Didi Remez broke the story a couple days ago. Now the Forward has followed it up with thorough reporting, saying the visit to Hebron was the only "birthright" trip of 750 in the last year to go to the Occupied Territories and seems to violate the organization’s parameters. But there’s little doubt about the motivation of the excursion:
In the video of the group visiting Hebron, the guide, a bearded man identified as Daniel Guttman [who speaks with an American accent], is asked why he brought the [Australian] group there.
“This is the roots of our people,” he says. “Birthright is the connection of our right to the land. And I brought the Jewish people, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to the Land of Israel, to the roots of our people, to show them what our birthright is all about.”
He also seems aware that his decision to visit is an unprecedented one. The man behind the camera says that this is the first time he can recall a Birthright group in the city, to which the guide responds: “With the help of God, all the Birthrights should come to Hebron to connect with the mamas and the papas. It should be a year that we see all the Jews come to Eretz Yisrael and Hebron.”
David Wilder, a self-proclaimed English spokesman of the Hebron community, writing on his blog, described meeting the group during its visit. He called it, “the first time an ‘official’ Birthright mission has come into Hebron.”
“Their visit made my day,” Wilder wrote.
