A group of UMD students returned from a trip to Israel from June 4 to 15 organized by Maryland Hillel and Taglit-Birthright Israel.
Photos and posts from the trip — including students meeting with Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers and hiking in the Golan Heights, a region internationally recognized as Israeli-occupied Syrian territory — have drawn scrutiny, particularly amid Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.
What is Birthright Israel?
Taglit-Birthright Israel, a nonprofit founded in 1994 in cooperation with the Israeli government, offers free trips to Israel for Jewish students and young adults to help them “explore their Jewish identity and support for Israel.” The program operates on the idea that all Jewish people have a “birthright” to the land of Israel.
The trips are fully funded — primarily by the Israeli government and major private donors like far-right Zionist Miriam Adelson, and closely coordinated with Hillel chapters across many North American colleges.
Birthright states it is “unequivocally” apolitical on its website. The organization also says it is “committed to the State of Israel as a sovereign, Jewish, and democratic state, and upholds its standing as the historic and eternal homeland of the Jewish people.” Birthright’s website does not acknowledge the West Bank, Gaza, or the ongoing genocide in any capacity.
Critics argue the trip promotes a one-sided narrative.
“Since my [sibling] went on Birthright, I’m very aware of how they try to put propaganda into every aspect of the trip,” said a Jewish student who requested anonymity on safety concerns. “They’re not told about the deaths of the Palestinians [on the trip].”
Sophomore Jenna Awadallah shared a similar perspective. “It’s completely ignoring the occupation of Palestine,” the physiology and neurobiology major, who is of Palestinian descent, said. “It’s just kind of showing a one-sided perspective and trying to make people believe that.”
Participants have reported visiting sites in the occupied West Bank without being informed, visiting the grave of Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, and witnessing trip organizers refer to occupied territory as part of Israel. Birthright’s website describes the occupied Golan Heights — internationally recognized as part of Syria — as “northern Israel.” Maryland Hillel also refers to the Heights as part of Israel.
Trips are highly curated. According to Birthright, all itineraries are led by trained guides who ensure content aligns with its “high educational standards.” Students cannot choose their own activities or locations throughout most of the trip.
“Their goal is to sort of give [young Jewish students] a very catered experience of portraying Israel as this high-tech, tolerant utopia of Jewish culture,” said UMD alumni Hershel Barnstein, who is Jewish.
Awadallah shared a similar sentiment. “These types of trips are really propaganda trips to make people believe that everything is okay and that what [Israel is] doing is all for self-defense,” Awadallah said. “But I don’t know how killing kids in Gaza is protecting anybody’s safety, really.”
Some Jewish students and critics of Birthright argue the trip and Hillel frame Zionism and Israel’s occupation as inseparable from Jewish identity.
“It’s very frustrating, because what they are essentially doing is using Judaism, which is a religion, a set of values, way of living — they’re using that to justify the indefensible, to justify genocide in Gaza, to justify occupation and apartheid,” said Barnstein.
The anonymous source agreed, saying the idea of connecting Judaism specifically to Israel “just completely misrepresents who we are as an entire people.”
In a statement to Al-Hikmah, Maryland Hillel said, “For the vast majority of Jews in the US and around the world, a deep connection with the Jewish homeland of Israel is a core part of their Jewish identity.” The organization described connecting with Israel as “central to [its] vision of Jewish life at the University of Maryland Hillel.”
“[Maryland Hillel] pretty much have pursued a strategy of pretending that we [anti-Zionist Jewish students] don’t exist, and pretending that the Jewish community at large and on campus supports Israel,” said Barnstein. “They never meaningfully addressed us or addressed the fact that there were so many Jews that were against this kind of Israel worship.”
Other critics say trips like Birthright Israel and organizations like Hillel are designed to cultivate political loyalty to Israel among young Jewish students, reinforcing Israel’s global legitimacy by securing a devoted base of support.
“You have the Birthright group and many other major institutions in the Jewish community that serve as pipelines to the IDF, recruiting these young, eventually nationalist American Jews into the army,” said Barnstein.
The anonymous source also noted how IDF soldiers accompany students throughout the trip. “A lot of the activities that [my sibling’s group] did were centered around the IDF and Zionist rhetoric,” they said.
Jeeping in the Golan Heights
The Golan Heights, located in southwestern Syria, was illegally captured by Israeli forces during the 1967 Six-Day War and unofficially annexed. The US recognized Israel’s claim to the Golan Heights under the Trump administration in 2019, but the vast majority of the international community and the United Nations (UN) do not.
During the 1967 war, over 140,000 Syrians were ethnically cleansed by Israeli forces. Israel’s military destroyed Syrian towns, farms, and villages, replacing them with military zones or nature reserves. Israeli settlements and kibbutzim were built on ruins of Syrian villages.
The displaced Syrian Golan population — today, estimated at up to half a million people — remain denied their right to return by Israeli authorities.
