This Family Day, we celebrate how a single journey helped shape the Sadeh family across generations, and continues to grow with them 25 years later.
Helen and Alon had just started dating when they boarded a Birthright Israel trip in February 2000. Within months of returning home, they were engaged.
Twenty-five years later, they are celebrating a milestone anniversary, and still talking about that trip.
“We had just started dating when we went on Birthright together,” they reflect. “Shortly after we returned, we were engaged.”
What began as a shared adventure became something much deeper.
Helen and Alon on Birthright Israel in 2000.
Birthright Israel immersed them in daily life in Israel. It wasn’t something they read about online or learned from a distance. They walked the streets, shared meals, met people their own age, and experienced history in a way that felt modern and alive.
There was no single dramatic turning point. Instead, the experience became a thread woven quietly through their lives.
They are still in touch with friends from that trip. Over time, those friendships evolved. Their children grew up alongside the children of fellow alumni. A community that began in Israel continued in Toronto.
Jerusalem markets. Falafel lunches. Learning about pioneer days on a moshav. The quiet rhythm of Shabbat. These were not just memories. They became part of the Sadeh family’s foundation.
And then, 25 years later, the story continued.
When their son Coby returned from Birthright, they saw something familiar.
A deeper grounding. A stronger confidence.
University today can be an intense environment, especially when conversations around Jewish identity and Israel feel charged or complicated. Birthright Israel did not give Coby simple answers. But it gave him lived experience.
“I’ve been there,” he shares. “I’ve walked the streets, had conversations with people my age, and seen the complexity firsthand.”
Coby shared that before Birthright, Israel and Judaism felt important, but largely inherited. After Birthright Israel, he felt chosen.
Israel stopped being headlines. It became people, conversations, and real lives. The complexity did not weaken his connection. It strengthened it.
That shift led him to apply to become a madrich. Not because he believes he has all the answers, but because he remembers how meaningful it was to have leaders who created space for questions, curiosity, and honest conversation.
He hopes to do the same for others.
Roots That Carry Forward
Sharing Birthright across generations created something rare within the Sadeh family: a shared language.
Helen and Alon have their Birthright Israel story. Coby has his. Each went in different eras and contexts, yet each returned changed in their own way.
Birthright did not give them a script for life. It gave them roots.
This Family Day, the Sadeh family celebrates more than 25 years of marriage. They celebrate a journey that continues to shape who they are, together. Today, they choose to give back by investing in Birthright Israel’s future so that other families can build their own roots.
