Volunteering at Melabev can bring quite unexpected surprises. I am a 48 year old woman living in Switzerland and came to Israel this summer as a volunteer with the goal of improving my Hebrew. Melabev’s Memory Clubs provide activities and innovative treatment methods aimed at stimulating those affected by Alzheimer’s and improving their quality of Continue Reading »
Last summer I knew I wanted to spend the summer in Israel. However, here I was a mature woman in my 50’s, a New York City Department of Education teacher of English as a Second Language as well as Reading, English and History. Every Israel volunteer summer program I found was geared to young people Continue Reading »
For my 2016 Skilled Volunteers for Israel (SVFI) volunteer gig, I deliberately chose a different type activity than my 2015 SVFI experience at Melabev. While my 2015 volunteer position was very much hands-on, I wanted utilize a different set of skills and to focus more on policy matters in 2016. Though the 2015 and 2016 Continue Reading »
Three days a week for four weeks this spring, I walked through the Jaffa Gate into the Old City of Jerusalem, weaving my way on the narrow stone streets past vendors and tourists, stopping sometimes for a bagel at Hurva Square, to a two-story building on Mount Zion Road. Could anyone have a better commute Continue Reading »
I had been looking to explore another world—a space to give me purpose, pause, and reflection. I needed to briefly step aside from my work in the states to return to a place that would both fulfill my commitment to service and allow me to reconnect with the country I had been away from for Continue Reading »
Sometimes you just walk into a place and know that one person can really make a difference. I felt that immediately when I first met the director, Judith bar Zemer, at “Mercaz Klass” learning center in the Katamon Gonen neighborhood of Jerusalem. Under Judith’s tutelage, the children from ages 6 through 18 receive tutoring in Continue Reading »
Adah Radzin volunteered in January 2016 in Bat Yam through a placement organized through Skilled Volunteers for Israel. Tachkemoni is an elementary school with 400 children in grades one through six. The school is in Bat Yam, a poorer city cousin of Tel Aviv. The school building is built for a warm climate. The walls Continue Reading »
It’s not the school bell that marks the end of the lesson. The bell has been replaced by the rousing rendering of a popular song, “Ma Asita Hayom,”* blasted over the sound system every fifty minutes. Its sudden boom may generate activity in the classrooms. Where I sit, on a bench in the playground, nothing Continue Reading »
December 29, 2015 I write this as I sit in our rented Jerusalem apartment, having completed the final day of my volunteer assignment, and as I anticipate boarding the plane back to Boston tomorrow. It is truly a daunting task to attempt to put words to the experience of the last month, in a way that does Continue Reading »
The International YMCA in Jerusalem: A Truly Safe Space for Palestinian, Christian, and Israeli Jewish Teens One of the highlights of my professional career was volunteering in Jerusalem for the nonprofit organization, Skilled Volunteers for Israel. It was my first time in Israel. While I am a little too “seasoned” to pick grapes on a Continue Reading »
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