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Birthright travelers look different after Oct. 7 – but the effect remains the same, study shows
(JTA) — Len Saxe, a researcher at Brandeis University, has been studying the impact of Birthright trips to Israel since the initiative launched in 1999. Last year, he noticed something unusual in the data.
At a rate far outpacing anything he’d ever detected before, people who signed up for Birthright in summer 2025 but did not participate became less connected to Israel and less connected to their own Jewish identity in the months after.
Nonparticipants — whether their trips were canceled because of the June war with Iran, or they opted out on their own — reported a declining sense of connection to Jewish values, Jewish history, Jewish tradition and a “worldwide Jewish community.”
The study did not attempt to explain the change, but Saxe has a theory about what happened.
“Many of the applicants live in communities where they hear frequent criticism of Israel,” Saxe said. “Unlike the period on campuses pre-COVID, when Birthright was taking 35,000 North Americans a year to Israel, students don’t know many others who have experience in Israel and know Israelis.Their perspective on the conflict lacks context.”
The organization said 7,300 North Americans took a Birthright trip last summer, out of 10,000 total. (War with Iran disrupted some trips and canceled others.) Of the total, 65% were college-aged.
The survey detected other changes for Birthright since 2023, when Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war and anti-Israel sentiment around the world.
More than half of last year’s participants, 54%, had already participated in some variety of Israel programming, up from 38% in 2023, according to Saxe’s report. (Birthright loosened its eligibility requirements in 2014 to allow students who had visited Israel in high school to go again.)
About 1 in 5 participants were Orthodox, a more than threefold growth from summer 2023, the last trips before the start of the Gaza war. And 38% of participants attended Jewish day school, up from 23% two years prior.
The survey also detected a rightward political shift among Birthright participants. Forty-two percent of 2025’s Birthright participants identified as conservative, and 34% as liberal, a dramatic shift from 2023, when 20% identified as conservative and 57% as liberal.
Those who do participate in Birthright still report that it deepens their connection to Judaism, and there is mounting evidence that connection is long-lasting. According to a recent survey by the Jewish Federations of North America, millennial Jews — the demographic where Birthright had the greatest penetration — were the only age group to have a majority identify as “Zionist.”
The analysis found that for self-identified liberals who did go on Birthright, the trip’s most important impact was on their conception of what it means to be Jewish.
Liberals reported large upswings in their sense of being Jewish as “extremely important to their identity” after their trips, the authors wrote — 48% after the trip, compared to 29% beforehand. Even Birthright participants who had to be sent home early due to fighting still overwhelmingly reported that the trip had made a difference in their understanding of their Jewish identity.
In other words, Saxe said, Birthright is still fulfilling its intended purpose: strengthening its participants’ Jewish identities more generally.
“Among those with the least prior connection to Judaism and Israel, including those politically liberal, they showed the largest increase in their connection to Israel, as well as other facets of their Jewish identities,” he said.
In statements accompanying the report’s release, Birthright’s leadership trumpeted the program as a necessary antidote to declining Jewish engagement.
“The cultural headwinds facing young Jews are real, and they are pushing Jewish connection and pride downward,” Gidi Mark, international CEO of Birthright Israel, said in a release. “But what this research makes unmistakably clear is that Birthright Israel moves participants in the opposite direction. The decline occurred only among those who did not go.”
Elias Saratovsky, president and CEO of the Birthright Israel Foundation, painted the situation in even starker terms.
“We are at a crossroads. If our community does nothing, we risk losing the younger generation,” Saratovsky said. “But if we invest in an effective intervention — Birthright Israel — we can win them back.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Birthright participants are more Orthodox, more right-wing and more familiar with Israel than before Oct. 7 appeared first on The Forward.
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Trump Says Gas Prices May Remain High Through November Midterm Election
U.S. President Donald Trump takes questions from reporters while Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio look on, as they attend a meeting with oil industry executives, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 9, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that the price of oil and gasoline may remain high through November’s midterm elections, a rare acknowledgement of the potential political fallout from his decision to attack Iran six weeks ago.
“It could be, or the same, or maybe a little bit higher, but it should be around the same,” Trump, who is in Miami for the weekend, told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures With Maria Bartiromo” when asked whether the cost of oil and gas would be lower by the fall.
The average price for regular gas at US service stations has exceeded $4 per gallon for most of April, according to data from GasBuddy. Trump’s comments on Sunday came after weeks of asserting that the spike in prices is a short-term phenomenon, though his top advisers are cognizant of the war’s economic impacts, officials have said.
Earlier on Sunday, Trump announced on social media that the US Navy would blockade the Strait of Hormuz and intercept any ship that paid a crossing fee to Iran, after marathon talks between the US and Iran in Pakistan over the weekend did not yield a peace deal.
