Despite all it’s been through in recent years, I’m happy to report that the Israel we know and love isn’t going anywhere. The rooftops in Tel Aviv are still thriving, the tayelet runs and beach afternoons are happening, the hummus spot everyone swears by still has long lines.
But what if, on your next trip to Israel, you didn’t go to the typical tourist spots? What if, instead, you went to the South, to the community centers of Dimona, the markets of Rahat, the neighborhoods of Ofakim? To what many call “the periphery,” the communities outside of Israeli mainstream culture, and too often, outside of the Jewish world’s field of vision.
For a week, that was the intention of a recent trip. Not to skip Tel Aviv for the sake of it, but to make a deliberate choice: to bring a group to the places that needed our ears and our service, and where we equally needed to hear their stories and take part in Israel’s rebuilding.
Sixteen Jewish leaders from across the United States joined together as the Jewish Service Alliance (JSA), supported by Repair the World, Yahel, Jewish Federations of North America, and Birthright, not to tour Israel, but to show up and serve. The itinerary was built with purpose. Every volunteer project, every community we spent time in, and every encounter were chosen because the stories and needs there were worth showing up for.
And the stories that at times stay hidden became impossible to ignore. There’s a saying often attributed to Ben Gurion: “In Israel, in order to be a realist, you must believe in miracles.” Somewhere between the Negev dust and the community centers of the south, that started to feel less like a slogan and more like a lived truth. The Negev, as he always believed, continues to bloom. The miracles are there if you look: a marathon drawing hundreds of runners to the desert paths of Dimona, the Tamar Center school producing Israel’s next doctors and chemists, and the youth leaders of Sachi quietly and consistently feeding those who cannot feed themselves in Okafim.
We learned the story of a lone soldier from the U.S. who came to serve in the Israeli armed forces and died in late 2025. The community there took him in as one of their own, eventually creating a small homecoming space for other lone soldiers following in his footsteps, a house built in honor of his courage and commitment to Israel.
Our group met with people from the community who had built the small wooden home in the town and talked with each other and townspeople about the courage this one man exhibited on behalf of the local community here.
Like many other conversations we had, this is not a story that made the front page. But it’s stories like this that hold a community together.
From Dimona to Jerusalem, we heard stories of Israelis turning to their neighbors during these recent hard years. Not despite what drives them apart, but because of something stronger than that. When you ask people how they want to show up, they don’t start with what separates them. What actually moves people is the care they have for one another. That care exists across every divide in that city, and it was right there on the surface if you were paying attention.
That’s a lesson that travels. Back home, our communities can feel more fractured than unified right now. Israel feels polarizing to some and galvanizing to others, sometimes within the same room. But Jerusalem showed us that the entry point isn’t the issue and it isn’t the argument. It’s the relationship. It’s asking someone how they want to show up, and then actually listening to the answer.
What struck me most across the whole week was a quieter realization: the same conversations happening in coffee shops of Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem are happening in Rahat, Dimona, and Ofakim too. Questions about identity, belonging, the future of the Jewish people. The geography changes; the yearning doesn’t.
That’s the thing about service as a vehicle for Israel travel: it unlocks a different kind of access. Jewish communities across the diaspora are carrying real weight right now, antisemitism at home, the ongoing trauma of Oct. 7 and its aftermath, questions about what it means to stand with Israel in a complicated moment. Israeli communities, especially in the south and periphery, are carrying weight too, different in form, overlapping in feeling. When you put those two realities in the same room and give people something to do together, what surfaces isn’t division. It’s resonance. Shared grief, shared drive, shared hope.
Repair the World and Yahel hold a key to this. Each, in their own way, has built infrastructure for exactly this kind of encounter, service not as charity, but as connection. They are connectors of people to projects, of partnerships to purpose. The JSA is what happens when that infrastructure meets the right people at the right moment.
In December, I’ll be co-leading another group of young adults from Greater Boston with other organizations, including Repair the World, Yahel, Birthright, and Jewish Federations of North America, with service-learning as the anchor. This isn’t just another Israel trip. It’s an invitation to show up differently, to go beyond the familiar and into the communities whose stories deserve to be heard. We believe this experience will do what the best Israel experiences always do: not just deepen your relationship with the land, but with the people. And in a moment when those human connections feel more necessary than ever, that’s exactly the point.
I urge leaders to explore, and commit to, service as a tool for building deeper bonds between our communities and Israel, and the Israelis who are equally yearning for that connection.
We came to serve the periphery. We left understanding that we had brought it, and each other, closer to the center.