Until mid-April, I had no plans lined up for this summer. In past years, I worked as a camp counselor and had fun hanging out with friends. While I really enjoyed working at camps, as a rising college junior, I decided that I was ready for a change. I wanted to find an internship that would give me good office experience, but also, if I’m being honest, I wanted something different to put on my resume. So, I applied to multiple places with hopes of becoming an intern and received no responses. Finally, one day in April, my mother suggested emailing The Jewish Link to see if they wanted any interns. So, I emailed Moshe Kinderlehrer and Elizabeth Kratz to see if I could interview to work at JLNJ this summer. Obviously, and thankfully, it worked out for me.
Now that my internship is over, though, I feel that this is an appropriate time to tell you that I may have slightly embellished myself in the interview. I don’t really think that this is such a big deal because everyone puts their best foot forward in an interview and tells a few white lies. That being said, I don’t want to leave with a guilty conscience. So here goes nothing: When I said that I read The Jewish Link every week, that was a white lie—the truth is that I saw The Jewish Link on my kitchen table every Shabbat (however, now I will definitely make sure to actually read it every week!). When I said that I loved writing, what I really meant is that in school, writing was never hard for me and I didn’t mind writing essays. The truth is that I never wrote in my free time just for fun and, to be honest, I probably still won’t write in my free time just for fun; but who knows, maybe I’ll pick it up one day if I’m ever bored. The fact is, what I likely communicated as a “love for writing” in my interview was simply being open and ready for new experiences involving writing, because it has always come naturally to me.
Whew, I thought that would be harder to admit. But, now that everything’s out in the open, I want to say that I’m so happy I applied to The Jewish Link, because I really learned a lot and enjoyed my time there as an intern. I learned how to write as a reporter versus the typical essay style that I was used to. I learned how to interview people and ask the right questions to elicit the most useful responses for the articles. I was also able to write many different kinds of articles; I wrote book reviews, articles about food, a point/counterpoint, humor, newsbriefs and business profiles.
The tools that I’ve learned at The Jewish Link will also help me in the future. The experience will not only help me in college and grad school but it will also help me in my future professional life. I am majoring in psychology and political science and minoring in student personnel with the intention of either going to law school or grad school for psychology (I’m not sure which direction I want to go in yet). Either way, I really think that my experience at The Jewish Link will help me with whatever career path I decide to follow, especially if I choose law. I think this experience will help, because here, I learned how to properly interview people, formulate convincing arguments and work on my research skills.
My appreciation for newspapers also grew as I saw how much goes into creating a good paper. There’s obviously writing, editing and layout that have to be done; but there is also finding advertisers, trying to make sure that you don’t offend anyone with something that you write, making sure you cover appropriate stories and properly crediting sources. Before interning at The Jewish Link, I never really considered the business side of newspapers. I now know that the business side is extremely important, too, and I really appreciate having gotten to see how hard the JLNJ staff works to create an incredible community newspaper.
I really appreciated getting to know all of the staff and my fellow interns this summer. Thank you to Jill, Jen, Risa, Nina, Dena and Jenny for always being friendly and encouraging; it made coming to the office that much more comfortable and exciting. Thank you to Phil Jacobs for being friendly over the phone in our Thursday meetings; I loved hearing your insight. Thank you to Elizabeth Kratz for being an incredible mentor to me at The Jewish Link. I really felt that you encouraged me to find the style of writing that I was most comfortable in, but also to step outside of my comfort zone. I also want to thank Moshe Kinderlehrer for this amazing opportunity because my time interning there was a memorable experience in which I learned a lot, met really great people and had a lot of fun. It was obvious that you all really wanted to make the interns feel comfortable and teach us what it takes to create a good newspaper. Seeing the hard work that everyone put into their job inspires me to continue working hard on anything that I want to accomplish in the future. Thanks so much to everyone who helped make my experience at The Jewish Link a great one!
Bergenfield’s Miri Wagner is a Queens College junior and was a summer intern at The Jewish Link.
By Miri Wagner
