The Unplugged tours are relatively tiny, with just 60 travelers in two years, compared with Birthright’s 125,000 in seven years, but applications are increasing. The six-day trip costs $350 and stops at Hebron, Ramallah and Dheisheh, a Palestinian refugee camp in Bethlehem. (Birthright avoids areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority.) Accommodations reflect Palestinian living conditions, Mermelstein says—the group rides in local buses and opts for home stays over hotels. Nova McGiffert, 24, an Austin, Texas, social worker who traveled on both Birthright and Birthright Unplugged last winter, says the latter drove home what she called the devastating results of an Israeli occupation. “During Unplugged, all of my nightmares came true about the realities of the situation,” she says.
Unplugged travelers have angered the larger Birthright operation by using the latter to get to Israel free of charge, then extending their stay to experience Unplugged. “Showing the Palestinian side is not the mandate we receive from our donors,” Taglit-birthright Israel spokesman Gidi Mark says. “It’s abusing their generosity.”
