Kesher Yehudi: Promoting Jewish unity through study

June is a month filled with end-of-school-year events and graduation ceremonies. In Israel, most 18-year-old high school graduates, after saying their farewells to their high school friends, often have to make the transition from home to enlisting in the Israel Defense Forces. This school year was disrupted by the outbreak of the October 7 war, making that transition more significant and perhaps daunting for all the graduates.

For the past 25 years, an increasing number of young people have chosen to defer army service for a year to attend a mechina, a 10-month pre-military leadership academy. There are many different mechina options around the country, religious and secular, single and mixed gender. The goal of these programs is to provide the teens with an additional year of personal growth, focused study and community service, and increased independence. Parents and the IDF agree that it produces a more effective army service, so both the students and the IDF benefit. 

The first such preparatory academy program was Bnei David, a religious mechina founded in Eli in 1988 by Rabbi Eli Sadan for Jewish male students who were serving in the IDF but chose not to serve in a hesder program, a shorter service integrated with yeshiva study. He also initiated the first secular mechina program Nachshon in 1997. For these initiatives, Sadan received the Israel Prize for Lifetime Achievement for special contributions to society and the state. 

The mechina Tene Yerushalmi was founded by Yael Berman-Domb in 2010. The program states that it is a one-time opportunity to gain a broad understanding of society, in all its complexities, and of Jerusalem. It emphasizes the values of community, social action, and learning. Further, it aims to build “personal development through shaping a personal identity, mental preparation for a meaningful military service, and a variety of guided experiences in planning and self-management.” 

The movement

Kesher Yehudi is a social movement born in response to the rift tearing apart Israeli society. The organization’s vision is to unify Israeli society by empowering future generations to lead Israel with more understanding of the “other” and a greater connection to their Jewish legacy. Kesher Yehudi has done this over the years by connecting participants from secular and religious backgrounds through ongoing one-on-one study sessions, programming in universities, Shabbatons and holiday programs, and mechinot across the country.

Its programming aims to encourage Jewish unity among the people of Israel through individual friendships and by one-on-one contact. The participants are given texts to study with their partner. The Jewish texts facilitate dialogue, with no requirement to cover a specific amount of material or complete a curriculum. It is simply a tool to get to know each other and their shared heritage, a place to start.

One of the central programs created to fulfill this mission has been to build these study partnerships through the secular mechina pre-military academy programs. Arranged with the administration, a custom program consists of weekly encounters, study material, ice breakers, and a yearly Shabbaton. Kesher Yehudi has had successful partnerships with mechinot throughout Israel for years but received a spike in requests in the fall, after October 7. It is currently involved in 32 mechinot, more than half of the 60 secular mechinot across Israel, connecting more than 1,600 young men and women annually to their Jewish heritage and to one another.

One of its mechina programs in Jerusalem’s French Hill had a special study relationship with members of the community. The mechina cadets have been learning together with partners throughout the academic year. It recently held an end-of-year event as the cadets prepare to leave mechina and enter the IDF during the war, to which The Jerusalem Report was invited to attend. 

The connections between study partners at both the men’s and women’s locations appeared strong, more than just an end of the year get-together with music and food. These young soldiers have bonds of friendship that will hopefully grow as they return again and again over the years. Liron Shneider, coordinator of Kesher Yehudi’s French Hill women’s program, carefully matched young haredi women from the French Hill community with female mechina participants in their first meeting through an ice-breaker game. Sets of pictures were placed on the floor, and everyone chose one that they felt matched them personally. The Kesher Yehudi volunteers and the mechina students who picked the same picture became learning partners for the rest of the year.

Tzili Schneider, the founder of Kesher Yehudi, grew up in ultra-Orthodox Mea She’arim. She said that as a child, she remembers soldiers and rabbis dancing together in the streets after the Six Day War. With the premise that we have a halachic obligation to love our fellow Jew, she has worked to build a unique organization that is not traditional kiruv/religious outreach. She has chosen an approach that is designed to help those in Israel least likely to have anything to do with each other to get together and talk, and get to know – and to love – one another as individuals.

She contends that the most important aspect of the program is not Torah study but creating friendships. “We want every haredi participant to leave the year of studying together with one soldier that they know, that they care about – that they love – that is in their prayers every day as they study and pray on behalf of our soldiers and their safety.”

She explained, “I want every mechina cadet to know that this is a part of klal Yisrael that they are fighting so hard for. That they are valued by, important to, and cared about by the rest of Am Yisrael. The text they are given to learn is just a starting point for meaningful conversation. What we are seeking is for our participants, from very different sectors of Israeli society, to really get to know one another. Eye to eye, one on one. This is what will bring real change.”

The program’s assumption, by Kesher Yehudi and the participating mechina, is that it adds to the year’s learning experience and helps the cadets have a meaningful army service experience. The steady increase in demand and the positive feedback suggest that they are right. 

“This is really an amazing program, and I’m so happy that I took part in it,” said Lihi, one of the French Hill mechina students. “At first, I was really hesitant and scared because it’s a world that I don’t know. Stigmas were shattered, and I really connected with my partner. She’s a very smart person. It’s amazing.” 

Shoshana Bloch has had a study partner at the French Hill Academy as a Kesher Yehudi volunteer for the past two years, having joined through a friend. She described her first impressions of her havruta/partner saying she was “so impressed with her. She had such high values.” Adding, “I was super impressed with her specifically and how at the beginning of the war she was very concerned about how her parents were handling everything. She wasn’t so self-centered, like many people… So I was just super impressed with her. I kept telling her that.

“We were given a question in our first meeting about being judgmental. And we both kind of felt like most people inherently are good people. So the outside doesn’t matter as much,” Bloch added. “We both kind of felt like this feeling of we met someone really nice that other people from our circles might say, ‘How could you be interacting with someone like that?’ Her being in touch with me and the other way around, we both felt like people are people and at their core they’re good and feel like trying to do what’s right. That’s what we both felt was a core value that we rediscovered and appreciated and reinforced.” 

The cadets have yet to see how their preparatory year will impact their army service; however, Kesher Yehudi has many anecdotes of last year’s graduates reaching out to their study partners during the war, even from Gaza. 

“I got a phone call from a soldier who studied with us through his mechina last year,” Schneider said, that he had one day out of Gaza to meet his family at a base nearby and was adamant that he wanted to learn for an hour with his study partner during that time. He pleaded with me to make it happen, which of course, we did. I have no doubt that they are friends for life, and no doubt that their time together gives him strength while he fights on behalf of the Jewish people. 

“It is good to see the young soldiers who have to cope with these difficult times being supported by the greater Israeli community, as well as their families. The calls to unite together will be more than just a slogan when people from diverse communities meet and get to know each other on a personal level,” she asserted. ■