By Cindy Mindell

Does an Israel experience really enhance American Jewish identity? Many studies have focused on the question. Consensus among Jewish professionals points to Jewish camping and time in Israel as the two most salient factors in ensuring Jewish continuity.

Now a new study conducted by Prof. Steven M. Cohen and Dr. Ezra Kopelowitz shows that participation in semester- or year-long programs in Israel is directly linked to stronger Jewish affiliation and leadership, regardless of the participant’s Jewish background.

Two women with Connecticut ties are included in the study, and are examples of how the Masa Israel experience changed the course of their Jewish lives. Hillary Bailey now works at the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee’s Inter-Agency Task Force on Israeli Arab Issues in New York. Rachel Olstein Kaplan is now director of volunteer services for Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village, a residential community for orphaned children in Rwanda based on the Yemin Orde Youth Village in Israel.

The study was commissioned by Masa Israel Journey, a joint project of the Jewish Agency for Israel and the Israeli government, which runs 180 academic, internship, and volunteer programs in Israel, each from five to 12 months long.

Cohen is director of the Berman Jewish Policy Archive at NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, and research professor of Jewish social policy at Hebrew Union College. Sociologist Ezra Kopelowitz is principal of Jerusalem-based Research Success Technologies, and specializes in Jewish education, Israel-Diaspora relations, and Jewish peoplehood.

“Journeys to Israel: The Impact of Longer-Term Programs upon Jewish Engagement & Israel Attachment” surveyed more than 13,000 Israel-program participants, 11,000 of whom were Americans, and most of whom had been on short-term experiences or Masa programs between 2005 and 2010. Cohen found that the longer the time participants spent in Israel and the more repeated their experiences, the greater their level of ensuing Jewish identification and involvement.

As an example, among the married respondents who participated on a Birthright trip and had not returned subsequently to Israel, 50 percent married a Jewish spouse. Among those who participated in Birthright and returned to Israel subsequently for a short term, 70 percent married Jews. Ninety-one percent of those who went on Birthright and then participated in Masa Israel married Jewish spouses.

“Over the years, a body of evidence has established the value of the short-term trip to Israel,” says Cohen. “This study is one of a small number that points to the significant added value of the long-term trip. “If 10 days in Israel is very good for Jewish engagement – and it is – then 10 months in Israel is even better. This finding points to the strong policy interest in promoting return travel to Israel among Birthright alumni, and the even stronger interest in advancing long-term return travel, such as that sponsored by Masa Israel Journey.”

Bailey and Olstein each strengthened her commitment to the Jewish community after participating in Masa.

Hillary Bailey grew up as a secular Jew in Manchester, where her family moved from the Bronx when she was 10. “My Jewish involvement in my early life was minimal, especially when compared to what it is now,” she says. “I always knew that I was Jewish and certain Jewish customs and family traditions were part of my consciousness from an early age.”

While an undergraduate at Yale, she made Jewish friends and slowly began to explore her Judaism. “As an economics major, I always assumed I would apply for jobs in investment banking after graduation,” she says. Instead, she decided to enroll in Masa Israel’s Otzma, a 10-month service program for recent college graduates. In addition to taking part in volunteer opportunities in Beer Sheva and Afula, and studying in an intensive Hebrew ulpan course, Bailey interned at IDC Herzliya’s Counter-Terrorism Center, where she conducted her own research in issues related to terrorism and published a journal article.

“The most valuable part of my Masa experience was the opportunity it afforded me to grow personally, professionally, and as a Jew,” she says. “In particular, my ability to connect in a formal capacity to the Jewish tradition and the State of Israel was the biggest change that came from my Masa experience.”

Bailey now provides administrative support for JDC’s five-member Inter-Agency Task Force on Israeli Arab Issues, which educates individuals and organizations within the North American Jewish community about the 20 percent of Israel’s population that is Arab, and about minority-majority relations in Israel in general.

Rachel Olstein Kaplan grew up outside Boston and moved to Seattle to volunteer for AmeriCorps after graduating high school. After receiving her bachelor’s degree from Vassar College in 2004, she came to Connecticut to teach second grade at the Waterside School in Stamford. At the same time, she started and led a USY chapter in Bridgeport. After several years of teaching in the classroom, she transitioned to the outdoor classroom at the Teva Learning Center, a North American Jewish environmental education center. “That’s where I found a community of active and engaged Jews dedicated to tikkun olam and educating youth, and each other, through radical amazement,” she says.

While working at Teva, Israel was a frequent topic of conversation among her colleagues. “For thousands of years, Jews have wanted to be in Israel,” she says. “Not only did I feel privileged to be born into an era when it was possible to visit Israel, I felt obligated to spend an extended period of time there.” In 2007, she enrolled in the Masa Israel-accredited Masters program in community leadership and philanthropy studies at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Olstein Kaplan focused her studies on organizations that pursue social justice from a Jewish perspective, but work to help populations beyond the Jewish community.

Today, as the director of volunteer services for the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village in Rwanda, Olstein Kaplan organizes volunteer opportunities and programming in the U.S., Israel, and in Rwanda. Her work includes leading service-learning trips for groups of Jewish and interfaith volunteers who come to the village for a few weeks at a time to help promote its future sustainability. She also oversees the professional cadre of year-long volunteers who come to Rwanda each year to serve AGahozo-Shalom in their field of expertise.

“I believe that Israel needs positive ambassadors and that such globally-minded programs can leave communities around the world with a positive impression about Judaism and Israel,” she says. “I believe that Jews have a social responsibility that extends beyond their own world and, to me, there’s something intrinsically Jewish about helping people, regardless of their race, religion or culture.”

To view the study: www.jewishagency.org