From the Middle East to Eastern Europe to the Americas, Jews are known for placing a very high premium on food. And even if jokes about Jewish mothers and their tendency to ply their children (and everyone else in the vicinity) with an unending supply of food are a bit overblown, the stereotype of the food-loving Jew exists for a reason. It should come as no surprise that food is central to a people whose religion includes ritual meals on the first two nights of Passover, a Purim feast, the prescribed diet of kashrut, and whose sacred text tells the famous story of a hungry first-born son who sells his birthright to his younger brother—for a bowl of soup.

Perhaps it is because a food-centric culture breeds among its adherents an acute awareness of the importance of food that many at the forefront of the international war against hunger are Jews. In fact, Jews have been obligated to fight hunger for at least as long as the Torah has been around—approximately 2,500 years

Never feeling accepted by the Jewish community, never offered opportunities to explore her Jewish identity, she did not connect her commitment to service to the values that undergird Jewish life—to the fundamental meaning of what it means to be Jewish.

Post-Birthright, The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington and Birthright Israel NEXT DC (the Taglit-Birthright Israel Alumni network), provide alumni with additional opportunities to inspire, connect, educate, and support a thriving Jewish community. 

One such opportunity is the Reverse Mifgash.  Since 2008, this program has offered a free 10-day American experience to Israeli alumni of DC community trips, where they are reunited with their friends from their buses, connected to hundreds of other young professionals from the DC area, and introduced to America’s Jewish pluralism.