For the next 10 days, I will be exploring Israel courtesy of Birthright. My 10 hours flight from Newark to Tel Aviv is scheduled to lift off in about 10 minutes. 

Birthright is a program that offers a free trip to Israel for Jewish young adults between the ages of 18 and 32. This was raised from a maximum age of 26 in 2017. The program was founded in 1994, the year I was born. Since then, it has brought more than 600,000 Jews to Israel, most of them for the first time.

Given that the trip is free, it is not surprising that I have heard unanimously good things from the many people I know who have gone. It is a unique opportunity that I would have felt foolish to pass up, so I decided not to. I look forward to posting about pieces of my experience in Israel over the next 10 days.