignore feedback [about last year’s trip], and it would be unacceptable for Ramah to ignore that feedback,” Cannon said at the meeting. “We are working extremely closely with [Ramah] and we already have some very positive feedback from Ramah themselves, and more importantly from organizations that went on trips with Ramah over the summer.”

Joe Friedman, director of Ramah, will be at JDS from Nov. 13-15 and will meet with seniors and their parents, as well as with Greenvald and Cannon.

The school has sponsored a trip to Israel every year since 1981. However, during the Gulf War in 1991, the senior trip was delayed six weeks because of safety concerns.

But, delaying this year’s trip would prove much more difficult because now the trip includes going to Poland, which provides for more complicated travel accommodations, Greenvald said at this year’s senior meeting.

Some students and parents have expressed an interest in an alternative trip if the Israel trip is canceled. However, the school is not planning any such trip.

“The mission of the school is to create an education that is for Israel,” Greenvald said. “If you can’t go to Israel because the situation in Israel is such that it’s unsafe for people to be there, then there is a lesson to be learned from that and we feel that the lesson learned is a part of the mission of the school.”

Greenvald added that the security issues that could potentially prevent the Israel trip could also prevent any senior trip.

“If it’s unsafe to travel to Israel, looking at the climate of the world today, it’s probably unsafe to travel anywhere,” he said.

However, unless circumstances change, seniors will go to Israel.

“As long as the trip goes, I am going,” said senior Leah Frommer.