Last year, University of Wisconsin – Madison student Katrina​ ​Morrison helped lead an effort to criticize Israel on campus. She helped schedule a vote targeting Israel in student government, despite requests from Jewish students to not hold it over Passover.

But when you’re a college student, what a difference a year can make.

“I would want to tell one-year-ago Katrina that she does not know everything and that she isn’t listening to the perspective of everyone,” a repentant Morrison said in a February interview. “I would want one-year-ago Katrina to really do her own independent research on the affairs of the state of Israel as well as the conflict and not just listen to the voices of people closest to her.”

Part of Morrison’s change of heart came over the summer, as she reconsidered and then apologized, but part of it is the result of a remarkable free trip to Israel. In January, University of Wisconsin­ – Madison Hillel brought five Jewish pro-Israel students and 19 non-Jewish students – all of them campus leaders – to Israel.

Paid for by a grant, the week-long itinerary was planned by Greg Steinberger, Madison Hillel’s executive director, and Hillel students. “Hillel got to control the narrative. We got to make the trip ourselves,” said Ariela Rivkin, one of the Jewish students on the trip.

The goal was to offer “glimpses of everything and not shy away from difficult conversations.”

They took the group to the top of the Golan Heights; to see Jewish and Arab women working together to make fair-trade olive oil; to see Israel’s role in helping Syrian refugees at a Galilee hospital; to tour the Old City of Jerusalem; to a security barrier tour; and to meet with former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel B. Shapiro, among other activities.

In the weeks afterwards, interviews with several of the non-Jewish students demonstrated a strong sense of gratitude for a free “trip of a lifetime,” pleasure in new learning and a newfound appreciation for just how very complicated a country that’s one-eighth the size of Wisconsin can be…

The trip was funded by the Maccabee Task Force, an organization committed to combatting anti-Israel sentiment and the BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) movement on college campuses nationwide.

Read More: The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle