Sue Hoffman
CJN Staff Reporter
Arielle Stambler, a 2010 graduate of Hathaway Brown School in Shaker Heights and a junior at Yale University in New Haven, Conn., recently returned from a six-week archaeological dig in Ashkelon, Israel. Ilana Polster, who graduated early, in 2011, from Shaker Heights High School and is a freshman at Princeton University in New Jersey, is back in the United States following eight months of volunteer work, including three in Morocco and five in Israel.
Both Shaker Heights residents have shared new insight from their journeys.
Stambler, who went on the dig through Harvard Summer School, was a Cleveland Jewish News teen reporter and participated in Write On for Israel, a two-year advocacy program that was co-sponsored by @Akiva, CJN and the AVI CHAI Foundation.
“Two years after ‘graduating’ from Write On for Israel, the importance of my Israel advocacy training is finally beginning to hit home for me,” Stambler wrote. “Throughout my junior and senior years of high school, WOFI taught me about the ways in which anti-Israel sentiments might manifest themselves on a college campus and how to use journalism and other student media to advocate for Israel in the face of those challenges.” Her bond with Israel strengthened during WOFI’s 10-day trip to the country a year into the program, she said, and afterward, she yearned for a deeper connection.
“And so, this summer I returned to Israel on the Leon Levy Archaeological Expedition to Ashkelon, a southern city 11 miles from the Gaza Strip,” said Stambler, an English major and reporter for the Yale Daily News Magazine. The schedule was grueling, she said. “We woke up every morning at 4:30 a.m., dug for eight hours with pickaxes and turiyas (large hoes used to scoop dirt into buckets)…and spent the afternoons washing and processing the pottery discovered that morning.”
At 9:45 p.m. June 23, during week two of the dig, the tenor of the trip changed after rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip toward Ashkelon, she said. Fortunately, Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system stopped the rockets’ progress. “But the booms shattered the mental peace of some participants.”
In her analysis of the conflict, Stambler draws several conclusions. “After having such a visceral, terrifying and thought-provoking experience in Israel, I came to the conclusion, in my heart of hearts, I am proud to feel like a part of the Israeli nation by virtue of being Jewish, proud to support this country through thick and thin. But at the same time, I am more saddened than ever by the complexity of the situation.”
Stambler’s complete comments are available on www.cjn.org.
Polster brought back lessons from her eight months abroad.
“I graduated high school early and spent the second half of my senior year volunteering abroad in Morocco,” Polster wrote for the Career Israel blog. “I returned home when my three-month visa expired, but decided that I wanted to continue volunteering abroad before heading to college.”
“I spent the past summer working towards my emergency medical technician license with the plan of volunteering in ambulances overseas. After my experience in Morocco, I was relatively certain that I wanted to return to the Middle East. I initially chose Israel purely for language reasons – I have a decent comprehension of Hebrew, and communication plays a central role in ambulance work.”
In Israel, Polster volunteered for Magen David Adom ambulance services. Polster, who is studying international relations at Princeton, is one of 1,200 young adults placed in internships through the Career Israel project of the Israel Experience Ltd.
“Ilana is the youngest participant that Career Israel has ever accepted,” said Rachel Sales, director of marketing with Israel Experience.
“In my past few months with MDA, I have been able to see a wider spectrum of the Israeli population than most of my friends,” Polster wrote. “I like being able to get an unvarnished view of the country and its issues, and feel like I have learned just as much about the social and political situation in Israel as about its health care system. Also, there really is nothing like riding an ambulance down a highway at 4 a.m. while blasting techno music.
“As a 19-year-old, I can’t really tell you what my career path will be. I am very interested in the relationships and negotiations between countries, and hope to work in some kind of international field, possibly with a focus on the Middle East. For this reason, I really enjoyed Masa Israel’s security and diplomacy seminar. It was a great way to learn more about regional issues and to work on negotiation skills.
“Unlike many of my friends on Career Israel, making aliyah (at least immediately) was never an option for me – I still have four years of college to complete. As the end of my program approaches, I know that I will leave Israel. And I also know that I’ll be back.”
SHABBAT SING: The Agnon School will host a “Shabbat Sing” from 8:30 to 9 a.m. Friday, Oct. 12, for children 18 months to age 5. The free, open program also is designed for the parents or caregivers of such children.
Agnon is at 26500 Shaker Blvd. in Beachwood. In Shabbat Sing, participants celebrate the spirit of Shabbat with other families. Children sing, move and learn about Shabbat with special blessings, rituals, challah and grape juice.
Contact Cathy Schreiber, director of early childhood, at 216-464-4055, ext. 128 or cschreiber@agnon.org.
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