The Justice

TAKING A STEP BACK: Jeremy Slosberg '11, left, with a friend on a hike in the Negev desert. Slosberg participated in the Netiv program in Israel and deferred coming to Brandeis for one year.

We had one ticket there and one ticket back, with no specific plans in between.

Our 10-day getaway to Israel started out as nothing more than a sketch: friends, family and relaxation. But the details, such as where we would stay, were to follow as a form of improvisation. All we needed were beds and a roof over our heads and we'd be satisfied (sure makes you appreciate the dorms).

I traveled to Israel this past winter break with Brian Fromm '11 and Simon Basseyn, a freshman at New York University, to visit friends who had deferred going to college in order to live in Israel for the year. We all agreed: The end of finals couldn't come soon enough. Our only plan was to stay over at our friends' yeshiva dorms in Jerusalem. We aimed to experience-albeit briefly-their new lifestyle, which we believed was all about socializing and carefree leisure.

A number of graduates from private Jewish high schools in the United States delay the start of their college careers by a year in order to live and study in Israel. When Simon, Brian and I chose to enter college immediately after graduating from North Shore Hebrew Academy in Long Island, N.Y., we acted on the assumption that spending a year in Israel would be a waste, one that would somehow prolong maturation and prevent us from experiencing the real world. If anything, it seemed that college itself, associated with secular education, expanding connections and meeting new people, would be the logical next step in the development of our characters.

In our minds, Israel had unjustly become synonymous with polar extremes. On the one hand, Israel seemed to represent a lack of seriousness that would in some way reflect the atmosphere of Jewish summer camp or even another year of senioritis in high school. And on the other hand, Israel was the hub of ultra-religious obsession and outright rejection of secular thought.

But over winter break, we discovered that, while both mentalities exist, they reflect a small percentage of the population. In fact, most yeshivas in Israel assume a middle ground educational philosophy, working to cultivate deep thought in self-assured individuals.

Continued...

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