Applications for the 2015-2016 Masa Israel Teaching Fellows are officially open. For the program’s fifth season, Masa Israel Journey will select 200 outstanding Jewish college graduates to teach English in Israel’s periphery and, for the first time ever, in Israeli youth villages for immigrant and at-risk youth.

Masa Israel Teaching Fellows is a joint initiative of Israel’s Ministry of Education, Masa Israel Journey, and the Jewish Agency for Israel. The 10-month service-learning fellowship was created to address the achievement gap in Israel’s education system. As Israel’s classrooms are overcrowded and less than 25% of Israeli English teachers speak English at a native level, Masa Israel Teaching Fellows work as teachers’ aides in underserved classrooms, where they help reduce class sizes and improve English learning outcomes for Israeli students.

Since its inaugural session in 2011-2012, 535 Jewish young adults from the United States, Canada, England and Australia have served as Masa Israel Teaching Fellows. The Fellowship has expanded from five cities to nine cities in Israel’s periphery: Ashdod, Be’er Sheva, Netanya, Petach Tikvah, Rishn Lezion, Rehovot, Ramle and Lod.

“Teaching in Israel was an adventure. There was never a day I came home without a story to tell,” said Perrin Bernard, a Teaneck native who was a teaching fellow in 2013-2014.

Many Masa Israel Teaching Fellows return to their home countries to take on leadership roles in their local Jewish communities. Some, like Stone, even pursue careers as Jewish professionals in Hillels, youth movements, and Jewish Federations, as well as other Jewish organizations across the country.

And, immersed in Israel, they are: Masa Israel Teaching Fellows quickly become integral parts of the communities in which they work, live and volunteer. As Brittany Walter, Israel Engagement Coordinator at Central Florida Hillel notes, Petach Tikvah’s local radio station made an announcement as soon as she and the rest of the 2013-2014 Masa Israel Teaching Fellows arrived in town. “We felt really loved in our apartment building, the streets, the shuk–everywhere,” she remembers.

To apply for Masa Israel Teaching Fellows, visit: www.israelteachingfellows.org. Applications are due on December 15, 2014.