I recently watched the movie Bride Wars on Netflix because there are far fewer movies to choose from on the Israeli Netflix website than there are back in America. There were definitely some good moments in the movie. and I think it deserves about six stars out of ten (sorry Anne Hathaway, I can’t go higher than six), but settling for Bride Wars as my movie of choice was not what I expected when I imagined what kind of “culture shock” or cultural differences I might experience during my three months living and interning in Tel Aviv.
Readjusting my expectations for Netflix availabilities has been a more gradual process than readjusting my expectations for what to expect at an internship in Tel Aviv, though. This summer, I’m working with a group called Mesila, which is a government-funded organization that partners with members of the asylum seeker, migrant worker, and refugee communities in Tel Aviv with the goals of improving living conditions for women and children. Working at Mesila has included a lot of what I had hoped for and expected: I am able to learn a lot about a political aspect of Israeli society that I had not researched very much before, I get to use a lot of Hebrew every day, and I get to be part of an organization that works with members of the community it hopes to benefit in order to enact lasting changes.
That being said, the Israeli expectation of interns is something I didn’t anticipate. Here, being an intern is not so much about menial tasks or learning from the sidelines. In my case, it’s already involved starting to translate a 50-page end-of-year report from Hebrew to English, devising a family planning curriculum from scratch, and helping a family move from Tel Aviv to Haifa. These have all been great opportunities and have enabled me to engage with different subjects that I’m interested in: the translation project has been teaching me high-level writing skills, the family planning curriculum has allowed me to use what I’ve learned with Peer Health Exchange at Tufts in order to create new lesson plans, and working with new people has given me the chance to get to know individuals from the community instead of staying far removed and behind a computer screen for the duration of the internship.
What’s been most interesting so far, though, is that interns in the workplace here are expected to tackle big tasks, but do not need to display perfection in every aspect of their jobs. I feel like that has been the biggest difference: that I don’t feel a need to present myself as some flawless robot-like superhuman who cranks out perfect translations, polished lesson plans, and stress-free train rides to Haifa. Rather, I’ve been able to learn by being overwhelmed, and have played a bigger role in this organization than I could have expected.