The new ‘Birthright’ play moved me – and I didn’t even go on Birthright

In Birthright, the acclaimed new play at Manhattan’s MCC Theater, six young American Jews meet on a Birthright Israel trip and reunite over the next two decades as their friendships — and their views on Israel, politics, religion, and identity — are tested by events that reshape both their lives and the Jewish world.

Watching those characters wrestle with Israel’s place in their lives forced me to reflect on my own transformative summer in Jerusalem in 1986. Birthright did not exist then; students in my generation had to create their own programs and pay their own way. Yet that summer would come to shape the most important dimensions of my adult life: the lifelong friendships I formed there, a passionate personal and professional connection to Israel, and, more recently, a deeper psychological, spiritual, and religious identity.

What began as an ideological escape from the materialism and assimilation of my native West Los Angeles soon became a largely social expedition. I met the people who continue to have an outsized impact on me. At the same time, Israel became a throughline from young adulthood to the present, serving as a catalyst for academic study, professional skills, and career success through decades of work not just with countless Israeli institutions and clients, but opening doors to the larger world.

Long before “affinity groups” or even “Startup Nation,” that connection bonded me with others fueled by their own Zionism and, whether they realized it or not, by an Israeli-inspired fearlessness in their approach to work. No one epitomized that spirit more than the American-Israeli Danny Lewin, the co-founder of Akamai Technologies, which became an S&P 500 company. I met Danny by chance at the beginning of that fateful summer; he instantly became a dear friend, later asked me to assist his then–startup, and then served as the best man at my wedding. His name and signature are displayed on the framed ketubah in the master bedroom I share with my wife. Tragically, he was the first person murdered on 9-11. Trained as an IDF commando, he heroically fought back against the terrorists on American Airlines Flight 11.

Especially given the chaotic last few years stretching back to that tragic day 25 years ago, it might be hard for some to believe Israel once represented stability and safety. That was especially true for kids like my sister and me, raised on Venice Beach in the 1960s and ’70s, where we witnessed firsthand a wave of drug addiction, mental illness, and broken families.

Israel symbolized a very different direction: the rock of tradition and community, but also something strong and sexy. The summer of 1986 turned out to be a life-changing and, in hindsight, lifesaving chapter for me. It continues to pay dividends, and I still feel a huge debt of gratitude 40 years later.

Similarly, we see in Birthright how Israel remains a central theme that reemerges and evolves throughout the lives of these American Jews. Despite the two-decade age difference between me and the play’s characters, many of the same issues play out.

We watch them evolve, witnessing defining moments over the years, all the way through the aftermath of October 7.

The production features superb acting that brings to life a cross-section of the diverse personalities that make up American Jewry. Its clever and precise writing can leave you teary-eyed one moment and laughing out loud the next, while the beautifully constructed and engaging sets make you feel part of it all.

Why is that?

The play’s flexible and dynamic structure lets each audience member extract a personal sense of meaning. It can help clarify your own relationship with Israel, whatever that might be, while increasing your understanding of those who see things differently.

In part, that is because the play spotlights identities that are individual, cultural, tribal, religious, and political — both universal and intensely personal.

Some of us share the dismay of learning that certain Jewish friends and family members accept BDS talking points as “their truth.” For Zionists like me, these verbal attacks feel like a betrayal: inaccurate, or at the very least distorted and lacking context. For Israel’s harshest critics, including one of the characters in the play, the accusations feel justified.

The production honors that delicate balance, and certainly not in a milquetoast way. Onstage, as in life, the characters josh and joke, then suddenly turn on one another with flurries of lines that hurt, cut, and reopen old wounds. Charges of “apartheid,” “colonialism,” “racism,” and “genocide” are delivered in a sophisticated and carefully orchestrated fashion.

Yet the pro-Israel characters, including one who ultimately makes aliyah (as I did and then returned to the States), respond with rebuttals that would make the most ardent Zionists nod in approval. The writing is also careful to distinguish between those who support Israel and the IDF and those who act as a rubber stamp for Bibi and his government, with no desire for reconciliation with Palestinians.

Walking toward the exit, I found, to my surprise, that I was becoming emotional as I tried to articulate how the play had affected me. Despite the surreal and frightening post–October 7 world, I hold on to the image of Israel as our collective safe harbor, worthy of love and admiration, warts and all.

Yet we know that its very existence feels more tenuous than ever. We feel it keenly now in New York City of all places, until recently considered the quintessential Jewish city.

Rather than hindering Mayor Mamdani, his unrelenting efforts to delegitimize and demonize the Jewish state’s right to exist have sadly proved to be a galvanizing force in shaping and catapulting his political career. He and his followers disingenuously try to separate Zionism from Judaism, anti-Zionism from antisemitism, and Israel from American Jews, Christians, and other non-Jewish supporters.

The play Birthright reminds us that, despite our differences, the fates of Israel, American Jewry, and even America itself are inexorably linked.