My friend's daughter just got back from 4 months in Israel and another friend's son is preparing to attend Tel Aviv U for a master's next year. My own daughter went on Birthright a few months ago and loved it - she is trying to finagle a free trip back next spring but she isn't an english major/minor - the teacher said she will try to see if an ed major can attend. They keep the country as safe as they can, my Israeli friends feel safer there than in parts of NYC.
I hope your D has a great time.
The story I tell (true and sad) is of a friend who had 2 nephews. One went skiing on winter break and the other went to Israel. We got a phone call that one of the nephews had been killed. This was during the Intifada when homicide bombers were rampant. I said was it a terror attack and the answer was no, it was a tree. The skiing nephew hit a tree and died, the other is now a father of 3. As an aside to that, my d was fine in Israel, she came home and had a skiing accident and had to have her ACL reconstructed.