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Connecting with homeland and maybe ... love?

Many young Jews making birthright pilgrimages to Israel get encouragement to "marry Jewish" along with the wonders of the nation.

By LAUREN BAYNE ANDERSON
Published March 21, 2005

TEL AVIV - In the days of old, Jewish love connections were made by the town matchmaker.

Young singles hoped the shadchen would find them true love, or at least a spouse they could tolerate.

But over time the number of Jews marrying Jews has declined. Children of interfaith marriages often aren't raised Jewish, and the birthrate among Jewish couples isn't high enough to replenish the relatively small population of Jews - 13 million - left on earth.

So when Shlomo "Momo" Lifshitz, finds himself in front of young American Jews taking part in his educational tour of Israel, including some from the Tampa area, the plump, balding man doesn't hesitate.

He welcomes them with a simple message: Marry Jewish and "make Jewish babies."

And he's willing to pitch in to make it happen.

"If you meet your husband or wife on this trip, I will pay for your wedding and honeymoon," he promised a group of more than 100 young adults from the United States.

Lifshitz isn't a shadchen but rather president of Oranim, a tour company that organizes trips for Taglit-birthright israel. The nonprofit Jerusalem company, with its U.S. headquarters in New York, pays for the full cost of a 10-day trip for Jews, ages 18 to 26, to the Holy Land.

The trips vary, geared toward the Orthodox, nature lovers or politics. But the overarching theme is the same: Connect young Jews to Israel and their Jewish heritage. Lifshitz throws in love as a little something extra.

Stephanie Escalante's friends prepared the junior at the University of Tampa to hear "Momo's" pitch on marrying Jewish when she joined the Oranim tour.

She didn't fall in love, said Escalante, 20, but became more connected to Israel and to her Jewishness. Escalante was one of about 35 Tampa-area birthright travelers last year.

"My views changed during the trip, that it would be nice to marry someone Jewish," Escalante said. "Before, I kind of wanted to marry Jewish, but it wasn't as strong as it is now."

She hopes to return to Israel to study for her master's degree in 2006.

That's music to the ears of birthright officials.

Since 1999, birthright has sent more than 75,000 young Jews to Israel, at a cost of $30-million a year. Funding has come from North American philanthropists, the Israeli government and various Jewish communities and federations. Over this past winter alone, 6,000 young Jews descended on Israel from 23 different countries.

Begun as a five-year experiment, recent funding shortfalls have caused birthright to cut the number of trips.

Still, birthright will continue trips for at least another five years. Registration began this month.

David Ellenson, president of Hebrew Union College in New York, sits on the board of the Birthright Israel Foundation, which is seeking more funding.

Ellenson said the alarming rate of intermarriage makes birthright essential to help connect Jews. Today nearly 50 percent of American Jews marry non-Jews - a number that has exploded from 13 percent pre-1970. "Judaism doesn't rely entirely on quantity for survival, but we need a critical mass for institutions of culture," he said.

Birthright encourages participants to come back to Israel to study, live on Kibbutzim or become citizens. A Brandeis University study found that 93 percent of the birthright participants likely would return. Birthright officials say there are more than 1,000 alumni now living in Israel.

The study also found those who went were more likely than nonparticipating peers to date Jews and raise children Jewish.

The trips also benefit Israel economically. In its first five years, birthright contributed $109-million to the Israeli economy, according to the group.

One of about 20 birthright trip organizers for Americans, Oranim totes itself as nondenominational Jewish, and attracts participants with its liberal schedule - taking them to nightclubs, buying alcohol and offering free rein in Eilat, an Israeli beach-resort town bordering Egypt and Jordan.

Oranim is loosely referred to as the "party trip," Escalante said. The signup Web site hosts a flashing advertisement for the annual, "Love in Tel Aviv Jewish Singles Festival."

Ellenson said connecting to Israel and Jewish heritage is the larger goal, finding a spouse is secondary. "It is common that couples do meet one another on trips like that because the people who go have shared values and mutual interests," said Ellenson, likening the trip to the popular Jewish singles Web site, JDate. "This is an exceptional benefit."

Besides showing off the country's tourist attractions - the Dead Sea, the Western Wall, Jerusalem's Old City - Israeli soldiers travel with the groups. Lifshitz said too many American Jews are influenced by media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and view the soldiers as nefarious.

"Look at the Israeli soldiers with you on the bus and ask yourself if they are the so-called murderers you see on television," Lifshitz told the American group.

And to encourage allegiance to the country, Israeli politicians often address the travelers. In January, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met with a small group of birthright participants.

Vice Prime Minister Ehud Olmert also addressed a birthright crowd of 3,500 at a "Mega Event" in Jerusalem. "There is something that binds you all together, something that doesn't need explanation," he said. "You are all brothers and sisters that came home."

Oren Siedlecki, an Oranim counselor, said the Mega Event, held a number of times every season, exemplifies how Israel unites Jews from different backgrounds.

"I saw Jews from all over the world, and they were chanting for their countries - Argentina, Brazil, Canada," he said. "And at one point, everyone starting chanting "Israel' together. It was so intense, it almost brought me to tears."

But even at the Mega Event, love is present. Only feet from the convention center doors, a man handed out books titled, Why Marry Jewish? Surprising Reasons for Jews to Marry Jews .

For some participants, the matchmaking was too much. They joked that organizers were "trying to get us pregnant on the bus."

"A lot of my peers were shocked, they were actually really upset," Escalante said. "They were saying, "I marry who I want to marry,' and calling home saying, "Oh my God, it's a matchmaking session."'

But Escalante and Siedleck i support "Momo's" message. While there are no numbers to show whether his love pitch works, there are some stories of birthright marriages.

Morris Glazman, 29, said he fell in love with his wife, Rachel, when the two were counselors on a Canadian birthright trip in 2001.

Glazman, who now lives in New York, said he knows of a handful of others who met their spouses on birthright. "Israel is probably the most romantic background for any sort of date," he said. "(We) have such strong emotional ties to the land and the people."

"Momo" admitted that in five years he has paid for only one wedding. But he doesn't give up.

And neither do his employees.

Only hours after one recent group touched down in Israel, tour guide Eti Or fawned over wedding gowns as the bus rolled by bridal shops in Tel Aviv. "In case you come back and want to get married, there are some nice shops here, guys," she announced.

[Last modified March 21, 2005, 01:50:19]