Sydney Flynn is one of 20 young adults participating in Onward Israel LA, an 8-week Israel program for college students and young professionals that includes a resume-building internship as well as group experiences to deepen participants’ understanding and connection to Israel and its people. While exploring life in Tel Aviv with her peers, Sydney is currently interning at Amit LaDerech, an association that helps to integrate and empower young adults from Israel’s periphery, post-army service. Sydney will be blogging throughout her 8-week experience.
We’ve all survived our first Israeli work week! Before we set out to navigate our individual routes to our respective internships scattered across the city on Sunday morning, we spent the weekend familiarizing ourselves with our new home and neighborhood of Shapira, in Tel Aviv. This included a group outing to the Hasidic grocery store, exploring the adjacent and trendy neighborhood of Florentine, and, of course, eating dinner as the sun set on our rooftop. And what would our first weekend in Tel Aviv be without constant trips to the beach? After the excitement of settling into our home for the next two months, it was time to get ready for our first day of work.
Saturday night was filled with helping each other figure out bus routes, who was going the same way, and what time we would each have to leave in order to be at our respective offices. We all scheduled in ample time because getting lost was inevitable. Once home, we all chatted about our first day, the good and the bad. It was nice to be able to return to a community where we were all experiencing the same challenges, and a positive environment in which we could discuss how to deal with each situation together. However, it is an incredible feeling to have the confidence to direct oneself throughout the corners of a foreign city in just one week’s time. As the week comes to an end, we are excited to see what comes next.
Read our “Onward Israel LA: Meet Our 2016 Participants” blog for a full list of participants.
For more information on Onward Israel and other immersive experiences, please contact Margalit Rosenthal at (323) 761-8208 or MRosenthal@JewishLA.org.
