A coalition of communal organisations has launched a 10-week mini-gap year experience to attract those giving up the traditional gap year in Israel to start university before the rise in tuition fees.

Youth movements are concerned that those trying to beat the increased fees of up to £9,000 annually, effective from 2012, will miss out on the gap year experience.

Members of Britain’s Jewish youth movements have launched a campaign to challenge the government’s position on the tuition fees rise and gap years.

Bnei Akiva (BA) and the Federation of Zionist Youth (FZY) started the “Mind the Gap” petition out of concern that the prospect of paying fees of up to £9,000 would discourage students from taking a year out before university.

Both movements, along with several other Anglo-Jewish organisations, run popular schemes taking British school-leavers to volunteer and study in Israel.

A group of British teenagers have visited the parents of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Bnei Akiva gap year participants, who arrived in Israel earlier this month, met Noam and Aviva Shalit at their protest tent in Jerusalem and presented them with flag signed by all members of the group.

The Shalits have been camped outside Prime Minister Benajmin Netanyahu’s residence since July to draw attention to their son’s plight.

Hundreds of people have posted tribute messages on Facebook for fomer Executive Director of Bnei Akiva and co-founder of the London School of Jewish Studies Marc Weinberg, who has died of leukaemia aged 35.

Mr Weinberg, who leaves his wife Natalie and two young children Yona and Maayan, had been ill for three years and had a bone marrow transplant in April.

Mr Weinberg’s mother was former Executive Director of the Chief Rabbi’s office Syma Weinberg. He was mazkir artzi of Bnei Akiva in the UK. Later, Marc was a founder of the Alei Ziyyon minyan in London.

Schoolboy Joel Weiner, who found fame this week as one of the questioners of Brown, Cameron and Clegg in the first party leaders' TV debate, was back on more familiar territory on Monday.

The Bnei Akiva member was one of over 1,000 people at the BA celebration at Finchley Synagogue, the country's biggest Independence Day event.

Joel said: "There was the most fantastic atmosphere and everyone felt the great vibe, celebrating Yom Ha'atzmaut with Bnei Akiva and such a big crowd."

The number of youngsters taking gap years in Israel fell dramatically this year because of the financial climate.

Only around 60 went to Israel this year, compared to more than 100 a year over the past three, according to FZY, the UK's largest Zionist youth movement.

And Bnei Akiva, the religious Zionist movement, experienced a slide from about 40 to the lower 20s.

But leaders hope that numbers will begin to climb again this autumn with BA anticipating as many as 55 recruits to its yeshivah and year schemes which can cost as much as £16,000.