I knocked softly on the office door, nervous and not knowing what to expect. My first internship and experience with a real-world job. There was no answer. They must be working intensely and are too focused to get the door, I thought. I tried to keep the door quiet as I opened and closed it behind me, but its squeakiness indicated that it needed a good spray of WD-40.

As I walked in, I still hadn’t received any recognition that the new intern had arrived. I thought I may have been too quiet, so I decided I would be louder in my next attempt for acknowledgement. I took a glance around and saw several empty cubicles. I noticed that one of the cubicles had a plate of cookies waiting to be eaten, but I had just started eating healthfully so I hoped that it wasn’t my desk.

At this point I figured that the other employees must not have heard me come in. My next ploy to be seen: “Good morning, everyone!” I tried to sound excited as I greeted these strangers. “Good morning, Shlomo. I’m your editor, Elizabeth.” Finally, a voice had replied. “Let me introduce you to the team: This is Jill, she takes care of community news and organizes the copy editing. And this is Jen, she does production editing. We also have a few other workers who aren’t here right now.” Astonished that there were so few workers to produce a weekly paper, I inquired how this is possible. “Simple,” Elizabeth answered, “Because we’re awesome.” And awesome they were.

As I worked closely with Elizabeth and Jill over the following three weeks, I was opened to the world of journalism and professionalism.

Community and world newsbriefs were constantly thrown my way, testing my ability to write informative blurbs in short amounts of time. Articles were assigned to me each week which gave me the opportunity to learn about the interviewing process. Working on a weekly paper has taught me about hitting deadlines, because it’s not like in school where if you miss it you can still get it in late. If you miss it here, it just won’t get into the paper at all. I was also able to use my teenage skills to help with computer problems and optimize folder organization in Google Drive.

I hope to continue writing for the Jewish Link throughout my year in Israel as well as college, because I want to continue learning about the journalism environment and get more experience doing interviews and creating story ideas. I would recommend an internship with the Jewish Link for anyone looking to get a taste of real work in a serious, yet “chilled” setting.

Thank you to all the JLNJ staff for giving me an awesome experience, and cookies!

By Shlomo Deutsch