My Gap Year Story

Enrolling to Kol Ami has given me the opportunity to work significantly on personal growth and behavioral skills that will surely help me for my future path living in Israel. For me personally, I’ve thought about serving in the IDF for a while. But I wasn’t fully prepared to take on this huge commitment without spending a gap year in order to fully understand what i’m getting myself into. This program is truly a wonderful gift for both Israelis and foreigners who are deeply interested in learning existential values on leadership skills and teamwork. The participants will have to step out of there comfort zones when it comes to living with a group of people, waking up early and sleeping late at night, attending valuable classes on jewish peoplehood, traveling on hikes and learning to navigate with tools that you’re given, practicing and improving he/she’s Hebrew, ect. But I think the main purpose for Kol Ami is working as a team rather as an individual. There will be points in time during your mechina experience where you feel like giving up and reluctant to participate each day, but those are the exact moments where you have to gain he strength and courage to think "even though i’m deadbeat tired and want to sleep in bed all day, i’m still going to work and participate in the daily activities". Mechina will teach you to stay strong and have this motivating mindset to be apart of things because in the long run, you will make dear friends who can potentially stay close with you outside of mechina. As a chulnick coming from Los Angeles it was definitely difficult at times to surround myself with Hebrew speakers and not understanding half of the conversations in front of you, but you use your skills in your head to adapt and learn the language which will create a strong bond between you as a foreigner and the Israelis. If there is anyone who is planning on bravely volunteering in the army, think of mechina as a pre-army program that will teach you very valuable lessons before you go into the army. I can’t stress how important it is for he/she to fully come to the understanding what mother mechina will do for your personal growth in the future.