Yesterday, the final FZY Israel Tour buses left for the airport. For more than 600 chanichim, three extraordinary weeks in Israel had come to an end. Bags were packed, friendships were celebrated, and parents waited eagerly for arrivals back in the UK.
However, this week’s parsha, Eikev, makes me wonder whether that is really the right way to think about it. As the Jewish people stand on the brink of entering the Land of Israel, Moshe tells them:
“וְזָכַרְתָּ אֶת־כָּל־הַדֶּרֶךְ”
“Remember the entire journey…” (Devarim 8:2)
Not simply the destination; the journey. It is a remarkable instruction. After forty years in the wilderness, you might expect Moshe to focus on the Promised Land itself. Instead, he insists that the journey matters just as much as the arrival. The experiences, the challenges, the uncertainty, the moments of growth; all of these are part of what shaped the people standing before him. That strikes me as an incredibly profound description of education.
FZY Israel Tour 2026 – Enjoying a desert experience
As Executive Director of FZY, people sometimes ask me what makes FZY Israel Tour so special. Is it Jerusalem? Masada? The Kineret? The desert? The FZY Maccabiah? The friendships? The hiking? The volunteering? The answer, of course, is all of those things, and yet, at the same time, it is none of them. Because Israel Tour has never simply been about taking young people to places. It has always been about helping them build a lifelong relationship with Israel.
Later in the same passage, Moshe explains why the journey mattered:
“…לְמַעַן עַנֹּתְךָ… לָדַעַת אֶת אֲשֶׁר בִּלְבָבֶךָ”
“…to humble you, to test you, and to know what was in your heart.” (Devarim 8:2)
That is not something anyone can teach in a classroom. You discover what is in your heart by living alongside others. By navigating difference. By supporting a friend having a difficult day. By sharing responsibility. By being challenged. By stepping outside your comfort zone. By encountering people whose lives and experiences are different from your own. Those are the moments that shape character. Those are the moments that shape identity. And those are the moments that youth movements create.
There is another verse in Eikev that resonates with me:
“לֹא עַל־הַלֶּחֶם לְבַדּוֹ יִחְיֶה הָאָדָם…”
“A person does not live on bread alone…” (Devarim 8:3)
I believe that Moshe’s point is that people need more than their physical needs met. They need purpose, meaning, values and belonging. When parents send their children on Israel Tour, many understandably think first about the practical things. Flights. Hotels. Food. Security. Logistics. Every one of those things matters, and we spend countless hours making sure they are right. But none of them are why we exist.
We exist because Jewish identity is not built by information alone. It is built through experience and relationships. Through conversations that continue long after the programme has ended. Through moments that seem ordinary at the time, but quietly stay with someone for years.
Some FZY Israel Tour bus 5 chanichim at the Kotel
I have absolutely no idea which moments from this summer our chanichim will remember. For some, it may be standing at the Kotel. For others, it may be singing on the bus. A late-night conversation with a madrich/a. A difficult discussion about Israel. Spending time with Israeli peers. Memorialising those who were killed whilst at Har Herzl, the Nova Music Festival site or Yad Vashem. Helping someone who was struggling. Or simply laughing with friends under a sky full of stars in the Negev.
Education rarely announces itself. It rarely arrives with fanfare or dramatic declarations. Instead, it sneaks up on us. Years later, someone suddenly realizes that one conversation, one experience, one relationship quietly changed the direction of their life. That is why I don’t think the success of this summer can be measured today. Yes, more than 600 young people travelled with FZY on our largest Israel Tour ever. Yes, it was an extraordinary achievement for our movement, our Board, our staff, our madrichim, our members, and our partners across the UK and Israel. But those are not the numbers I will remember most.
The real measure of this summer will be seen years from now. It will be the participant who chooses to spend a gap year in Israel because of what they experienced this summer. The student who arrives at university with the confidence to express their Jewish identity. The future madrich/a who decides to give back because someone once invested in them. The young adult who continues asking difficult questions about Israel, not because they were given all the answers, but because they learnt that wrestling with those questions is itself part of building a meaningful relationship with the Jewish state.
Moshe understood that entering the Land of Israel was never the end of the journey. It was the beginning of a covenantal relationship with it. That is our hope too. Not that our chanichim have simply visited Israel this summer, but that they have begun a relationship with it that will continue to shape who they are, and who they choose to become, for years to come.
If, years from now, they look back on this summer and remember the journey, not simply the places they visited, but the people they met, the questions they asked, the values they explored, and the relationship with Israel they began to build, then we will have achieved exactly what Israel Tour was designed to do. Because, as Moshe understood thousands of years ago, it is often the journey that shapes us long after we have reached the destination.
Joel grew up in Redbridge, UK before moving to Modi’in, Israel whilst in his twenties. For the past two decades plus, Joel has been a Jewish communal professional. Currently working as the Executive Director of FZY, the largest and oldest Zionist youth movement in the UK, Joel spends his days supporting the building of connections between British Jewish youth to Israel. Joel is married and has two daughters.