Birthright Israel at Wellesley College

Wellesley College is one of the latest schools to join a campus initiative to encourage more Jewish college students to visit Israel and afterwards be more engaged in Jewish life. The Birthright Israel Campus Initiative, sponsored by Boston-based Combined Jewish Philanthropies, is already installed on local campuses including Harvard, Brandeis, Tufts, Northeastern, and Boston University. This fall it will expand to other Massachusetts schools, including Wellesley, Amherst, Williams, and MIT. Student enrollment in the trips, which provide ongoing education about engagement in Jewish life before and after the journey, has nearly doubled to nearly 2,200 participants since CJP began its college outreach program in 2007, the organization said. - Erica Noonan