When the Jewish Federation asked Gedaliah Blum why he wanted to participate on the very first Birthright program, he told a story about his grandmother. When Gedaliah was a young boy, his grandmother and aunt went to Israel for the first time. It changed his grandmother's life. One year later, she passed away. Gedaliah explained that he wanted to get to Israel to see if it would change his life, and he wanted to do it while he was still young.
He was one of 25 young people accepted out of 2,000 applicants for that first experimental progam.
It was on the Birthright follow-through trip that he fell in love with the National Service volunteer of the program, who soon became his wife. Together, they examined national and world events with concern. So many people wanted to boycott products made in Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley, essentially starving out the hard-working Jewish residents trying to feed their families.
This was the impetus to creating Dapei Katom (a play on the Yellow Pages), which highlights products and businesses based in Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley, to create a "buy-cott".
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