After staffing 13 Birthright trips and sending more than 500 young Jews to Israel, I recently sat in a Manhattan theater and watched my professional role and personal preoccupations play out on stage. 

Jonathan Spector’s “Birthright,” now at MCC Theater, uses the free Israel trip as the starting point for decades of wrestling with Israel, Judaism and friendship. I watched versions of people I came to know on Birthright, never knowing how their own journeys might turn out.

The play follows six American Jews across three moments in time: 2006 after their Birthright trip, 2016 after a wedding rehearsal dinner, and 2024 after a shiva. All three acts take place in the same house. Even though we’re plopped into three vastly different time periods, the location acts like a portal, connecting us across the decades. 

The six men and women become friends on Birthright and stay in touch over the next 18 years.  The play offers snapshots into real life and how the conversation around Israel has evolved over the past two decades.

The play captures how, whatever the goals of the trip organizers or the intentions of the participants, every Birthright alum walks away with a different story. Sure, organizations and educators have their goals. But eventually people build their own relationships — with Israel and each other — ask their own questions and make meaning out of their experiences in ways nobody can fully predict or control.

There’s the character whose Birthright trip inspired a spiritual awakening and deepening, if not always straightforward, journey into religious thought. Another........

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