August 21, 2008
Thanks to generous funding from the Harold Grinspoon Foundation, the Israel on Campus Coalition, in conjunction with Hillel, held the Grinspoon Israel Advocacy Internship National Training at the University of Maryland Hillel August 4-7, 2008. Grinspoon Interns from all over the United States joined together to learn about Israel, brainstorm creative initiatives to run on their campuses and hear from a variety of representatives from a range of ICC member organizations. The students also engaged in team-building activities, enjoyed a film at “Screen on the Green” on the National Mall, and learned programming and relationship-building skills.
Each Grinspoon Intern will focus on a specific issue area during their year-long internship. These issue areas include Israel education, Israel advocacy, Israel travel, multicultural dialogue and Israel’s contributions to society. During the training, the Interns developed skills that will help them create successful initiatives within these areas and learned about resources available for them to use throughout their internship.
The students also interacted with staff from a variety of ICC member organizations. Staff from Hillel’s Schusterman International Center led sessions ranging from the “talkspace: Israel” learning and discussion program to the intricacies of the Taglit-Birthright Israel recruitment and selection process. Other ICC member organizations that sent representatives to work with the Interns included AIPAC, Hasbara Fellowships, MASA, StandWithUs and YJ Impact. More than ten other member organizations submitted useful handouts and resources that were included in the comprehensive resource binder distributed to the Interns at the training. It was extremely beneficial for the students to meet the various ICC member organization representatives, to learn more about what each organization does and to plan how they, as Grinspoon Interns, can help bring the organizations’ messages to campus.
ICC staff members have received a tremendous amount of positive feedback from the students and are looking forward to a successful year of pro-Israel activity inspired by the 45 Grinspoon Interns on 39 campuses. Said Grinspoon Intern Juliana Ross from Simmons College in Boston, “Thanks for an awesome training last week; it was so interesting, engaging, and helpful. I am so excited to get back to campus and start planning my events!”
For more information about the Grinspoon Israel Advocacy Interns, please contact Tracy Altman, the ICC’s Senior Associate for Student Leadership Development.