The Masa Experience

A meaningful question I have for myself is: should I be comforted in the fact that professional success comes from constant growth and constant change, rather than seeking one specific end goal? Spending the year in Israel was not what I foresaw for myself upon college graduation, but if this year has taught me anything it’s that sometimes straying from...

As a Jewish person who lived her whole life outside of Israel, experiencing Yom HaShoah here in Israel was different and unique. Even though I learned about the Holocaust and I consider myself well-taught about the history of our people, these sessions exposed me to things I didn’t know about before and left me wondering, what is my responsibility regarding...

This Shabbaton enacted the very topic it was organized around: the diversity of the Jewish people, the collective we create as individual Jews. I was reminded of the social foundation of ethnic and even religious identity. My own perceptions were challenged in a really important way. In connection to these points, I am bringing home the connection I felt to...

Although the sessions were online due to COVID-19 restrictions, they were a special opportunity for peer-learning with Fellows from different programs and locations in Israel. I learnt a lot about what it means to be a Jewish People from this and how important memory is to us collectively. Also, the programs exposed me to the renewal of the Jewish community...

The simplest of questions seem to have the most complex of answers. Who is a Jew? This seems simple, but as Jonathan Toker proved, there is no singular consensus. Even the parameters of Aliya do not match the parameters of the Jewish State in defining what constitutes a Jew. Is Judaism based on blood? Mindset? Practice? No matter the answer,...