By Allison Lazarus, ’10, Perspectives Section Editor

This summer, I traveled to Israel for five weeks on a Bronfman Youth Fellowship.  Although I knew that this would be an intense experience when I applied, I realized quickly that I did not really understand then how rigorous the program would prove to be.  Over the course of the summer, we were exposed to truly amazing issues and people in the context of some of the most beautiful and meaningful places in the world.

The home base of the program was the Goldstein Youth Village in Jerusalem, in a neighborhood called San Simon.  The group stayed there for the first week of our trip, and then traveled up north to Tzfat, a small village in Galilee known as the birthplace of Jewish mysticism.  There, we met the Amitim, 20 Israeli teens who stayed with us for a week.  At the end of the week, each of us was paired with an Amit and went on a home stay with our partner.  I stayed with Yarden, a female Amit, in Kfar Saba, a small town near Tel Aviv.  After that, we all met up again in the southern Negev desert for three days of hiking and swimming in the Dead and Red Seas.  We returned to the Goldstein Youth Village for our last two weeks in Israel.

Although even this schedule would have been demanding and enriching enough, we were constantly listening to highly respected and interesting speakers, including a deputy minister in the Israeli government, famous authors like Etgar Keret and A.B. Yehoshua, and founders of up-and-coming charitable organizations.  Also, each of the four leaders of the trip (three rabbis from different denominations and an alum of the program) taught a class on a subject of their choice every day.  Because of these classes, I was exposed to text study and to subjects that I normally would not have associated with religious Judaism, like interpreting dreams, rabbinic interpretation, seduction in the Torah, and theodicy (the study of the justice of God).

Now, I realize that this was not a typical summer experience.  We were expected to complete readings every night, spent a lot of time discussing deep issues, and probably name-dropped classic authors more than celebrities. But, you never would have known that most kids would not have enjoyed these activities because of the level of enthusiasm that characterized all of the Fellows.  The 25 other students who traveled with me were some of the most amazing people I have met in my entire life—both because of their intensity and because of their willingness to really experience all that the trip had to offer.   In November, however, I will be traveling to the Northeast to spend a weekend with them, so I like to imagine that even though I have returned to the United States, my summer has not actually ended yet.