Every year, thousands of Jewish youth flock to Israel for ten days of sightseeing and Zionist indoctrination through Birthright Israel, an organization that offers the trips free of charge to young adults with Jewish heritage.
Beginning in May, Birthright and its partner organizations will pilot a new trip specially tailored to a specific demographic: Jewish law enforcement officers.
In February, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) announced the first ever “Law Enforcement Israel Adventure,” designed to “connect law enforcement officials to their Jewish roots and Israeli counterparts.”
Asked why Jewish police need their own Birthright trip, JNF spokesperson Adam Brill, himself a former Detective with the New York City Police Department, said it’s important for cops to have a connection to “their homeland.”
“It’s part of our DNA to want to help out others and make society better,” he said.
But later in conversation, he acknowledged that the trip was conceived, in part, as a reaction to the growing influence of the Boycott Divest and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
“They hear only bad things about Israel…from this BDS community that’s out there today, which is borderline anti-Semitic in its tone and is there to malign Israel all the time,” Brill said.
“We’re hoping to take the officer away from the department and community and let them see for themselves, without media telling them what’s going on,” he added.
If the law enforcement trip is anything like other Birthright ventures, there will indeed be no media, but rather a well-oiled propaganda machine––replete with fake Bedouin tents, checkpoints re-imagined as tollbooths, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shrouded in fog machine haze––telling police officers “what’s going on.”
Participating officers will also be matched with Israeli cops who will travel with them in the hope of forming friendships. It’s a heightened level of personal connection that Brill says doesn’t necessarily happen in the numerous programs that already send American law enforcement officers of any background, Jewish or otherwise, to Israel––like the Georgia-based GILEE program, which doles out counter-terrorism training and Islamophobia in equal measures.
“We wanted to pair these folks with Jewish Israeli police officers to share stories…When you’re walking through the old cities and the new cities that are being created in Israel, you can share these very personal stories,” Brill said.
This isn’t the first time that Birthright Israel has created a specialized program for a niche group. The organization currently offers trips tailored to LGBTQ people, foodies, and techies; in the past there have been special trips for skateboarders and hip-hop enthusiasts. Then there are Birthright spinoffs like Honeymoon Israel, and a Birthright-like trip for evangelical Christians.
The timing of the launch of Birthright’s law enforcement trip suggests that the program was perhaps conceived not only with BDS in mind, but also in response to the Black Lives Matter movement and the growing outrage over racist policing in the United States.
“Many young, progressive, American Jews are as outraged by the oppressive and racist policies of Israel as they are with U.S. law enforcement,” Naomi Dann, of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), told Mondoweiss.
“It’s deeply ironic that an organization that has played a large role in displacing Palestinians from their land is sponsoring a trip to sell Israel to young American-Jewish law enforcement officers,” Dann said.
Ironic, maybe also savvy. Young police officers who view critiques of the criminal justice system as personal attacks may be poised, now more than ever, to embrace any ideology that reinforces their righteousness.
Brill told Mondoweiss that the law enforcement Birthright trip is the brainchild of Rabbi Tzvi “Harry” Berkowitz, chief chaplain of New York City’s Metro Transit Authority. Berkowitz approached JNF with the idea and the organization ran with it. Now, Berkowitz is busy recruiting officers to participate.
“He’s going to Florida to sell to several hundred police officers down there and get the word out…the hope is to expand it,” he said.
How large is this Jewish law enforcement pool from which JNF is hoping to recruit? And why assume that Progressives are well represented among Jewish cops? Those Jewish police officers who do take advantage of the trip likely will be given more fodder for the arguments they may already be having with their Progressive peers and family members about Law Enforcement in the US and Israel.
“Asked why Jewish police need their own Birthright trip, JNF spokesperson Adam Brill, himself a former Detective with the New York City Police Department, said it’s important for cops to have a connection to “their homeland.”
Neatly sums up the thinking of right wing Jewish organisations in the USA. Israel not the USA is the ” homeland ” of all American Jews be they US Military , US Air Force or US Law Enforcement officers and it is to Israel that they owe their loyalty over the USA. What a cracking US approved breeding ground for potential spies on their return to their second if at all country.
The US Government is so bent bought and warped when it comes to thinking and policy on Israel that they simply cannot see or more likely are financially persuaded to turn a blind eye to these open incitements to disloyalty.
A grotesque government approved variation of Jihadism (substitute naive soon to be groomed into extremism Jews for naive soon to be groomed into extremism Muslims ).
“We wanted to pair these folks with Jewish Israeli police officers to share stories…When you’re walking through the old cities and the new cities that are being created in Israel, you can share these very personal stories,”
Well, the beating and shooting of swarthy people and black folk seem to be rampant in both countries so they’ll have plenty of stories to swap.
Former IDF camp guard of Palestinian prisoners, Colonel Jeffrey Goldberg will be the perfect tour guide for fellow authoritarians.
“Participating officers will also be matched with Israeli cops who will travel with them in the hope of forming friendships.”
and if there’s no connection what? Social Hannibal Directive, “Snub him Yossi, yes do it!”, Israel is becoming a bit like Westworld, still its not Detroit.