I am quickly approaching the day where I finally get to go to Israel. I have never been there before and AMHSI is finally allowing me to do that. I was very fortunately given the Philadelphia fellowship for the February-March session. So how did I hear about this program? I heard about this amazing program from my sister Hope. She was also very fortunately given the fellowship in 2017 when she went on AMHSI. She hasn’t stopped talking about it to this day. How it was the greatest thing she has ever done and would do anything to experience it again. So, because of her praise towards the program, I decided to apply for the fellowship. I wanted to experience what she experienced, the trip of a lifetime.

Although I am very excited and can’t wait to begin this amazing program, I have some doubts. I am a little nervous about the being alone part of it. Even though I have been away from my parents during overnight camp, I have never really been alone before in the real world. I have never had to manage my school work, money, and issues all by myself. Also, I am scared that I will have trouble making friends. I will be going with tons of people that I have never met before, so I am a little nervous I won’t “click” or have the same interests as them.

On this session, I hope to get out various different things, but one thing in particular that has stuck out to me was to try to form a deeper connection to Judaism. For my whole life, I have gone to Hebrew school and Jewish summer camp and learned all different kinds of things about the history of Judaism.  It is great, but I still never really felt that deep connection. So, now that I will be living and studying in Israel, I hope to achieve that, to make that deeper connection.

I can’t wait to see where this amazing program takes me!