My first year after High School
In my picture which was taken in 2011 I am in Israel for the year. It was a year that I will never forget. To give you a background on why I went to Israel for the year, it is what is normal for an orthodox religious Jew in America. After your senior year of high school, most of the kids decide to take the year off and go study and learn the roots of their religion. I went to a college in Israel called Bar Ilan University. During the morning I would take Judaic classes and in the afternoon I took secular subjects such as math, history, and psychology. On the weekends we would travel around the land which my ancestors first walked on and really got to experience the religion in a new light. This changed my life and made me a more mature person. Coming from a family that started i
n Syria then moved to Israel I truly got to experience how they lived. This is an experience that most people do not get to go through and I was truly grateful that I was able to experience such an amazing year. When I got back from Israel, I felt a connection with my religion and my country and I was now ready to start taking school seriously in Baruch College.