Three years ago, Bernie Marcus and The Marcus Foundation determined it was time to take a more proactive approach to supporting young North American Jews facing mounting antisemitism. Now, two years after Mr. Marcus launched RootOne powered by The Jewish Education Project – a philanthropic venture designed to both maximize the number of Jewish teens immersed in Israel summer experiences and the life-long impact those experiences have on teens – those of us who manage RootOne can say that we’ve arrived.
RootOne is not an operator per se – we do not run teen Israel experiences. However, along with (as of today) 40 trip provider partners – including BBYO, NCSY, URJ, JCCA and nearly 20 Jewish residential camps – RootOne is fundamentally (even radically) changing what these experiences look like and who participates in them.
In 2019, the last time Israel summer teen tours traveled to Israel pre-COVID, the typical teen registered for an Israel trip, spent an average of one hour or so in orientation prior to getting on the plane, immersed themselves in Israel and returned home newly inspired as life quickly returned to normal. Just three years later, RootOne teens are having a much different experience.
In 2022, upon registering for a trip and applying for a $3,000 RootOne travel voucher, all 5,000 teens on a RootOne affiliated experience embarked on an intensive educational head start, averaging 17 hours of interactive learning, soaking in crucial information and inspiration about Israel before they stepped foot on the plane. That’s a total of 85,000 learning hours, all focused on creating deeper connections between North American Jewish teens and the State and people of Israel.
What is RootOne?
Once they land in Israel, teens on RootOne affiliated trips experience itineraries that are crafted with 18 specific RootOne Outcomes in mind. These outcomes, culled from the most recent research gathered on North American teens, all focus on maximizing the life-long impact of the Israel travel experience on the teens themselves, and serve as the foundation upon which RootOne affiliated Israel trips are designed and implemented.
The outcomes include crucial developmental milestones, such as gaining the confidence to engage in informed conversations about Israel with their peers upon returning, better understanding the significance of the State of Israel in Jewish history, better understanding the multiplicity of voices and perspectives, needs, and desires of all the peoples living in Israel, and feeling a greater sense of pride in being Jewish.
Teens returning home from RootOne affiliated trips have a robust set of opportunities for continued engagement in Israel and in Jewish life, fueled by their trip providers on a local and regional level and complemented by RootOne on a national level. In 2022, every one of RootOne’s 40 trip provider partners now has a clear and executable plan for engaging these teens once they return. In 2019, less than a handful of them had a plan to do so.
Lastly, RootOne has established data-sharing agreements with campus-based, like-minded Jewish organizations like Hillel, MASA, Onward Israel, Chabad, and others, in which RootOne hands over the contact information for the growing number of RootOne alumni, all but ensuring their engagement in Jewish life on campus and in Israel-based activities.
All of this remarkable progress came to an incredibly electrifying apex on July 10, as 2,300 North American Jewish teens (nearly half of the 5,000 traveling with RootOne affiliated trips this summer) came together at RootOne’s Big Tent Event, a chance to celebrate Israel and themselves, to dance (mosh?) to live Israeli music, to learn about ways to get back to Israel, to see old friends and meet new ones, and to pour out the love and excitement for Israel that seemed to have been bottled up within them for the last two years.
“This moment belongs to us... it’s our time to be heard, and to listen... it’s our time to feel like we’re part of something bigger – much bigger – and it’s our time to feel like we’re not alone.”
Levi Fox, a senior from BBYO
As Levi Fox, a senior from BBYO remarked in the event’s opening, “This moment belongs to us... it’s our time to be heard, and to listen... it’s our time to feel like we’re part of something bigger – much bigger – and it’s our time to feel like we’re not alone.”
The 2,300 teens were joined by 150 Jewish communal leaders, who witnessed first-hand the power of community and the pure joy that teens from 11,000 kilometers away feel when they are welcomed home. It was a transformative experience for all who were there and it put RootOne on the proverbial map.
RootOne’s work is hardly finished. We intend to expand the number of teens traveling to Israel until it is a normative part of every North American Jewish teen’s high school years. That’s going to take partnership, financial support, ingenuity and calculated risks, but after experiencing the unparalleled impact of Israel on our community’s next-up generation, we are more focused on making that a reality than ever before.
The writer is executive director of RootOne at The Jewish Education Project.