I have been writing about kosher travel to Israel for close to two decades. This December I am doing something different. I am leading a group there myself.

From December 22 through 30, 2026, I am taking a YeahThatsKosher group to Israel on a volunteer trip run through Birthright Israel Volunteer and Israel Outdoors. Eight days, real work with communities that still need it, Shabbat in Israel, and a food itinerary that only a group led by this site would put together.

If you have been telling yourself for the past two years that you should go, this is the trip to stop talking about and book.

Not Your Standard Israel Trip

This is not a tour bus with a microphone. The core of the program is volunteer work, four to six hours a day, Sunday through Thursday.

The projects focus on the places that took the hardest hit and are still rebuilding post Oct 7. That means helping renew damaged communities in the north and the south, working alongside farmers who lost their workforce and never got it back, and providing logistical support where the manpower gap is still real. We will also visit border communities and meet Israeli peers who live there.

Register here: yeahthatskosher.com/birthright2026

Who Can Come

The program is open to Jewish participants ages 18 to 50 (Note: the ages are determined by Birthright Israel, not us). You need conversational English and a valid passport. You do not need prior Israel experience, and you do not need to have gone on Birthright before.

You are still eligible to attend if you have

The Kosher and Shabbat Situation

We are reserving a Mehadrin hotel in central Jerusalem, giving us daily kosher breakfasts and placing us in walking distance to shuls, and a long walk to the Kotel for Shabbat if we choose.

The Food Part

Machane Yehuda market at night

Here is what makes this different from signing up for a generic volunteer week.

I am building kosher foodie programming into the trip on top of the volunteer schedule. Some of it is included in the program. Some of it will be optional add-ons for anyone who wants to opt in and pay their own way.

Think group meals at restaurants I actually want to eat at rather than whatever is closest to the hotel. Think a guided Machane Yehuda Shuk tour. Think the newer places that opened in the last year that most visitors never hear about because they are eating off a ten-year-old list someone printed before their flight.

Israel has more kosher food than any of us can cover in eight days. What a group like this gets you is a filter. We will have specifics locked in and shared with registered participants as we get closer, and I will publish more here as they firm up.

Free Time

The volunteer schedule runs Sunday through Thursday during the day. Around that, there is free time built in for exploring on your own in the evenings, Friday and Shabbat. Markets, restaurants, cultural sites, visiting friends and family, whatever you want to chase.

If you want to disappear for an afternoon and eat your way through Machane Yehuda, nobody is stopping you. If you want a recommendation for where to go, you will be traveling with the guy coming prepared with a must-visit restaurant list.

What It Costs

There are two ways to do this, and the price gap between them is the flight.

Option 1: Group Flight from New York

Total is $950, which breaks down to $700 for the flight and a $250 program fee. The group departs December 22 and returns December 31. Airport transfers are included on this option. Extension flights are available subject to availability if you want to stay longer.

Option 2: Arrange Your Own Flight

Program fee only, $250. You need to arrive by December 23 and depart after December 31. This is the move if you are flying from outside New York, using points, or planning to be in Israel before or after anyway. This is also going to be the case if you’ve attended a volunteer program before and want to attend again. The flight subsidy is only available once.

What the Program Fee Covers

Shared hotel accommodations, three participants per room (extra cost for double & single occupancy)

Volunteer projects, four to six hours daily, Sunday through Thursday

Daily breakfast and Shabbat dinner

Local health insurance

Airport transfers for group flight participants

Staff supervision, security, and support

Social, cross-cultural, and educational activities

If shared housing is not your speed, upgrades are available: a single room runs an additional $120 per night, and a double is an additional $30 per night per person.

Registration and the Deadline You Should Care About

There is a $25 non-refundable application fee to apply. Beyond that, you can cancel with a full refund up to 65 days before departure (October 18), which gives you real breathing room to commit now and sort out the details later.

Space is limited and the group will fill up. December is a popular window and this program is not sized to take everyone who applies late.

Full program details go out to registered participants at least ten days before arrival.

Register here: yeahthatskosher.com/birthright2026

Questions about logistics can go to Israel Outdoors at 1.855.201.2409 or 1.202.537.0006, Monday through Friday, 9:00am to 5:30pm ET.

Why YeahThatsKosher is Running a Birthright Volunteer Trip

I love travel and I love restaurants. That is the whole reason this site exists. Openings, closings, hashgacha changes, where to eat in a city you have never been to before. Almost two decades of it.

I love supporting Israel more.

Those two things are not in conflict, and this trip is the proof. Israel needs help in every form it can get, and travelers are in a position to give more than one kind at once. Tourism dollars are support. Every night in a hotel, every meal in a restaurant, every shekel spent in a shuk keeps people employed in an economy that took a beating and is still climbing back. Showing up at all is support, because the flights stayed empty for a long time and the businesses that survived did it on the backs of the people who came anyway.

Then there is the other kind of support, the kind you cannot wire in. Communities that need rebuilding. Farms that lost their workforce and never replaced it. Homes that need hands. Organizations running on volunteers because the paid staff is stretched past the limit. That work does not happen from a laptop in New York, and it does not happen from a tour bus window either.

This trip does both. We put money into Israeli businesses and we put labor into the places that are short on it, and we eat extremely well while we are at it. Wherever Israel needs us, that is where we go.

I hope to see you there.

Sign up & get more info here: yeahthatskosher.com/birthright2026