“No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas,” he wrote on Truth Social.
Any US blockade is likely to add more uncertainty to the eventual resolution of the conflict, which is currently subject to a tenuous two-week ceasefire. The new tactic is in response to Iran’s own closure of the strait’s critical shipping lanes, which has caused global oil prices to skyrocket about 50%.
UNPOPULAR WAR HITS TRUMP’S APPROVAL
The war began on February 28, when the US launched a joint bombing campaign with Israel against Iran. The scope quickly expanded as Iran and its allies attacked nearby countries, while Israel targeted Hezbollah with massive strikes in Lebanon.
The war has buffeted global financial markets and caused thousands of civilian deaths, mostly in Iran and Lebanon.
Trump’s political standing at home has suffered, with polls showing the war is unpopular among most Americans, who are frustrated by rising gasoline prices.
The president’s approval rating has hit the lowest levels of his second term in office, raising concern among Republicans that his party is poised to lose control of Congress in the midterm elections. A Democratic majority in either chamber could launch investigations into the Trump administration while blocking much of his legislative agenda.
US Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, questioned the strategy behind Trump’s planned blockade.
“I don’t understand how blockading the strait is going to somehow push the Iranians into opening it,” he told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
In a separate appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Warner said the blockade would not undermine Iranian control of the waterway.
“The Iranians have hundreds of speedboats where they can still mine the strait or put bombs against tankers in closing the strait,” he said. “How is that going to ever bring down gas prices?”
Although Trump has repeatedly said that the war would be over soon, Republican US Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin told ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday that achieving US aims in Iran “could take a long time.”
“It’s going to be a long-term project,” said Johnson, who was not asked about Trump’s proposed blockade. “I never thought this would be easy.”
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Israel’s Ben-Gvir Visits Flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound
Israeli politician Itamar Ben-Gvir walks inside the Knesset, in Jerusalem, Oct. 13, 2025. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Pool via REUTERS
Israel’s far-right police minister Itamar Ben-Gvir visited the flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem on Sunday, saying he was seeking greater access for Jewish worshipers and drawing condemnation from Jordan and the Palestinians.
The compound in Jerusalem’s walled Old City is one of the most sensitive sites in the Middle East. Known to Jews as Temple Mount, it is the most sacred site in Judaism and is Islam’s third-holiest site.
Under a delicate, decades-old arrangement with Muslim authorities, it is administered by a Jordanian religious foundation and Jews can visit but may not pray there.
Suggestions that Israel would alter the rules have sparked outrage among Muslims and ignited violence in the past.
“Today, I feel like the owner here,” National Security Minister Ben-Gvir said in a video filmed at the site and distributed by his office. “There is still more to do, more to improve. I keep pushing the Prime Minister (Benjamin Netanyahu) to do more and more — we must keep rising higher and higher.”
A statement from the Jordanian foreign ministry said it considered Ben-Gvir’s visit to be a violation of the status quo agreement at the site and “a desecration of its sanctity, a condemnable escalation and an unacceptable provocation.”
The office of Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said such actions could further destabilize the region.
Ben-Gvir’s spokesman said the minister was seeking greater access and prayer permits for Jewish visitors. He also said that Ben-Gvir had prayed at the site.
There was no immediate comment from Netanyahu’s office. Previous such visits and statements by Ben-Gvir have prompted Netanyahu announcements saying that there is no change in Israel’s policy of keeping the status quo.
Muslim, Christian and Jewish sites, including Al-Aqsa had been largely closed to the public during the Iran war. There was no immediate sign of unrest on Sunday after Ben-Gvir’s visit.
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Netanyahu Visits Troops Fighting Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference at the Prime Minister’s office in Jerusalem, Aug. 10, 2025. Photo: ABIR SULTAN/Pool via REUTERS
i24 News – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Israeli forces operating in southern Lebanon on Sunday as military operations against Hezbollah-linked targets continue.
Netanyahu toured forward positions alongside Defense Minister Yisrael Katz, Eyal Zamir, and Northern Command Commander Rafi Milo, meeting troops and receiving operational briefings from commanders on the ground.
Speaking to soldiers, Netanyahu praised their performance and said operations in the Lebanese security zone were ongoing.
“The war continues, including within the security zone in Lebanon,” he said, adding that Israeli forces were working to prevent infiltration attempts and neutralize threats such as anti-tank fire and missiles.
He described the northern campaign as part of a broader regional struggle involving Iran and its allies, saying Israel’s adversaries were now “fighting for their survival” following sustained Israeli military pressure.