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Humans of Heller High: What nine teens learned on an immersive program in Israel
This article was produced as part of JTA’s Teen Journalism Fellowship, a program that works with teens across the world to report on issues that impact their lives.
(JTA) — After nearly two years of hybrid learning at school, some students couldn’t wait to get back in the classroom full-time. For some teens that meant flying thousands of miles to attend the immersive program at Heller High School in Israel in the Fall of 2022.
This fall, 18 students left home to experience life as students in Israel. Living together, taking classes as a group, and going on field trips with each other, students have to learn how to experience life on their own away from home in addition to a general studies class load that includes Jewish history and Hebrew.
Heller was created to give “Reform youth an opportunity to strengthen through learning and experience, their connection to Judaism, the Jewish people, and the Jewish state,” said David Solomon, associate principal. The curriculum focuses on field trips and immersion learning. Heller High takes place in Israel. The fall semester lasts from August through December and the spring semester lasts from January through May. Students that are Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors can attend Heller and can stay from a semester up to a year.
In this photo gallery, students talk about their experiences and struggles with the program along with how they are coping with the changes around them.
Changing it up
Flora Pelton, left, 15, 10th grade, from Falls Church, Virginia. (Courtesy of Flora Pelton)
“Before this semester, everything in my life was very familiar; I had lived in the same house, gone to the same schools, and been a member of the same congregation my whole life. Israel was a way for me to get new experiences outside of a small-town American lifestyle. I have become friends with so many new people from different places around the world. I enjoy being able to go to school but still go on so many trips and adventures. I learned how to be independent, take care of myself, and get to know people I have never met before. We were all kind of thrown into this experience and so we had to learn how to do all of these things on our own. It has opened my mind to knowing that I will have to do things like this in the future. It has moved me because I know that I can do so much more than I thought I could. Being in Israel will change who I am now because I have learned to be more aware of others. We have to be with each other at all times and so respecting and learning others’ needs is super important. For example, if my roommate wants to go to bed, I have to be quiet or find somewhere else. I have enjoyed swimming in Sachne [a nature spot in the lower Galilee] the most. It was during a full day field trip and we got to swim as it is the last time we can swim until summer. We all jumped in and were terrified of the fish in the water. The experiences have brought me closer to everyone around me.” — Flora Pelton
Connected
Eitan Hefer, 15, 10th grade, in Hudsonville, Michigan. (Courtesy of Eitan Heffer)
“I love being able to have fun with Jews my age. I am able to surround myself with people that have similar interests and ideas as me. I feel more connected and comfortable with these people than with most of my friends at home because you are with the people here all day, everyday. I will be a lot more mature and be able to focus and do my homework without being asked [when I return home]. I will also be able to advocate for myself a lot more. I have a lot more fun here versus school at home because I can have more one-on-one with my roommates. Being in Heller High has taught me to manage my time and know when I need to focus on myself versus the people around me. This experience has changed my outlook on life because it has taught me to make the most of each moment. ” — Eitan Hefer
New View
Lena Schapiro, 16, 11th grade, from Rancho Cucamonga, California. (Zoe Klevens)
“I heard about Heller High from a friend. My parents thought it would be a great opportunity, and we didn’t know anyone that had studied abroad as a high school student. I decided to do it because, at home, I wasn’t feeling very Jewish. My school has no Jews. I was looking for a connection to other Jews and my Jewish identity in Israel. I expected to observe Judaism more often here and it is true compared to my life at home. An experience I’ll remember most was we went into the caves at Bar Kochva and sang the Shema and extended every word. It was so spiritual, and it felt so good at that moment. It felt like I was ascending with the echoing voices. We were all in harmony both out loud, but also in our souls. This experience has given me a whole new mindset about the world. I feel more responsibility through community service, engaging with Israelis that I have never met, and being away from home. Now that I have been able to surround myself with other Jews, I can feel confident in my Jewish identity when returning home. It opened my eyes, like when we learned to clean out plates with dirt. It opened my mind up to the fact that you can clean something dirty with something even dirtier. It was something I would never have believed worked, but although it seems absurd, it was so effective. It’s taking something you’d never believed and turned it into something so easy. I can apply this to my Jewish life at home by trying new things that might seem weird to others.” — Lena Schapiro
Reminded of home
Adina Golbus, 17, 11th grade, from San Rafael, California. (Zoe Klevens)
“Raticus is this toy rat; he’s not quite a stuffed animal, but he looks realistic and special to me. It was this joke between my friends and me back home, and I ended up bringing it with me. I created this Instagram account called raticus.inisrael. On my first day in the airport, I knew these kids in the airport were going to think I was the weirdest person in the world or have similar humor. It made my heart happy when everyone thought it was super funny. Now wherever we go, I try to bring Raticus to all the significant places we go. He has become a mascot for our group. He has become a special thing. I share them with my parents. Masada was a challenging mountain to climb, and having Raticus there made it easier, knowing I could take him to the top and get sunset pictures. He helped to change the mood.” — Adina Golbus
Together
Sylvia Kassoff, 16, 11th grade, from Jackson, Mississippi. (Zoe Klevens)
“After going to Israel with NFTY this summer, I knew I wanted to return. I was unhappy with my home school because I felt as though I wasn’t getting a very good education. My friend from home had told me that ‘being around other Jewish people was good for me.’ That really stuck with me and made me want to come to Israel again. The cultural shift from Jackson, Mississippi to Israel is definitely large. At home, there is a lot of Southern hospitality where everyone is kind to everyone. Here, people are kind, but it is definitely different because people display their kindness differently. A lot of the time people don’t really smile on the street that much, but many give to charity and in general people are a lot more willing to be socially active here versus at home.
