by Elan Ezrachi, Executive Director of the MASA Company

MASA is an historic and strategic partnership between the Israeli government and the Jewish Agency.  These two organizations - representatives of the citizens of the State of israel and of the Jewish communities in the Diaspora - have joined forces for this project, which seeks to strengthen the next generation of Jewish People.

MASA endeavors to give thousands of young Jews in the Diaspora the opporunity to spend a semester or a full year, in Israel.  Participants will be able to establish contacts and develop a deepa nd long-lasting connection with the State of Israel and its people, as well as strengthen their Jewish and Zionist identity.  MASA graduates will be the future leaders of Diaspora Jewish communities.  Many will immigrate and build their futures in Israel. 

MASA is based on a few assumptions that must be clarified and elaborated.  The first is that there is a young generation of Jews in the Diaspora so deeply connected to the State of Israel that they will be ready to spend a significant period of their lives there.  Today's Jewish Diaspora youth is raised to be deeply connected to their home countries and cultures.  The State of Israel - its symbols and its culture - is not part of the daily reality of these youth (only a few of them or their parents emigrated from Israel).  Therefore, MASA can be implemented only if the Jewish educational system in the Diaspora forms a strong bond with Israel that will make visiting Israel, attractive to its youth.  The decision to live in Israel for an extended period of time will only be made with the support of continuous Jewish-Zionist education that ranks visits to Israel among the community's and the individual's highest priorities.

The second assumption is that the State of Israel has something to offer the youth from Diaspora communities.  MASA has not been constructed according to a paradigm of tourism.  Although there is no doubt that Israel is an excellent destination for tourists (particularly Jews), MASA is not based on a tourism model.  At a meaningful crossroad in their lives, these youth will be exposed to Israeli society and culture and will experience a lifestyle similar to that of Israelis.  Toward this end, Israeli society must demonstrate its capacity to receive thousands of young adults in a variety of frameworks.  This requires vast intellectual, cultural, social and logistic resources to meet the diverse needs of Jewish youth from around the world.  Every one of these components is essential for the success of the MASA enterprise.

The third assumption is the essence of the concept "journey", or MASA, to travel and the journey within Israel.  The word MASA refers to the dynamic approach that serves as the basic feature of this project.  We are not talking about a specific activity such as a pilgrimage to a holy site.  MASA is a process - a departure from any point on a journey - throughout which events and experiences are accumulated until the participants' return.  MASA cannot be assigned a clear-cut definition; it is certainly not a matter of merely arriving in Israel.  The year spent in Israel is is a stage within a continuity of developmental processes that will continue for many years after the completion of the formal duration of the program...and so it will also be within Israel.  The youth who arrive in Israel will not find themselves in a static situation during the course of their stay.  Throughout the time of their sojourn, there will be ups and downs, highs and lows, the accumulation of learning and of painful experiences.  In this respect as well, the tourism model that is based on continuous excitement and disassocation from the daily experience of the local residents is not a suitable model of belonging.  The participants of MASA will - as much as possible - enter the lives of the Israelis with whom they will share this time in their lives.

At this point, it is clear that all those involved in MASA - the participants, their parents, those responsible for running the programs, the representatives of Israeli society who receive the participants, the leaders of the Jewish communities in the Diaspora - understand the richness and complexity encompassed in the broad aims of MASA.