For Parents
Dear Parents,
Welcome to Passport to the World. We are excited and grateful to have the privilege of opening the world up to your children this coming summer.
Passport represents BBYO’s groundbreaking initiative to provide Jewish teens with meaningful summer travel experiences in Israel and around the world. Our objective is to provide your teen with a transformative summer – full of new experiences and a new understanding of our world. Perhaps on a more ambitious level, our goal is to enable each participant to develop the capacity to see his or her own life and home country from a much broader perspective.
As background, BBYO is a leading worldwide, non-denominational Jewish youth movement currently spanning 39 regions and over 25,000 members. For the past century, BBYO has been providing opportunities for Jewish youth to develop their leadership potential, a positive Jewish identity and commitment to their personal development.
At the heart of the Passport program are our Israel trips, now in their 55th summer of touching teen lives. Our Israel programs will help your child develop a profound understanding of Jewish history, modern Israel, and his or her Jewish identity -- without being tied to any one specific movement or approach. Studies have shown that a trip to Israel may serve as the single most powerful experience in forming the Jewish identity of high school teens. Please take a moment to read a testimonial from a recent participant. We also encourage you to learn more about our approach to Israel travel and explore our diverse Israel trip offerings (Learn more: Why Israel / Why Now / Safety & Security / Scholarships).
While our trips span four continents and have different focuses, each program shares the same core elements – active touring, community service, cross-cultural interactions, and meaningful Jewish experiences. All BBYO Passport trips embrace pluralistic Jewish values and are designed for Jewish teens with a spirit for adventure and a desire to experience the full color of the world.
Passport participants do not need to be a member, or at all affiliated with BBYO prior to attending a program. However, BBYO helps bring elements of its culture to the trips, ensuring that the participants' experiences do not end when they return to North America. For more information about the world of BBYO, please go to http://www.bbyo.org.
I encourage you to review the website for information that will help guide your decision-making. In particular, please spend a moment on the FAQ page to learn more about detailed information like program staff ratios, group composition, and much more. Additionally, do not hesitate to ask us to put you in touch with a recent alumn or their parents from your area to gain an even better sense of what a summer with BBYO Passport is all about.
Lastly, on behalf of the entire BBYO Passport staff, I would like to assure you that our approach to the question of safety & security is comprehensive – without compromising our ability to provide your children with an overwhelmingly positive summer experience. Of course, you can be sure that the Passport staff will also be sending you regular trip updates and posting online pictures so that you can follow along with your child's experience from home.
We appreciate this opportunity to introduce Israel and the world at-large to your children. We encourage you to take advantage of our no-risk registration policy, and start your teen on a BBYO Passport journey today. Please do not hesitate to contact our staff directly should you have questions.
Sincerely,
Matthew Grossman
Executive Director, BBYO
