ISRAEL
Jewish Currents
April 18, 2018
Sarah Seltzer
Jewish Currents spoke with more than 50 Birthright Israel participants and staffers about their experiences with the often-fraught sexual and gender dynamics on the famous free trip to Israel. Here is what we found.
This article was reported in partnership with The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute, with support from the Puffin Foundation.
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1.
The day after Julia Peck says she was sexually assaulted by an Israeli soldier on her trip with Birthright Israel, she had thoughts of jumping in front of a bus. Wracked by pain and guilt as she arrived at the Western Wall, she says she slipped a note between the stones. The note read, “I’m Sorry.”
Peck, then a sophomore, arrived back at Columbia University during a heated campus discussion of consent, alcohol and coercion. She steeled herself and filed a report about her incident. Her fresh trauma and distress didn’t stop her from being scrupulous; she gathered two comprehensive witness accounts from her Birthright roommates, and even included the screenshot of an apology text from the alleged perpetrator. Encouraged by campus Hillel staff, the central location for Jewish life on many campuses that also ran and organized her Birthright trip, she filed a report.
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