Jewish Futures Project. The Impact of Taglit-Birthright Israel: 2012 Update
Leonard Saxe, Michelle Shain, Graham Wright, Shahar Hecht, Shira Fishman and Theodore Sasson
October 2012
The impact of Taglit-Birthright Israel on its alumni six to eleven years after their trip to Israel is examined in this study. The data are derived from the third year of a longitudinal study of Jewish young adults.
Key Findings
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Participants were 42 percent more likely to feel very much connected to Israel compared to individuals who did not go on the program.
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Participants were 22 percent more likely to indicate that they are at least “somewhat confident” in explaining the current situation in Israel as compared to those who did not go on Taglit.
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Participants were 45 percent more likely than nonparticipants to be married to someone Jewish. Taglit’s impact on inmarriage was constant across all levels of childhood Jewish education.
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Taglit’s influence extends beyond participants themselves: seven percent of nonparticipants are married to Taglit alumni, while 25 percent of participants are married to other participants (who they did not necessarily meet on the trip).
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Among respondents whose spouses were not raised by Jews, participants’ spouses were over three times more likely to have formally converted to Judaism at the time of the survey than nonparticipants’ spouses.