Embracing 5770 with Humor, Heritage, Social Media, and Birthright Israel

As we usher in the Jewish new year of 5770, I remember this silly presidential L’Shana Tova greeting Obama and gang shared with you last year.

If you watch the embedded video in that link, it went viral with over a million views courtesy of an educational program enabling Jewish young adults to visit Israel for free. The program is called Taglit-Birthright Israel–and it is the subject of today’s post, 12 months later.

If you are a Jewish young adult between the ages of 18 and 26, you may be eligible to visit Israel for free–thanks to a unique partnership between the Israeli government, North American Jewish federations, global Jewish communities, and Jewish philanthropists.

I’ve visited Israel twice in my life, but never with BI. I know many who have. You may, too.

If Wikipedia’s data is correct, over 200,000 individuals from 52 countries participated since the trips began in 2000, with 70% hailing from the United States.

Given the ages of the participants who are toured around the country for 10 days with their own bus driver and guide, it is fitting that BI uses social media for marketing and communications. The organization developed sites on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Picasa, and YouTube–and it is the latter I focus here.

Their YouTube channel is constantly uploaded with new videos–and three bits were added three weeks ago. Check them out below, involving funny scenes about texting, tweeting, and Facebook:

Did you laugh? Did you learn something? If so, good.

How many videos have you seen that intersect humor and heritage? Might you be persuaded to visit birthrightisrael.com and click around to see the other neat stuff the organization is doing? I can’t think of anything sweeter to start the new year.

Related posts:

1. How Often Do You Use Social Media Tools?
2. Social Media is Not Scary
3. Piloting Social Media as an Astronaut

Tagged as: culture, Youtube

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