Free College Admissions Essays: Jewish Self-discovery :: College Admissions Essays

Judaic Self-discovery   Sarah, we choose your help in the Ukraine this summer. Can I count on you? This incertitude changed my life profoundly. I was asked to be a counselor on JOLT, Jewish Oversees Leadership Program, an opportunity to interact with young campers in an impoverished ground and positively influence their lives. Little did I realize that this experience would bear on mine so greatly.   JOLT, an outreach program, runs an annual over nighttime summer camp in the Ukraine with counselors from the United States and Israel. These counselors are carefully selected because of the rigorous programming and the many carnal hardships of living in the Ukraine. Over one hundred local children interject to Charkov to learn about their Jewish background. As one of the counselors, I had the favour and extraordinary task of exposing them to the beauty of our religion and heritage.   I remember the trouble and excitement that I felt as I exited the plane with twen ty dollar bill other high school students, embarking on my summer teaching experience, enquire if I was fully prepared. The moment the busloads of children arrived, I attached myself to a collection of kids and started singing and dancing with them. Despite my initial fears, we began to form a bond. My division changed from that of a teenager to that of a responsible counselor. Not only was I here to teach them about Judaism through classes and activities, but more significantly I was acting as a role model. For the majority of Ukrainian children, we were the first Americans they had ever met and, therefore, were watched vigilantly and constantly emulated. This humbling realization make me feel rather self-conscious at first. However, their desire to imitate as well as heightened the impact of that which we taught them. They wanted to learn. Although an immense language barrier lay between the campers and me, we managed to communicate through translators, hand signals, songs, an d broken English and Russian.   With the help of a book that contained both the Hebraical and Russian, I taught Hebrew to a free radical of ten children who had never before been exposed to Judaism. Glieb, a ten-year old male child rapidly rose to the top of the class. In addition to the mandatory hours of unremarkable learning, he was motivated to extend these sessions. So often at night after the fun and entertainment, he and I would practice reading Hebrew and we discussed, in simple terms, aspects of Jewish ritual that fascinated him.