My name is Jennifer Morawetz; I am 26 years old and have been living and interning in Jerusalem for the past few months with Career Israel. I came to Israel a year ago on Israel Experience’s Birthright and decided it wasn’t long enough, so in February I returned for a five month internship through Career Israel. I intern at Yad Vashem and the Jerusalem Center for Genocide Prevention. My internships have been a great experience for me so far as I just completed my Masters of Arts in December 2011 in history focusing on the Holocaust. After I return from Israel I will be starting my PHD at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada where I will be affiliated with the Rohr Chabad for Jewish Life in Waterloo.
My experiences here in Israel have definitely helped prepare me for this new challenge and the challenges I will face later in life. My education has been very academic and my program here has really helped me gain practical work experience. Having the opportunity to work at Yad Vashem has been beyond amazing. The resources and people I have access to allowed me to explore so many new things and learn valuable new tools- I have access to archival material that exists nowhere else in the world. The projects I have been allowed to take on have helped prepared me for a career in the museum industry and have given me new insights into how I want to use my education.
I have also had a lot of fun here on programs such as Masa Israel’s Building Future Leadership, and have made new friends from around the world. Most are not people who I would ever have met at home, so being here has really expanded my horizons.
My favorite trip with Career Israel was our weekend in the Negev desert; it was a beautiful place and really helped me to get know others on the program. Also having the opportunity to take part in the 2012 Masa Israel Delegation to Poland was absolutely amazing. These past months in Israel on Career Israel have definitely changed what I want in life and have helped me think of new ways to achieve those goals.
