Birthright Israel is widely associated with short-term trips designed to introduce young Jews to Israel for the first time. Jacqueline Korren is working on something built for what happens after people return home. Through Birthright’s Storytellers initiative, Korren is leading an effort buttressing Jewish presence in media and culture, rather than exhausting debate.
“Birthright Israel Onward Storytellers is Birthright’s newest program which aims to support Jewish creators from around the world to integrate Judaism and their connection to Israel into their platforms,” Korren, Director of Storytellers at Taglit-Birthright Israel, told The Journal. “Then we’re giving them funding and tools and an opportunity to activate that voice post-program.”
Storytellers was developed after Oct. 7, 2023 as an investment in creators who already shape audiences through their own film, music, writing, art and social media. The mission is to work with participants and support them as they weave Israel and Judaism into the work they are already doing in the Diaspora.
It operates within Birthright Israel Onward, a division of Birthright that focuses on longer-form programs rather than first-time travel to Israel. Travel and tourism are part of the Storytellers experience, but are not the purpose. Earlier this month, the Storytellers Impact Incubator concluded a nine-day trip, bringing together 30 Jewish filmmakers, social media content creators and writers who already reach audiences in the tens and hundreds of thousands.
“I see Storytellers as being the centralized platform for all of these organizations to plug in with their expertise and what they’re good at doing to really activate in a different way in the online space,” Korren said. “Taglit is so uniquely positioned to be that centralizing force for so many organizations where that’s definitely an issue that we face in the Jewish world.”
Korren drew a line between Storytellers and Hasbara.
“There’s two words that are not associated with Storytellers,” Korren said. “One of them is Hasbara and the other is combating antisemitism. Because if we are doing Hasbara and we are combating antisemitism, it means that we are meeting everyone who hates us. At this level here, our program is so much about emboldening and building Jewish identity in connection to Israel. It’s about positive identity building, which people are talking about and just it’s really about visible Jewish representation in mainstream spaces. … Let’s elevate the heck out of this next generation of Jewish leaders across the board.”
Korren acknowledged that visibility carries professional risk, and that Israel changes the stakes for many creators. She described a distinction she hears often from participants navigating public platforms: the brand deals won’t go away if they show up as Jewish, but those brand deals risk being terminated if they are connected to Israel.
Ari Frenkel, an actor, writer and director who participated in the Birthright Israel Onward Storytellers, said the experience reinforced his commitment to telling Israeli stories and not shying away from who he is as an Israeli-American. He is currently making his debut feature film, “See You on the Other Side,” which centers on grief and the loss of his Israeli father.
“I think it’s so important that storytellers go to Israel right now with the intent of telling Israeli stories,” Frenkel told the Journal. “We are a tiny minority of people with more stories about us than people, so we might as well get to tell some of those stories too.” After the trip ended, and before returning to the United States, Frenkel visited his father’s grave in Israel.
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Rebecca Cantor, a Jewish content creator on TikTok who participated in the Storytellers initiative, described the experience as a shift in how they think about their work and community. Cantor said the program eschewed focusing on online Jewish life alone and pushed them to think about building physical community, alongside digital platforms.
“It’s not enough to just have my entire Jewish community be online,” Cantor told The Journal. Cantor also pointed to a vibe within the group that aimed to pivot Jewish storytelling away from trauma alone, saying that “the Jewish story is not defined by Jewish death, but by Jewish life.”
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Cantor pointed to Matt Ryan, a food creator who goes by @thegastronautsguide on Instagram, as one example of how Storytellers participants inspired and encouraged each other. Cantor said Ryan used cooking to bring people together during the trip, inviting others into shared meals, including Shabbat dinners, and documenting those moments as they happened. The focus was on cooking, eating and spending time together, far from anything resembling explaining or arguing.
Korren said that the initiative is something meant to outlast any single crisis, built for a media environment where culture travels faster than policy and presence shapes perception over time. “This is about the future,” she said. “We’re setting the foundation and framework for what the future is going to look like for Jews in media.”
Ultimately, the Storytelling initiative is about supporting creators who already influence audiences, rather than to waiting for moments when Jewish identity becomes reactive or defensive. “It’s not about responding to every headline,” Korren said. “It’s about showing up consistently in spaces where culture is being made.”
Storytellers could be an answer to how Jewish life shows up in mainstream spaces, during moments of geopolitical tension, as well as part of any storyteller’s ordinary day. “Storytellers is not a program,” Korren said. “Storytellers is a movement … At the end of the day, we are all the narrators of our own story.”
