A 26-year-old Manhattan woman will next week become the 100,000th young Jew to receive a free trip to Israel under a program funded by private donors and the Israeli government.

A communications specialist for Nasdaq, Stephanie Lowenthal said she has long been impressed with the growing number of Israeli companies listed on that stock exchange. When Israeli executives visit her Manhattan office, Ms. Lowenthal, said she’s always quick to engage them in conversation.

Ms. Lowenthal is scheduled to leave on Monday for a 10-day Taglit-Birthright Israel trip. “I’m excited to learn about the history,” Ms. Lowenthal, a Queens native and a self-described unaffiliated Jew, said. “I’m excited to float in the Dead Sea.”

Her arrival at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport Tuesday will be a major benchmark for the program known as Birthright, a Jewish identity-building program, initiated six years ago by several philanthropists. Private donors, Jewish groups, and the Israeli government have invested about $200 million in the program, open to all 18- to 26-year olds with at least one Jewish parent.

While about four-fifths of participants are American or Canadian, birthright attendees have also included Jews from 50 countries, including Austria, Bolivia, Finland, and Kazakhstan. As part of the experience, they visit sites in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, the Negev Desert, and elsewhere.

The program, which also aims to improve Israel-Diaspora relations, has helped the Israeli economy, which suffered from a marked decrease in tourism at the height of the second intifada. During that time, Birthright struggled to recruit participants as the number of suicide attacks grew. These days, amid waning violence, the number of would-be participants swelled. There were 25,000 North American applicants for 10,000 places in birthright programs this summer.

“There’s this enormous backlog – all over the world,” a Birthright backer, Michael Steinhardt, said. “We have to come up with a way to accommodate them.” To do so, he said, Birthright Israel’s year-old foundation is actively seeking out new funding sources.

Mr. Steinhardt, who is an investor in The New York Sun, joined Ms. Lowenthal and Israel’s consul general in New York, Arye Mekel, at a press conference in New York yesterday marking the milestone.

Though increasing immigration to Israel is not among the program’s stated goals, it is one of the by-products. A November 2004 study by researchers at Brandeis University showed that more than 1,000 Birthright alumni were in Israel studying, volunteering, working, or serving in the army. Mr. Steinhardt said that more than a year-and-a-half later, that number had surpassed 4,000.

Mr. Mekel called the trend significant. “We love to see as many Birthright people as possible making aliyah,” he said, employing a Hebrew word used to describe immigration to Israel. “It’s our goal, from an ideological point of view.”