A small bottle of Dead Sea water, with salt crystals, sat on a shelf in my grandparents’ home. As a kid, I’d shake it like a grogger, mesmerized by the sound. I didn’t know it then, but that bottle carried generations of longing. For my grandparents, Israel wasn’t a destination. It was a miracle. A dream fulfilled. They had lived in a world without Israel and then witnessed it come to life.
Years later, my parents gave me a gift that changed everything: they sent me to Alexander Muss High School in Israel (Muss). I know now that it was a financial stretch, but they made it work because they believed it mattered. They understood that I didn’t just need to see Israel. I needed to live it.
On Muss, I wrestled with my identity and with Israel. I experienced beauty and tension, joy and challenge, hope and struggle. I didn’t fall in love with a perfect Israel. I fell in love with one that was complex, vibrant, and real. Through that journey, I found my place in our people’s story.
Today, too many teens, and their parents, feel disconnected from that story.
We live in a fractured world where nuance is shrinking, and disagreement feels like betrayal. Israel and Zionism have become lightning rods, even within our own communities. Antisemitism is louder, more normalized, and more acute than it has been in generations. Our social media feeds are flooded with anti-Israel and antisemitic propaganda while so many in our community are being asked to stand up for a country and a people they haven’t truly come to know. The gap between expectation and connection is growing wider in this generation unless we give them the chance to root themselves in real experience and find their place in our story.
That’s what Muss did for me. It took something abstract and made it personal. Zionism is not something we have to whisper, defend, or apologize for. We have the right and the responsibility to say: we are a people with a past, a future, and a homeland. That’s not political. That’s Jewish.
That belief didn’t come from a video or a synagogue program. It started at my grandparents’ kitchen table and was shaped through the immersive time I spent at Muss, where history became lived experience and identity became something I could truly claim to be my own. Zionism is the belief that the Jewish people have the right to live freely, securely, and independently in their ancestral homeland. That’s not political. That’s existential.
Loving Israel doesn’t mean ignoring its flaws, quite the opposite. Real love and demands honesty and accountability. But critique without context and connection is just noise. Muss gave me the context and the connection to build something deeper.
This is what our teens need, and they need it now.
They don’t need more talking points or hashtags or TikTok videos. They need meaning. They need space. They need a relationship with Israel that is lived, not preached. One that is real, not curated into a soundbite. They need to understand that love for Israel isn’t dependent on perfection. It comes through challenge, through history, and through growth where pride, nuance and accountability can and should coexist.
We need to raise a generation of confident Jews and Zionists. Not to fight online battles, but to live their truth with clarity and courage and to lead with confidence and humility.
Alexander Muss High School in Israel, and programs like it, offer what this generation needs most: depth, time, and real connection. Muss is not a quick trip or a highlight tour, it’s a transformational experience that is grounded in history, community, and identity.
Muss offers four things that are urgently needed right now:
First, Israel and Zionism are not just part of the experience. They are the experience.
They are the foundation and the framework. At Muss, students don’t just visit. They live, question, and connect. They engage with Israel’s complexity and see themselves as part of something bigger. They are not tourists checking a box. They are participants in the unfolding story of the Jewish people.
Second, we stop underestimating our teens.
Yes, they carry stress and pressure, but they are also hungry for depth. At Muss, teens are met with respect and real challenge. They aren’t given easy answers. They are invited into honest conversations about identity, peoplehood, purpose, and power. No one tells them what to think. They trust to think for themselves. That kind of challenge doesn’t just build knowledge, it builds identity.
Third, they put down roots.
In a world of constant motion and overload, long-term programs like Muss offer grounding. Students live in one place. They build community. They grow independence. And in that consistent space, they experience something powerful: what it feels like to belong in Israel, not for a moment but for a stretch of real time. That feeling stays with them. It shapes how they see themselves, their people, and their place in the world.
Fourth, they are given the gift of time.
Time to go deep. Time to grow. Time to see that Israel is not a checkbox, a hashtag, or a party line. It is a miracle. It is a responsibility. And it is theirs.
The Jewish community is already investing millions to fight antisemitism, and we should. But defense alone will not secure our future. If we want to build strong, resilient Jewish identity, we must also invest in the other half of the equation: education, pride, and belonging. We need to make programs like Muss accessible to any teen who wants an Israel experience that goes deeper than headlines and louder than hashtags. Programs that don’t just react to crises but build the kind of rooted, courageous young Jews who can rise to meet them.
My grandparents didn’t talk about Zionism in political terms. They lived it. They passed it on not with talking points, but with memory and meaning. That’s how it should be. Let’s give this generation the same gift. Let them see it. Feel it. Live it.
