Aish students welcome intern opportunities

V FIFTY JEWISH students are completing one-month internships through educational organisation Aish after their summer plans were impacted by the pandemic.

The Venture programme of “enrichment activities” and leadership skills was devised after Aish’s trip to Costa Rica — which had attracted some 60 applicants — had to be cancelled.

Programme director Rabbi Gideon Goldwater said that students were “mostly stuck at home and wanted to do something productive”. And with an online offering, there was participation from across the country.

But while most interactions were through Zoom, some students were occasionally able to go into premises and “bubbles” were set up so interns could socialise.

In the case of the quartet at law firm Vedder Price, they were invited to the head of private equity’s house one evening for a barbecue and mock business negotiation. One of the interns, Borehamwood and Elstree Synagogue member Josh Collins, said it had been “really nice to see everyone in person”.

The 18-year-old — who had originally hoped to lead a summer camp in America— praised Aish for creating “a good experience, all things considered”.

Lauren Lewis, 20, a student at Leeds Beckett University, had expected to go on the FZY Israel tour this summer.

Instead, she interned through the programme at the Moshal Scholarship, a South African initiative which places impoverished students in top universities.

Manchester-based Ms Lewis also volunteered with Gift and discussed Jewish philosophy with an Aish educator as part of the Jewish enrichment element.

Another Moshal Scholarship intern was recent Liverpool graduate Hannah Roskin. Though she had been leaning towards a career in the education sector, the 22-year-old Edgware United congregant said the Aish experience had “broadened my horizons in terms of where that could take me”.

It had been a “meaningful and fulfilling way” to fill her summer.