“My happiest moment here was when we went to the Mediterranean sea and hung out on a rock. It was directly after we finished Yam le Yam (Sea to Sea) where we hiked from the Kinneret to the Mediterranean sea. Everyone was exhausted and we got to unwind and be together. I realized that these are the people I am going to be spending four months of my life with and I really appreciated that. While the school day is a lot longer, the breaks in between learning are helpful. The content is much more interesting and easier to follow. I have learned that I want to find a community and find people that make me feel comfortable. In Israel, I have made my own community of so many other Jewish teens. I am a little worried to go back to Jackson because I know it will be a huge adjustment. I have to go back to school less than a week after I get home from Israel. I think once I get back I will notice a big difference between my friends and me. I am excited to see what the world has to offer when I arrive back home.” — Sylvia Kassoff
Full of possibilities
Anna von Thomsen, bottom left, 16, 11th grade, from Schwerin, Germany. (Courtesy of Anna von Thomsen)
“The bus ride from the airport to Heller High felt like it was so full of possibilities. I didn’t know anyone and was like this is the start. The class sizes are either one-on-one or much smaller than my class sizes at home. It’s different from having a teacher that cares about what I learn. Since I am not American, I have had difficulty socially adapting, but I am working on that. The cultural difference between German and American teens makes it difficult. Trends and humor are both incredibly different. Sarcasm is more subtle in the United States and I have found that a lot of American trends reach Germany a lot later. Germans are generally a lot more blunt whereas Americans tend to dance around subjects. I have adapted by letting my peers shape me and teach me what they find funny. I haven’t stopped believing what I believed before I came here, but I have definitely catered to other people.” — Anna von Thomsen
Connected
Kami Rosenblatt, 16, 11th grade, from Danville, California. (Zoe Klevens)
“The best advice I was given before coming here is that nothing is permanent. I’m trying to make the most of it and live in the moment. I was expecting to be homesick, [but] I was shocked at how comfortable I was by day two. I’ve never been happier. We never really know how our day is going to turn out. It can go from being an 11-hour school day to having some of my favorite memories during or right after school. I also love Israeli dancing. When I am dancing, I feel energized and a kind of kehila (community) that you can not feel anywhere else. During Simchat Torah, we unraveled the Torah and saw the whole thing. We celebrated and danced around it with people we never met before; that was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. At home, I only go to school from 8:30 a.m. until 1pm. Here, we go to school from 8 a.m. until 7 p.m. It’s draining and long. However, learning Hebrew and the Jewish history class about Israel, the land, the people, the culture, and then just Judaism – the classes are so important to be learning here. It’s immersing us into the culture even more, and it’s the kind of education I would never receive in my life again. My greatest challenge has been learning to adapt to not enough sleep and going all day long without any breaks or stops. I’ve learned not to care about the things I used to care about. I am a lot less uptight.” — Kami Rosenblatt
Tradition
Talia Rapaport, top, 17, 12th grade, from Raleigh, North Carolina. (Courtesy of Talia Rapaport)
“Last year, I attended Alexander Muss High School for a semester. My dad and all of his family had done it. I realized how much Israel means to me and knew I wanted to return to my senior year. I wanted to learn more about the history of Israel, so I could go back and share it with my community. My happiest moment at Heller High was when we made it to the top of Masada and hung an Israel flag together. It was blowing in the wind, and I felt like we had all made it. When we screamed into the mountains ‘Am Yisrael Chai,’ and it screamed back at us, it showed all of the generations and what we are continuing. This gave me a sense of Israeli pride and what we get to be a part of daily. Living on my own here has made me a lot more independent. It is great college prep. I’ve had to start making my own life decisions like choosing when to do my homework or when I want to eat out versus staying in. It is now up to me how I want to practice Shabbat. In Israel, I am trying to stay off my phone on shabbat. At home, I attend Orthodox school; I learn all the religious aspects of being Jewish, the Talmud and Chumash [the Hebrew Bible], and not the history. The hardest thing for me has been learning about reform Judaism; it’s been eye-opening. It has given me a new perspective on what the prayers mean to different people. I learned so many different tunes and melodies to songs along with saying things in English instead of Hebrew. It gives everyone the ability to learn what we are praying about.I never had any background in that. But, I’ve adapted to it and overtime I started doing the reform prayers, instead of how I learned. Everyone has done a good job of including me in services.” — Talia Rapaport
