"With this in mind, the leaders of Brandeis Black Student Organization, MLK and Friends and the Brandeis Israel Public Affairs Committee, have joined together, despite their different interests, to challenge our communities to candid discussion, hoping to change the way black and Jewish students at Brandeis interact with one another.

 

In an effort to ‘lay the wood’ for these fires, these groups have joined to create a joint pilgrimage to Israel with a delegation of five black and five Jewish students. The aim of this trip is to use education and cultural immersion to bridge the gap of cultural differences and create an environment in which the participants understand each other better, and bond over what brings us together, rather than what separates us.

 

Called Brandeis Bridges, the intercultural pilgrimage will be the first step in enhancing and developing student leaders of various backgrounds knowledge and appreciation for all the Brandeis has to offer —exposing non-Jewish students to the importance of Israel in the lives of Jews around the world, as well as exposing students of Jewish descent to a culture that often goes overlooked on campus with a second pilgrimage to a site of equal importance for people of African descent."