BYU's on-again, off-again effort to resume student programs in Jerusalem is back on, school officials said Tuesday.

Starting in winter semester 2007, the LDS Church-owned university plans to send 44 students to its Center for Near Eastern Studies - overlooking the historic Mount of Olives - in what it hopes will be the first round of a re-established, permanent study-abroad program in the Holy Land.

“It is our expectation that we will have programs on an ongoing basis,” Jim Kearl, BYU's assistant to the president for the Jerusalem Center, said Tuesday.

This marks the second time this year the Provo-based school has tried to re-launch its Jerusalem programs.

In June, administrators announced the Jerusalem Center's student programs would resume for fall semester 2006, but Israel's invasion of Lebanon forced officials to call it off.

The latest development is bittersweet news to a few students who applied for the fall semester, but no longer can make the trip.

“It is too bad because that would have been a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” said Jonathan Jardine, one of about 150 students who tried for a fall slot.

When student David Bailey learned his fall application and deposit would be returned to him, he made other plans. “I got engaged,” Bailey said. “I was kind of debating when to do it, but when they changed everything, I said, 'Looks like Christmas will work out great [for a wedding].' ”

Bailey still plans to travel to the Holy Land this spring with his new bride.

BYU spokeswoman Carri Jenkins said officials decided to move forward with a winter-semester because of the “appropriateness of the timing right now. We continue to evaluate the situation on a daily basis.”

No preference will be given to students who applied for the fall semester, Jenkins added, so they will need to apply again for consideration.

Applicants - limited to current BYU students in Provo - should submit the required paperwork and a $150 deposit between Oct. 23 and Nov. 3.

BYU students have not attended the Jerusalem Center since fall 2000, when civil unrest forced an early exit of 176 study-abroad participants. Student programs were suspended indefinitely in 2001, though the Jerusalem Center has remained open to tourists and visitors since that time.

thollingshead@sltrib.com

* BYU sends its first study-abroad group to Jerusalem in January 1968. Students stay at the Ritz Hotel.

* BYU's Jerusalem Center opens to students in 1988.

* The school temporarily cancels the program in 1991 during the first Gulf War.

* Mounting civil unrest forces 176 students to leave Jerusalem in October 2000.

* Officials suspend programs at the Jerusalem Center in summer 2001.

* BYU officials announce June 9, 2006, that student programs will resume in Jerusalem for fall semester 2006.

* Administrators scrap those plans July 28 after Israel invades Lebanon.

* BYU announces this week its plans to re-launch student programs in Jerusalem during winter semester 2007.

BYU's history in the Holy Land