Trip offers cultural insights
■The birthright israel program
gives Jewish students a chance
to connect with their culture
By Robin Weber
Oregon Daily Emerald
University students from Jewish
lineage have the chance to expand
their cultural horizons through the
birthright israel program, which of
fers free, 10-day trips to Israel, the
Jewish holy land.
Israeli Deputy Minister of For
eign Affairs Rabbi Michael Mel
chior addressed 18 college newspa
per reporters from across the
United States about what Jewish
young adults can learn from the
birthright israel program in a con
ference call Wednesday.
“Students have a birth right to be
connected with Israel,” he said.
“Birthright israel has changed lives
and given more insight and feeling
on what being a part of the
birthright community means.”
The program, now in its third
year, is aimed at connecting young
adults of Jewish heritage with
their culture free of charge. The
$210 million in funding for the
trips is provided through a three
way equal partnership of the gov
ernment of Israel, united Jewish
communities and prominent phi
lanthropists awarding this gift of
more than 28,000 trips in the past
two years.
The program’s goal is to send
100,000 Jewish young adults to Is
rael by the time it reaches its five
year mark.
Although the trip is essentially
free, a $250 deposit is required.
Those eligible for the program
are 18- to 26-year-olds who never
have visited Israel on a group trip,
birthright israel spokesman Joe
Wagner said. Applicants then need
to fill out the online application
and be interviewed. In 1999 alone,
there were 25,000 applicants, and
birthright israel representatives
have been aggressive in visiting
campuses nationwide to recruit
new participants.
Birthright israel offers more than
20 different trips to choose from,
but all have a common thread — an
emphasis on culture. Every tour
group spends a “Shabbat,” the Jew
ish holy day in Jerusalem. There is
also a “Mifgash” exchange with Is
raeli peers to compare lifestyles
and a rally and party at the
Jerusalem convention center, Wag
ner said.
Safety is a priority on the trip,
Melchior said. Participants travel
in groups of 40 on private buses
and the one airline that the organi
zation considers safer than other
commercial lines. Trip itineraries
and travel routes are also modi
fied annually to meet the safety
situations. In addition, each group
is accompanied by guards.
Senior Geordie Vanderbosch
traveled to Israel with the program
last spring. He said while the trip
was enjoyable, it was also educa
tional. Vanderbosch said he ap
plied because of his interest in trav
el and international politics.
“The trip is half vacation and
half learning,” he said.
His said his experiences in the
birthright israel program led him to
join a Jewish fraternity and become
more involved with the Jewish
community at the University when
he returned.
Not only does birthright israel in
fluence individual lives, it is also
important for the maintenance of a
rich Jewish heritage, Oregon Hillel
student life coordinator June Sedar
baum Harris said.
“If culture is going to survive, we
need to educate, or the culture will
start to diminish,” she said. “There
are a lot of students with no Jewish
connections. This opens up a
whole world to them of old and
new cultures,” she said.
E-mail reporter Robin Weber
at robinweber@daiiyemerald.com.
Yates claims Satan told her to do it
By Terri Langford
The Dallas Morning News
HOUSTON (KRT) — A leading ex
pert on parents who kill their chil
dren fended off the prosecution
Tuesday, maintaining that Andrea
'Yates thought drowning her five chil
dren was the right thing to do even
though she knew it was illegal.
“In spite of knowing it was legally
wrong... what she perceived as right
was to take her children’s life on
earth to preserve them from eternal
damnation,” said Dr. Phillip Resnick,
who held fast to his assertion that
Yates was insane despite an intense
grilling by prosecution attorneys.
Resnick and the defense say An
drea Yates could not tell the differ
ence between right and wrong at
the time of the killings — the legal
standard that must be met for a suc
cessful insanity defense.
“I think she qualifies for the Texas
insanity defense,” Resnick said.
Lead prosecutor Joe Owmby
tried in vain to get Resnick to aban
don or at least back off his conclu
sion that Yates meets the require
ments for legal insanity.
Dr. Resnick testified that Yates,
37, believed she was faced with
the choice of seeing her children
go to hell or going in their place
by killing them herself and send
ing them to heaven.
Voices began penetrating Yates’
world after the birth of her first
child, Noah, in 1994. The voices
urged her only to “get a knife, get a
knife” according to psychiatrist re
ports in 1999.
The hallucinations became
stronger after the birth of her fourth
child, Luke, in 1999. And they re
turned after the birth of her fifth
child, the couple’s only girl, Mary,
bom on Nov. 30, 2000.
