Hi! My name is Lia Polster and I am going to be a senior at Shaker Heights High School. I am a member of icnext’s cohort 9 as well as a participant of @akiva high school. I also volunteer at the Friendship Circle and was a member of last year’s Saltzman Youth Panel. Traveling to Israel with icnext was very different than my first and only other trip to Israel. From what I’ve experienced myself as well as what I’ve heard from others, each program and trip to Israel has a unique focus: my first visit was focused on engagement, while the icnext trip was more focused on education and understanding.
These differences are best described through my experiences interacting with teens in our sister city, Beit She’an. My previous trip to Israel was through my school, and we met up several times with a group of similarly aged kids from Beit She’an. This program was designed to increase our exposure and engagement in the culture of Israel by talking to other kids our age who would hopefully have similar interests as well as different life experiences. I definitely did connect more to Israel by interacting with other teens, but it was difficult to engage with people who aren’t interested in talking to you or aren’t really sure what to say.
I had been expecting something similar on this trip, but my experiences with (likely many of the same) kids on the icnext trip was shockingly different! I hadn’t really been looking forward to spending time doing activities with the kids from Beit She’an because I had anticipated that our interests wouldn’t overlap and they would make me more nervous to participate in group discussions. In the end, I found that the nature of a trip like icnext created a bond between us and them that, two months later, hasn’t been lost. Each icnext participant on this trip devoted hours of free time on the weekends to learn about Israel and leadership. In order to do that, each participant must care about the subject matter and want to learn more, which made our entire group of Clevelanders engaged in each conversation and interaction on the trip. While I don’t know, I assume that the story is similar for the Beit She’an kids, creating a group of passionate and curious teens from the United States and Israel alike who care about the issues discussed and taking the engagement on the trip to a whole new level.
These conversations also made me think more closely about interactions I have with other kids my age in the US. I saw certain anti-Israel things that I have simply accepted living here through the lens of an Israeli and realized that my physical distance from these issues has also created an emotional distance that Israelis do not have the luxury of having. After the icnext trip, I feel a much more personal connection to all issues related to Israel because I have a much more personal connection with the people to whom these issues are most relevant. I have developed a close friendship with one Beit She’an teen in particular and we are keeping in touch all the time, which keeps inspiring me to remain aware of Israeli current events and be willing to engage in difficult conversations with others.