In May 2025, when eight young people traveled to Israel with JEWISHcolorado’s Young Adult Division (YAD), they expected to meet new friends and make new memories. For one traveler, the trip also changed his life. Recently, we talked to 36-year-old Danny Simon about his decision to travel with YAD a year ago and the new journey he is taking, inspired by his YAD trip.
Within the next month, you will get on an airplane and head to Israel to make aliyah. Was there a single moment when you made this decision?
It was on the YAD trip to Israel last year. I was lying on a beach in Tel Aviv smoking a cigar with my brother. I turned to him and said, “I am moving here.” I just feel that I can live a more meaningful life in Israel.
What prompted you to make that trip to Israel with YAD?
It was actually my second time in Israel. The first time was on a birthright trip when I was 21. My older brother Brett and I received the same email from JEWISHcolorado about the YAD program, and we thought it looked interesting. We saw it as a second birthright trip, going with a small group on a more intimate trip to learn more about Israelis on a personal level. I liked that it offered an exchange program with a group of young Israelis who traveled to Colorado in March 2025. We partnered with them, showed them around Colorado and really got to know them. Then we reconnected in May on the second half of the exchange when we traveled to Israel.
Danny Simon (front left)
How was this trip different from a birthright trip?
There is a big difference between going when you are 21 and going when you are 35. My goal on the birthright trip was mostly to have fun. The YAD trip was also fun, but it took place after October 7th. We visited the Nova Festival Victims Memorial and the kibbutzim that were attacked, so this was a more serious trip. I wanted to go to learn as much as I could and to support Israel in any way possible, so this trip was a mission.
What experiences really hit you on this trip?
I spent 10 years in the live music industry—following bands, working for bands, going to countless music festivals in every state in the country and Mexico. Walking around the Nova Festival Victims Memorial and seeing pictures of the kids who died, I was picturing myself because 100 percent I would have been there.
I have been into anime since elementary school and one of the memorials had all sorts of memorabilia from my favorite anime, “One Piece.” I looked more closely and there was a “One Piece” sticker on the memorial, and I had the exact same sticker on the water bottle I was carrying. I felt like I was looking at myself. It just doubled down on the idea that this could have been me at the festival that day.
Did Israel start to feel like home to you on this trip?
My brother and I extended our YAD trip by four additional days. The entire time, I had such a sense of belonging. It’s a feeling that can’t be described, but any Jew understands what that feeling is. It’s like a 4,000-year-old instinct in us. We feel an energy we don’t feel anywhere else—in the atmosphere, the architecture, the food, the people.
Danny with Yaara Ron Cohen, Partnership Coordinator for the Ramat HaNegev Regional Council
What about the Israeli people resonated with you?
I just feel comfortable with them. I was waiting in line for ice cream and there was a group of 18-year-olds—men and women—eating ice cream with their assault weapons over their shoulders. They had serious responsibilities, but they were having fun. One gave me a sample of his dessert. It was so interesting to see young people who can balance dangerous work with just being normal kids. They are living under the cloud of war, but they still go to the beach. Israelis are like no one else. They are mentally and physically tough, intelligent, resilient, fun, and successful. They have turned a desert into an oasis.
So you came home from Israel last year and now, on April 22, you will return to Israel to live. How have your family and friends reacted to this life-changing decision?
My best friend Daniel has family in Israel, and he got engaged there. He has always said, “Danny would absolutely fit in here.” Other people didn’t take me seriously at first, but the more I talked about it, the more I discovered how many people have already made aliyah. I am a fifth-generation Denver Jew on my mother’s side, and I am very social. It used to be that anywhere I went in Denver, I ran into someone I knew. That has changed. I used to call Denver a “large town.” Now I call it a “small city.” To me, the magic of Denver has gone, and it is now more like Los Angeles. No matter what work I do in Israel, I feel like I will have more of an impact on the community as part of a smaller society. People ask me, “What is your plan when you get there?” I tell them that I am going to live my life, taking one day at a time.
Do you speak Hebrew?
I don’t speak Hebrew beyond the words I memorized to become a bar mitzvah. But I am going to be part of a Jewish Agency immigration program, Ulpan Etzion, which offers five months of intensive Hebrew study and employment counseling for olim.
You are going to Israel at a fraught moment in history. Does that weigh on you?
I trust Israel to know how to do security. I believe in the Iron Dome. I have family members who were hurt in the Boulder firebombing, and my cousin’s friend was shot in the shoulder during the antisemitic attack in Austin. It’s dangerous in this country, too.
In talking to you, you have mentioned a couple times that you hope to meet someone and get married in Israel.
That is a main goal for me—meeting someone, getting married, and creating a family. And I hope to do it in a country that feels like a holy place to me. I don’t necessarily mean holy in a religious way. It feels like the place where civilization started, the place where I believe humans started to become moral.