Four months after each of these
births, Andrea Yates had to be hos
pitalized. Before she killed her chil
dren, doctors were convinced she
was suffering from major depres
sion, possibly a psychosis brought
on by post-partum depression.
She called police June 20 and
told them to come to her Clear
Lake, Texas, home. When they ar
rived, she told them she had
drowned Noah, 7, John, 5, Paul, 3,
Luke, 2, and 6-month-old Mary.
“I’m saying, considering her
dilemma, she chose the conduct
she thought was right,” said
Resnick, a psychiatrist who has ex
amined Yates’ case. He has studied
filicide, or parents who kill their
children, since 1965.
Resnick agreed with the prosecu
tion in saying that Yates knew that
she was committing an illegal act
when she drowned her children.
But he said she was so en
trenched in her strange belief sys
tem populated by Satan and other
hellish voices that told her that her
children weren’t developing cor
rectly, both academically and spir
itually, that she felt she had no oth
er choice but to kill them.
After she was jailed, government
and private psychiatrists conclud
ed that she is schizophrenic and
that the mental illness did not man
ifest itself until after the births of
her children. The prosecution
agrees that she is mentally ill but
says she knows right from wrong.
In an attempt to thwart Satan’s
wish to torture her children, Yates
decided to act as a decoy for Satan.
If she killed the children, they
would go to heaven. That would
leave an angry Satan to pursue
Yates, according to Resnick.
But in her mind, it was the per
fect plan for mankind, because
she would be punished by “Gov
ernor Bush” and executed by the
state of Texas. When that hap
pened, mankind would be rid of
Satan forever.
© 2002, The Dallas Morning News.
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune
Information Services.
News briefs
Man visiting campus
rushed to hospital
Paramedics rushed a man from
Lawrence Hall to Sacred Heart
Medical Center on Wednesday
evening because he said he could
n’t breathe. The man said he was in
his 40s, and was not a University
student or a member of faculty or
staff.
A nursing supervisor at Sacred
Heart said hospital officials admit
ted the man and were examining
him. The supervisor said at 9:35
p.m. she did not know if the man
would be treated and released or be
held for overnight supervision.
A 20-year-old University student
phoned the Department of Public
Safety at 7:59 p.m. to alert them to
the man’s condition. DPS Sgt. Sean
Strahon said the department sent
two units to the scene at 8:04 p.m.
to assist the medical team, which
arrived two minutes later. He said
the officers took a defibrillator in
case the man’s heart had stopped,
but they did not use it.
Paramedics checked the man, de
cided he should go to the hospital
and placed him on a stretcher to
carry him to an ambulance waiting
on the east side of Lawrence Hall,
Strahon said. The man said he was
visiting the school.
— Eric Martin
LTD plans to cut routes
Lane Transit District is planning
to recommend cuts to five bus
routes at its March 20 board meet
ing, including the consolidation of
the 78 West-Eugene-to-campus
route into existing routes that indi
rectly serve the University.
LTD finalized a plan of action af
ter reviewing public input at its
Feb. 28 open house.
Spokeswoman Cosette Rees said
the bus company received more
than 150 comments from the com
munity at the open house, includ
ing “at least a dozen” comments
from students.
In addition to the five route cuts,
LTD wants to make schedule
changes to 13 routes, including the
11, which connects the University
to Springfield and Thurston. It also
wants to make this bus’s last
evening run at 10:40 p.m., instead
of 11:40 p.m.
The board meeting, which will
be held at LTD’s 3500 E. 17th Ave.
office, is open to the public and will
start at 6:30 p.m on March 20.
— Brook Reinhard
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Come Meet
mm Tuomi.
Coordinator of Non-Traditional Student Programs
A New Faculty Member Who Represents the Voice
of Non-Trads on Campus
Tuesday, March 5
9-10 A.M.
Wednesday, March 6
12-1 P.M.
At Returning Students Association Office
(room #20A, ground floor in the EMU, across from the Copy Center)
Path Hasten
Returning Students
Association
For more information:
Sayaka Minujra
346-4095
Women's Center
Becky Oysseau
346-3232
Academic Learning
Services
NIGHT
THURSDAYS
DJ Dynamite
Hip Hop • Top 40
your favorites from
80’s and 90’s
V? price dinners on Wednesdays and Thursdays
with UO student ID
OPEN TO ANYONE UNTIL 10 pm
(free parking in Rock-n-^odeo Lot)
707 Willamette St. 683-5160