Learning balance
Noa Maccabee, left, 14, 10th grade, from Hood River, Oregon. (Courtesy of Noa Macabee)
“I grew up in a non-Jewish community and struggled with my Jewish identity. Growing up in a small community with no Jews, I didn’t really know how to be Jewish. Being Jewish to me before didn’t really mean anything, but now I know more about the world and the people around me. I have learned more about my religion and others. Now, being Jewish means being me and not having to hide it. I was looking to explore Israeli culture and thought Heller High would help me. I’ve learned to enjoy every moment and take school more seriously. Hiking Sea to Sea with some of my closest friends and being outdoors was amazing. It pushed us because we were tired and exhausted, but we kept going. We discovered a stream after hiking six miles. We were all super hot and sweaty and arrived in this secluded area for lunch. My friend Kami and I decided to go for a brief swim. At that moment, I realized how close I was to nature, and the deep connection I have made with friends is the strongest I have ever had. Being here has taken time to get used to. Balancing school, friends, and living with people all the time – the social aspect can be difficult because of lack of alone time. It was surprising how short of a time this place took to feel like home. This experience has made me a more open person. I have a much better understanding of how the world functions and lives because I have the ability to see how Jews live when they are surrounded by thousands of other Jews.” — Noa Maccabee
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The post Humans of Heller High: What nine teens learned on an immersive program in Israel appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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The real anti-Zionists are at the highest levels of the Israeli government
The fact that about half of young American Jews favor replacing Israel with a binational Israeli-Palestinian state is indeed a result of anti-Zionism — but not necessarily their own.
Instead, it’s a consequence of the Israeli government’s drive to radically increase Israeli control over the West Bank and Gaza. By ensuring that some 5.5 million Arabs increasingly live under Israel authority, Israel’s leaders have created the demographic reality of a binational state.
We can’t blame young American Jews for just acknowledging reality. Instead, it’s time to acknowledge that a movement to undermine Zionism has taken hold within the Israeli government.
If Zionism is the movement for a secure homeland for the Jews, then any forces that reject or undermine that homeland’s legitimacy or security are anti-Zionist. That includes the people whose positions and policies actively undermine the existence of a Jewish homeland.
The democratic Jewish state enshrined in the country’s Declaration of Independence has given way to something that looks a lot more like a herrenvolk democracy, in which democratic rights apply only to the dominant ethnic group. History has many examples of such arrangements, and — spoiler alert — they don’t end well for the majority. French Algeria until 1962, Rhodesia until 1980, South Africa until 1994 — all eventually faced one of three fates: negotiated transition to full democracy, violent collapse or ongoing instability and international isolation. To date, none have stabilized permanently.
Just recently Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted that Israel will soon control 70% of Gaza, well beyond the 53% allotted to the country in the Gaza ceasefire framework to which Israel is still supposed to adhere.
When an audience member at his talk shouted out that Israel should take 100% of Gaza, Netanyahu responded, “First 70%. We’ll start with that.”
Then there’s the West Bank, where settlers tried to expel 2,000 Palestinians from a village south of Nablus earlier this month, and where settlers and an IDF soldier wounded nine Palestinians on a June 5 rampage through Hawara.
Since Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has established at least 59 new illegal outposts in the West Bank — compared to an annual average of seven in the preceding three decades. It has appropriated a record amount of land, and displaced more than 8,700 Palestinians through demolitions and settler violence.
There’s also East Jerusalem, where some Israeli Jews are actively trying to remove 20,000 Palestinians from the Silwan neighborhood.
