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Ocean County College, Toms River, is accepting applicants for its archaeology seminar in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Dor -- a joint program with Haifa University and Hebrew University marking one of the largest cooperative archaeological projects in Israel.

"Tel Dor is a very rich archaeological site," OCC archaeology professor Christine Kitchin told The Jewish State. "[The city] was built year after year after year, so you get this layering of superimposed architecture. The earliest levels were occupied by the Canaanites, then the Israelites who came and basically knocked down the buildings of the people before them, and then Phoenicians after them -- you literally have a man-made mountain of architecture."

The school has had a partnership with Haifa University for several years, she said, and this excavation seminar grew out of that connection. Danny Goldberg, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Ocean County said that the federation is delighted to hear of the announcement of the program, which was a natural outgrowth of OCC President Dr. John Larson's visit to Israel as a guest of the Jewish community in 2005.

The program is open to anyone over 18 years of age who is out of high school. But Kitchin stressed that the program is physically demanding.

"This is a very serious archaeological excavation, but it is how students learn," Kitchin said. She said much of the evening work will be "indoor museum work -- teaching students that archaeology isn't just about picking things up. You have to wash them, curate them, record them -- all of that is part of the process."

The program runs from July 5-25. Participants must register by March 24. For pricing, contact Joanne Padrone at (732) 255-0469, or jpadrone@ocean.edu. A deposit of $500 is due with registration. The package includes: roundtrip airfare from Newark; roundtrip transportation from the airport in Tel-Aviv to the archaeological site and roundtrip transportation from the lodging to the excavation site each work day; and room and board while at the field school -- accommodations are in air conditioned dormitory style rooms at Kfar Galim Boarding School (three-four to a room), where each dorm has a club room with TV, Internet, coffee maker, refrigerator, and laundry facilities. Most meals are included.

The trip also includes two Sunday cultural excursions -- a tour of Jerusalem and a trip to a Caesarea archaeological site, Atlit, and a nearby Druze village.

Kitchin said the college's planning for the event has been going on throughout the past year. Between 10 and 15 participants will be taken on the trip, and college credits are available at OCC and have been accepted in the past at New Jersey colleges and other universities as well.

The seminar is in English, and the students will be supervised the entire time, Kitchin said.

"Generally, people will work in groups of three and four with a trained supervisor with experience," she said. "Each group is given a discreet area, students will be shown how to do it -- that's what a lot of this instruction is.... They are really walked through the process. But the only way to learn archaeology is to get out and dig. I can sit there and take notes on how to dance and take dance theory, but if I didn't dance, I wouldn't know how to dance."

In terms of safety, every participant will be asked to take a phone with them. Kitchin said there are inexpensive mobile phones available to rent if the students don't want to get one on their own. They will all be working closely together, and students will be in contact with supervisors at all times.

"The reality is that we're in a relatively close environment," Kitchin said. "We are close to Haifa, but we work long days, so there will be almost no free time for participants to go off on their own. We are either at the excavation, at the museum, or we're at the boarding school where we will be staying, where there is 24/7 security. Staff will be living in the same place, so they will have 24-hour access to me day and night."

Safety concerns were cited as the primary reason for Rutgers University's sudden cancellation of the spring semester study abroad program in Israel. The decision, made by the Rutgers undergraduate administration in January, caught the program's participants by surprise, including Rutgers junior Natalie Leichtman.

"The way it basically happened was, it was the end of winter break, and everything happened very quickly that week," Leichtman, an Edison resident studying at Hebrew University, told The Jewish State in a phone interview from Jerusalem. "On Monday, I picked up my student visa and I received notification of waiting for housing at Hebrew University, and by Thursday at 6 p.m. I received an email from the vice president of Rutgers saying that they had a meeting, and due to the war [in Gaza] -- the final point was that two rockets had come in from Lebanon -- they were canceling the entire program."

With an academic scholarship, a non-refundable plane ticket and student visa, and without having registered for spring semester classes at Rutgers, Leichtman was in a bind.

"There was no doubt that I was still going," she said. "To me, it was very important to still go to show my support for the people and the country during the period of the war."

Local officials attempted to work behind the scenes to get Rutgers to change course and renew the program. When the cancellation news was reported, however, the talks stopped and the cancellation was made official.

After Rutgers Hillel got involved, the Rutgers administration worked with Leichtman to sign a consortium agreement that she would no longer be a Rutgers student (since there was officially no study abroad program), but her scholarship would apply to Hebrew University.

The State Association of Jewish Federations then met with members of the Rutgers administration, which indicated that students still studying in Israel would receive the proper credit. Nine Rutgers students were affected by the cancellation, after which two changed their study program to Australia and one remained at Rutgers for the semester and planned to study in Israel in the fall. Six remained in Israel.

"This decision upset many in the Jewish community," said State Association President Roy Tanzman in a statement following the meeting. "Yet, we were pleased by the willingness of Rutgers President Richard McCormick to meet with us, listen to our concerns, and work with us to reach an understanding."

Rutgers Hillel had released the following statement on the cancellation: "We believe that a different decision would have been made if Rutgers administrators had a more in-depth understanding of Israel and the region. As an example, some three-dozen Rutgers students spent part of this past winter break in Israel on Hillel's Birthright Israel trip. These students were able to travel the length and breadth of Israel without incident. It is a shame their classmates have been denied the same opportunity."

"The decision of our Crisis Management Team took this action in early January when all reports indicated to us the dangers our students could face in Israel," Rutgers undergraduate Vice President Barry Qualls said in a statement. "The decision was made exclusively with our students' security in mind."