RJ Blog

by Stephanie C. Fields It was January of my sophomore year of college and the thought passed through my mind: What am I going to do this summer? Going back to camp just did not seem like a realistic choice for me; my only options seemed to be a real internship or job. Then, as if it were completely besheret, a postcard came in the mail advertising the Religious Action Center’s Machon Kaplan experience! Hmm, I thought… After reading about the Machon Kaplan program I realized it was (and still is) so desirable because participants are matched with an internship [...]

by Pammi Shapiro There isn’t anything quite like summertime in DC. Young adults flock to the nation’s capital for a once in a lifetime living and working experience. But for me, I’m fortunate enough to have a second ‘once in a lifetime’ opportunity. Last summer as a rising sophomore, I was one of the youngest interns in the White House Office of Presidential Correspondence, an incredible experience on its own. As a newbie around town, I drank it all in and made my ten weeks here as eventful as possible. After doing all the typical touristy stuff, I would now [...]

by Michael Sarna Coming off of a semester that I was less then satisfied with this past spring, I knew that I wanted to try to apply myself over my summer break as opposed to merely do some run-of-the-mill activity. Having burned out of the Camp Counselor game, I knew that I wanted to take on a new type of challenge; one that would not only be interesting to me, but would also help to define my career aspirations and really push me in the right direction for what I want to do with the remainder of my college experience. [...]

by Wes Peskin S’mores, Capitol Hill, and Judaism: Can you figure out what they all have in common? For me, they are some of the most important aspects of my experience as a participant in the Religious Action Center’s Machon Kaplan work/study internship program for college students. Add to that list: introducing me to some of my closest friends, showing me a career path I love (yet had no idea existed at the time), and being my first “real world” experience, just to name a few of the things Machon Kaplan did for me. I arrived at the RAC on [...]

by Haley Orlofsky It had been a normal day at the Clean Water Network — interns were glued to policy research on their computers, running errands in the Senate office buildings and listening in on conference calls, all while working on the Network’s Twitter campaign to #kickcoalash from the Transportation Bill. Everything was going as planned until something went terribly wrong: The Internet crashed! The other interns and I remained calm at first; however, after countless minutes of trying to repair the situation, we ended up in a tangled mess of wires, forced to come to terms with the alarming [...]

Anthony Graves has seen lucid men go insane. Anthony Graves has seen, lived, and survived hell. But a part of him remains forever stuck there. Found innocent and released from death row in Texas two years ago, Graves still hasn’t slept more than 2 ½ hours a night. After having spent 18 ½ years in prison and 10 of those years in solitary confinement in an 8’x12’ cage, after having slept on a steel bed with a thin plastic mattress and pillow, and after having humiliatingly relieved himself with his steel toilet in front of male and female guards, Graves [...]

Did you attend a URJ summer camp or a Reform congregation’s day camp? Maybe you studied in Israel with NFTY-EIE’s summer session, volunteered with Mitzvah Corps, or attended the Religious Action Center’s Machon Kaplan program? The Reform Movement offers a number of opportunities for youth to engage in immersive Jewish experiences during the summer months. In addition to thousands of current participants, we also have a massive alumni network – and each person has his or her own story to tell. Whatever your Reform Jewish summer experience as a youth, we want to see your photos and hear your stories! [...]

I took a course last semester about violence in St. Louis, looking for a thought-provoking discussion about my school-year city. I started following the local crime section of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch; thefts, assaults, shootings and drug crimes seemed to dominate criminal activity in the STL. So a January 2012 article identifying St. Louis as a hub for human trafficking came as a surprise.

Everything is foreseen, yet freedom of choice is given. The world is judged by grace, yet all is according to the amount of action. —Pirke Avot 3:19 We are a people of action. We are a people who believe that the world needs fixing, and that it is our task to do it. When one says, “The world is judged by grace, yet all is according to the amount of action,” we acknowledge that it is not only the action that matters, but also how the act is done—if it is loud and public, or behind the scenes. We as [...]