Each act of seizure, harassment and expulsion is anti-Zionist. These Palestinians will not fade into Egypt or Amman or Los Angeles. Mass expulsion isn’t happening, and neither is mass immigration. A Jewish state is giving way to a state that is effectively equal parts Arab and Jewish — except the Jews have all the rights. As the anti-Zionists in the Israeli government seize control of more Palestinian land, they undo all of Zionism’s hard-fought gains. A nondemocratic Jewish state will be neither safe nor secure.
If this sounds like diasporic Jewish garment-rending over morality and Jewish values, it’s not. The people who live in a fantasy world are not those who point out the necessity of finding a way toward coexistence, but those who think Israel can survive and flourish if it trashes its founding principles and its democracy.
Logic and history are not on Israel’s side. No minority- or bare-majority-rule system over a large disenfranchised population has proved durable. I know from my many conversations with my fellow Jews who support a “Greater Israel” incorporating Gaza and the West Bank — or just want to ignore or get rid of Palestinians — that they think time, power or God will bend the iron laws of demography in Israel’s favor. History would beg to differ.
But what about the Palestinians, you might ask: don’t they bear responsibility? For decades of rejectionism and terror? For elevating kleptocratic and ineffective leaders? For glorifying violence and cheering on Hamas in its slaughter, kidnapping and rape of Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, 2023? For wanting, as many of them do, an end to Jewish sovereignty in the land?
Yes. Palestinian rejectionism and embrace of violence has been a disaster for Jews, as well as for generations of Palestinians. But those facts don’t change the demographic reality.
Of Americans Jews under 35, 51% support a binational state, according to a recent Jewish Voters Research Center poll. What they see is that there are 15 million people between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. About half of them are not Jews, much less Zionists, and one government is not just intent on holding and controlling all that territory, but well on its way to doing so. If a binational state already exists in practice, the best hope for the region, these young people are saying, is to accept that fact, and direct all our efforts toward making that state just.
They may be completely mistaken about the chances of that happening peacefully or even in their lifetimes, but they’re not the ones who got us to this point. The ongoing settlement of territories with a vast non-Jewish majority was the most anti-Zionist thing Israel could have done, and continues to do, and yet here we are.
The Jewish communal obsession with policing who is and isn’t a Zionist misses the larger point. The State of Israel exists. What’s in question is its character — whether it will be democratic and secure, or calcify into something modern history has repeatedly shown the world rejects.
Land comes with people, and demographics is destiny. A government intent on holding and controlling all the territory between the river and the sea is undermining Zionism from within.
The post The real anti-Zionists are at the highest levels of the Israeli government appeared first on The Forward.
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‘Odessa’ wants to use your empathy against you
The short film Odessa begins with what its director Harald Swinkels calls an “empathy trap.”
The film opens with a German couple and their young son hiking across the Dolomites; the woman seems anxious, the man much more energetic. They approach a church, where they are greeted suspiciously by the twins who take care of it, until they say the passcode: “Odessa.” They later try the codeword again with an innkeeper — but this time they are sent running as she calls on the village to attack them. It’s a heart-pounding scene as the family the viewer has been so closely tied to runs for their lives from a loud, angry mob.
Interspersed through the scenes of the family’s flight are blurry white and black clips of a hazy figure approaching a camera. Even with the obscured shot, the viewer can make out train tracks and recognize the setting as a concentration camp, a flashback to the world they’re leaving. It feels like your typical Holocaust film, showing the risks Jewish refugees faced at every turn and the way the trauma of the camps haunted them.
At the end of the film’s 20-minute run, however, the shadowy figure finally comes into focus. It’s the husband, but not in the striped clothes of a camp prisoner: He’s wearing an SS uniform and ordering twins to be placed in a separate line. He’s Josef Mengele.
“People take first impressions as character,” Swinkels told me in an interview. “That’s not character. You should look behind that.”
Contemporary politics inspired Swinkels, the founder of the Dutch production company Exosphere, to make the film.
“One of my most conservative friends started arguing that ‘these people’ should be kept in their own region, as he called it, and certainly not taken in by us,” Swinkels said, of debates over Syrian immigrants in the Netherlands. “And then we had this discussion about if you would feel the same about these refugees, if they look like him and me.”
Wanting to make a film about Northwestern Europeans fleeing led Swinkels to think about World War II. After an election in Denmark resulted in a right-wing shift in politics, he also became interested in exposing how charisma can hide someone’s darker nature.
Swinkels had long been interested in Josef Mengele, but when he discovered the Nazi’s duplicitous relationship with the kids in Auschwitz — survivors have testified that Mengele would bring them candy in order to gain their trust — that solidified him as the main character. The film features a quote from a Jewish prisoner forced to work for Mengele, Miklós Nyiszli, stating that the doctor “was capable of being so kind to the children” as he prepared to torture them and send them to their deaths.
