Birthright – 26 June 2026

Birthright is an organized tour for young diaspora Jews to come to Israel for a free ten-day trip meant to show them the best Israel has to offer and to rekindle a connection between the Jewish people and their homeland. Birthright at MCC follows a group of friends who met on a Birthright trip over the next eighteen years as the world (and their views) shifts. The first act takes place three weeks after they’ve returned from the Holy Land, the second act takes place as they reunite ten years later for the wedding of one of the trip’s members, and the third act takes place eight years after that in the wake of the passing of another one of the trip’s members. The three hour and twenty minute run time (with two intermissions) flies by surprisingly fast as the stories and relationships become interestingly entangled. Birthright is a testament to MCC’s stated mission of starting conversations, and one of the play’s greatest strengths is that it doesn’t reach a conclusion that tells the audience what to believe about Israel. It does tell us what to believe about humanity—namely that if we look at the world as a group of individuals it becomes increasingly difficult to dehumanize and other. I have chosen not to disclose which character grows towards which viewpoint for the purpose of this review, as I think the most enjoyable part of the production was watching the seeds of change take root.

Act three was definitely the meat and potatoes of what Jonathan Spector wanted this play to say. In this post-October 7 moment, we are presented with three primary perspectives that evolved from different conclusions reached over the years: a Zionist Jew, an antizionist Jew, and a Jew who immigrated to Israel and is now an Israeli citizen. While each person talks, the others are not listening. Rather, they are looking up counterarguments on their cell phones. As each character puts their head down to Google, the sound and lighting in the rest of the room falls away, such that it is clear that this is not the kind of argument a person can win because everybody wants to be talking and nobody wants to be listening. Each character who speaks on this subject provides two viewpoints—a macro perspective on the conflict and a personal perspective on their own lives and how they have been changed by the conflict. Just as these arguments come to an end, a friend who has become Orthodox arrives on the scene and tells a story from the Talmud that could be interpreted in many different ways, most obviously a way that validates each perspective. This takes us back to the beginning of the first act, “two Jews, three opinions” and also strikes at the very heart of what their deceased friend believed about Judaism—namely the importance of seeing and sitting with multiple perspectives.

As much as owning a hot tub is iconic for people who send their children on Birthright, I don’t feel like any of the content that took place surrounding it revealed anything that we didn’t already see in the characters. The nudity seemed gratuitous and pointless, almost as if it was included to make the play seem risqué to potential audience members rather than marketing it as the beautiful exploration of Jewish identity that it is. Although I enjoyed the play the whole way through, I’m really not sure that it needed to be over three hours. While the intermediate point in 2016 had some juicy, gossipy moments, it diluted the power of the dramatic change that took place between 2006 and 2024. David Bengali’s social media montages of the intermediary years were really wonderful, and I think they could have gone straight through 2016 and left us in 2024 without a need for an entire act. Alternatively, I think acts one and two could have been combined with one part in 2006, a media montage, and one part in 2016 such that we could see the growth and change but still center the third act on the importance of dialogue. I think this dialogue is salient enough to stand on its own with a little less build up. After all, the changes are what people have come to the theater to see.

This production is highly detail-oriented, particularly in Teddy Bergman’s direction and staging. There are a lot of moments to pick apart, and there’s a very raw, very real power in each character’s transformation over the years. The attention to culture and detail is very respectful, and the lessons built into the play are vital to understanding the massive spectrum of people who call themselves Jewish. As I left the theatre, I thought a lot about the inherently wondrous nature of contradiction and how important it is to be challenged by art—in this case, not challenged to believe anything in particular, but challenged to find your own beliefs and interpretations. This show is bold, fierce, and unapologetic. I highly recommend this production for anyone who has ever struggled with identity and loved ones who don’t always share your viewpoints. At the end of the day, Birthright posits that the love is the most important takeaway, even when it is a product of the struggle. Maybe especially then.

I attended this performance on a press pass from Print Shop PR.