Volume 8, Issue 5 / Nissan 5765 / May 2005
Internship Placement program
Thanks to the Jewish Agency, over 150 upperclass college students, young graduates, and graduate students are placed each year in internships that can bolster their resumes and help jump-start their careers in Israel. Participants are placed, according to their educational and work histories, in a host of exciting environments including architecture and accountancy firms, the Ministry of Health, hospitals, NGO's, research institutes, schools, and high-tech companies. And, as opposed to their counterparts in the US who often perform clerical tasks, the Jewish Agency interns are assigned "real work."
In recent years, the highly-qualified students and professionals who have sought internship placement assistance through the Jewish Agency included young potential immigrants from the US, Canada, Europe, Australia, Argentina, and South Africa.
One of these is Karen Karagoulla, 23, who recently graduated from the University of Florida with a degree in Graphic Design. She has an impressive resume but needed a way to keep up her graphic design skills while she studied in Ulpan. "Graphic design isn't like riding a bicycle," she explained. "Once you put it down, you can't necessarily pick it up again 6 months later. You need to stay in the game." The Jewish Agency placed her in a Jerusalem design company where she works four afternoons per week after her Hebrew studies. When ulpan is over, Karagoulla plans to search for paying work in Tel Aviv where she hopes to settle permanently. "Because of this internship, I'm not spending five months not working in design," she said gratefully. "Without it, re-entering would be really hard."
Also interning in Jerusalem is Joseph Sherman, a California native who spent a year in Germany as part of his undergraduate program in Business and Ethnic Studies. "I went to Germany because I figured it would be good for work," the 24-year-old said. "My internship in Israel helps me get ahead in my work and also allows me to see about living here."
Sherman spends 22 hours each week at the Bank of Jerusalem where he is researching American tax law and bond activities on behalf of the bank's non-proft clients. "As my Hebrew improves I'll do more work with the clients themselves," he predicted.
Combined with ulpan and yeshiva studies, Sherman's internship has confirmed his desire to make aliyah. He's considering applying to Israeli universities for his MBA.
"At yeshiva I got the religious perspective of the benefits of living here," he said. "The internship helps me see how the working person manages, what the business world is like."
Sherman reported that his colleagues at the Bank of Jerusalem are role models of successful immigrants. "Almost everyone in my department has made aliyah from all over the world," he observed. "I get a good view of what they did to be successful. It gives me a lot of support. The personal relationships I make here in the bank help me understand how I can live here and how I can spend the rest of my life."
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