“Arendt once called it the banality of evil,” Swinkels said. “But with Mengele, it’s even more dangerous because it’s the charm of evil.”
The bread crumbs leading to the family’s true identity are there for history buffs. Over the course of the film, we slowly learn their names — Josef, Irene, and Reif. “Odessa” was the American name for Nazi’s underground escape networks, although there is no historical consensus that this term was used by the Nazis or was an actual organization.
But the clues are easy enough to miss — by the time the audience learns these details, we have already formed assumptions that the protagonists of the story are likely Jews or members of another group persecuted by the Nazis.
The fact that Mengele had darker features and his wife had fairer ones adds another misleading layer. At one point, the wife abandons the journey and insists that it’ll be safer for the son to stay with her while the husband flees. It seems as though this is because she is Aryan and the husband isn’t. But, as it turns out, it’s because he is a wanted war criminal.
The short film also nods to a few other historical figures. One of the brothers at the church is named Alois, in reference to Alois Hudal, an Austrian Catholic Bishop who was a Nazi sympathizer and aided in the escape of several Nazi leaders, including Adolf Eichmann. He did not have a twin brother in real life, but this detail alludes to Mengele’s fascination with twins.
The inn-keeper who sets the village after the family, Frau Scholl, is named after Sophie Scholl, a member of the White Rose Nazi-resistance group, hinted at by white roses outside of her house in the film. They even shot the film in the Dolomites, the same mountain range Mengele crossed during his escape.
Swinkels noted that details like this can be easy to miss. “But I think you can still feel it, that we put so much detail in the film to make all these kinds of historical references,” he said.
He hopes that the film makes viewers think more carefully about charismatic figures.
“History has taught us that monsters don’t come dressed as monsters,” Swinkels said. “They come as protectors, visionaries, or loving fathers. And by the time we find that truth, it’s most often too late.”
“If a viewer walks out of Odessa and looks a little bit harder at the next person who charms them, and even better at the next person they’re about to vote for, then the film will have fulfilled its purpose.”
The short film Odessa is showing at the Tribeca Film Festival on June 13.
The post ‘Odessa’ wants to use your empathy against you appeared first on The Forward.
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Graham Platner, anti-Israel progressive, locks up Democratic Senate nomination in Maine
(JTA) — Graham Platner, the anti-Israel progressive who took Maine’s political establishment by storm this spring, has officially prevailed in his state’s Democratic Senate primary.
Multiple news outlets called the race within 90 minutes of the polls closing, with only a fraction of the votes counted.
The victory was seen as a foregone conclusion after Platner’s primary opponent, Gov. Janet Mills, suspended her candidacy in late April, saying her campaign could not afford to continue.
Still, the final tally suggested that not all Mainers had embraced the political neophyte whose campaign was dogged by controversies, including the revelation that Platner had a Nazi Totenkopf tattoo on his chest for nearly two decades until he drew criticism for it on the campaign trail. He denied knowing it was a Nazi symbol.
Mills, who remained on the ballot, drew about one in five votes in the first 10% of ballots counted, according to the tally published by The New York Times.
The result sets Platner up to face off in November against incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who has received substantial support from pro-Israel donors. The latest polls suggest a tight race.
“I’m humbled and proud to officially be your Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate to take on Susan Collins and the billionaire class she represents. Together, we will win this seat back for working Mainers,” Platner tweeted on Tuesday night. “Thank you, Maine.”
While Democratic leaders officially threw their support behind Platner after Mills halted her campaign, many of them remained circumspect about him. Their balancing act grew more delicate in the final days of the primary race, as Platner drew allegations of antisemitism over his characterization of donations channeled to Collins by the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC and as he faced new allegations of misconduct toward women. (He said he had been a “far from perfect boyfriend” during some periods of his life but denied engaging in misconduct.)
Now, top Democrats will have to decide how hard to gun for Platner, who has become a standard-bearer in the party’s anti-Israel shift at a time when the chamber is narrowly divided.
They are already facing pressure to disavow him. “Chuck Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in America, and every Senate Democrat propping up Platner’s campaign, should be ashamed,” the Republican Jewish Coalition said in a statement after the polls closed. “Their continued support of Graham Platner, who wore the symbol of Hitler’s SS on his chest for 18 years is an outrage. Schumer must withdraw his support immediately.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Graham Platner, anti-Israel progressive, locks up Democratic Senate nomination in Maine appeared first on The Forward.
