Avi Bass

ImpactAliyah supports, organizes and enables students to move to Israel and make a difference. It enables Aliyah-minded students to become agents of positive change in Israeli society, the global Jewish community, and the world, using Israel as a platform. ImpactAliyah operates by building communities of Israel activists on college campuses throughout North America who are emboldened to ask and search for answers to the simple question "how can I best contribute to Israel?"  These communities are built around 10 day winter-break Focus trips to Israel, where students engage with Israel's opportunities and challenges.  During the semester prior to the trip, ImpactAliyah communities build the trip's content, design its programs and work towards outcomes that will contribute to Israel.  In the semester following the winter trip, students cultivate the connections they build on the program, and bring back programs which will serve to expose the greater campus community to the challenges and opportunities they learned about on the trip.  We see this as a way of building a community of leaders who connect to Israel in a deep and meaningful way, and serve as a bridge between Israel and the American Jewish community.