Volunteer in Israel - Tikkun Olam in Tel Aviv-Jaffa

Tikkun Olam in Tel Aviv-Jaffa offers English-speaking college graduates from around the world the opportunity to live, volunteer and study in Tel Aviv or Jaffa for 5 or 10 months doing Social Action or Coexistence work. Visit www.tikkunolamisrael.org for more information.

Along with volunteers from around the world, participants live with Israeli peers. The ongoing interaction with young adults from all over the world will help enrich and enhance the participant's experience as a Jew in Israel.

During the main portion of the program, participants will choose between two tracks in which to focus volunteer and study time.

Social Action Track: Participants live and volunteer in a neighborhood of South Tel Aviv, and volunteer in communities of underprivileged immigrant and veteran Israelis, as well as with South Tel Aviv's foreign worker and refugee population from Darfur, Eritrea and Southeast Asia. Volunteer work often takes place in failing public schools, community centers for at-risk youth and day care centers for children of African refugees. Study days focus on the Jewish tenets of Tikkun Olam and Gemilut Hasadim, as well as issues facing Israeli society.

Coexistence Track: Participants live and volunteer in a mixed Jewish-Arab neighborhood of Jaffa. Volunteer work takes place in integrated public schools and Jewish-Arab Community Centers. Participants will enroll in a Conversational Arabic course, and have the opportunity to take part in the Daniel Centers' prestigious Jaffa Tour Guide Training program, which in turn will enable them to guide tours of Jaffa for the Daniel Centers' English-speaking tour groups. Study days focus on issues of Arab-Jewish coexistence.

Participants from both tracks will study topics of Jewish identity, and take part in monthly overnight trips around Israel, as well as periodic cultural activities and educational tours in and around Tel Aviv-Jaffa.