During their trip, UMD students posted photos of hiking and vacationing in the Golan Heights, including posing with Israel’s flag.
Mariam Almuhammad, a sophomore who is of Syrian descent, said the students’ vacationing in the Golan Heights made her feel angry.
“You have these random people coming into our land, like, ‘we’re just gonna hike here and take pictures and put the Israeli flag up here,’” the physiology and neurobiology major said. “It just feels unreasonable and very dehumanizing that they’re treating this place as a vacation spot while there were actual humans living there.”
Almuhammad called UMD’s indirect affiliation with the trip “very disappointing.”
Some NGOs say that “educational” trips can obscure a region’s reality. Birthright Israel labels areas like the West Bank as “Judea and Samaria,” language often used by conservative Zionists who seek annexation. Former participants of the trip have also recorded that Birthright Israel did not demarcate the West Bank and Gaza in the map of Israel handed out to participants.
Hillel’s ties to UMD
Hillel International is a nonprofit Jewish campus organization that has chapters at over 850 college campuses around the world. Maryland Hillel works closely with Birthright to facilitate these trips for UMD students.
While Maryland Hillel is not officially part of the University of Maryland, they are heavily affiliated. The organization was the only student organization aside from student radio station WMUC to be listed as a donation option during the university’s recent Giving Day. UMD is currently actively involved in constructing the second Maryland Hillel building, including UMD president Darryll Pines speaking at the building’s groundbreaking ceremony in September 2024. In 2023, UMD held a program “to strengthen ties between university leaders and Maryland Hillel.” The organization also uses “Terps” branding in specific reference to the annual Birthright trip through the Instagram page, @terpsinisrael.
The close ties between the university and Maryland Hillel has prompted questions about whether UMD indirectly affiliates with the political implications of Birthright trips.
UMD repeatedly declined to provide a statement regarding the use of its branding as linked to visits to occupied territory, photos with IDF soldiers, and concerns of cultural appropriation.
The university repeatedly referred the inquiries to Maryland Hillel and stated that “UMD did not play a role in organizing this trip.”
Hillel International, the parent organization of Maryland Hillel, says one of its “founding principles” is that it is “for every Jewish college student.” Yet anti-Zionist Jewish students have expressed feeling unwelcome at Hillel.
“I don’t particularly feel welcomed at Hillel,” said the anonymous source. “I just feel like it’s not a place where every Jewish student can go.” They said Hillel’s practice of associating being Jewish with being pro-Israel made them feel “alienated.”
Barnstein said that efforts across different US campuses to make Hillel less centered around Israel were “basically intimidated, coerced and strong-manned into submission.”
Photos with IDF soldiers and “Bedouin experience” camp
During the trip, UMD students posted photos with the IDF — the military force conducting Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, where over 62,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the UN have accused the IDF of committing genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Since 2023, Israeli airstrikes have targeted refugee camps, hospitals, schools, and aid convoys.
“For them to be just taking selfies with them — it’s very frustrating to see that, and it just shows how much they don’t value Palestinian lives,” said Awadallah. “It’s just like, ‘oh, I don’t care that this person has probably killed so many Palestinians. I don’t care what they do in Gaza’.”
Other students expressed similar thoughts. “You’re vacationing, and 20 miles away, there are people being bombed and starved,” the anonymous source said.
Students also visited Kfar Hanokdim, a “Bedouin experience” camp. The camp, which profits from a stylized version of Bedouin life and culture, was founded, designed, and built by a non-Bedouin Israeli Jew.
Human rights groups report that Palestinian Bedouin communities in the Negev are routinely subjected to land confiscations, home demolitions, and displacement under the Israeli government — actions that amount to forcible transfer, which is a war crime and crime against humanity. One senior employee in Israel’s Civil Administration expressed a desire to “purge” Bedouins.
The contradiction of showcasing “Bedouin culture” while dismantling and oppressing Bedouin communities has been flagged by some students as cultural appropriation.
“They’re [going to Kfar Hanokdim] on part of their Birthright trip. So they’re trying to say, [Bedouin culture is] really Israeli, right?,” said Awadallah. “That’s obviously not cultural appreciation. It’s appropriation. And even worse than cultural appropriation, honestly. It’s erasing a culture and a people.”
In a statement, Maryland Hillel said it is “proud to offer UMD students numerous ways to connect with and explore the 3,000-year history of the Jewish people in Israel.”
The statement did not address specific questions about concerns of cultural appropriation, pictures with IDF soldiers, or vacationing in occupied territory.
Maryland Hillel repeatedly declined to provide additional comment.
Image credits: Cover photo by Al-Hikmah Photo Staff.
CORRECTION: Due to an editing error, a previous version of this story misstated the type of photo students took with IDF soldiers. The photos Al-Hikmah refers to are general pictures, not selfies.
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