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Most 19-year-olds don't even know what they want to do tomorrow, let alone the next three years of their lives.

Not Winnipeg resident Ryan Paddock. He has a plan. On July 12, 2005, Paddock will take his seat on a historic flight from Canada to Israel -- marking the first time an entire plane-load of Canadian Jews has made such a journey together.

'REALIZATION OF DREAMS'

Over the course of the summer, it's expected a total of 400 Canadians will pack up their lives and move to the Promised Land, along with 1,400 Jews from elsewhere in North America.

And like Paddock, they'll all have their own reasons for making the trip.

"The poetic answer is there are as many different motivations and scenarios as there are people going," said Charley Levine, spokesman for Nefesh B'Nefesh, an organization dedicated to making such trips possible. "Clearly this is an historic process, a realization of dreams by people who value the concept of Jewish people being re-connected to the land of Israel."

Levine knows what he's talking about. He and his wife moved to Israel from Texas nearly 25 years ago, although he says the transition would have been smoother if a group like Nefesh B'Nefesh had existed then.

Only four years old, the organization helps defer travel costs, arrange accommodation and find suitable work for North Americans looking to relocate to Israel.

Paddock says he'd been thinking of picking up stakes for some time, but jumped at the chance to do so with the aid of an already-established support system.

Once he arrives in Israel, Paddock plans to live in Jerusalem for a month, then move to a kibbutz between there and Tel Aviv.

For six months, he'll spend half his days learning Hebrew and the other half working. After that, he'll join the military.

"I've always been interested in Middle Eastern history," he said of his reasons for leaving. "When I visited (in December), I saw what it's like there, building a nation. It's so much different here than there."

- On the web: www.nbn.org