Two Jews walk into a terminal...

  A couple weeks ago I was sitting in a terminal at O’hare airport,  mentally preparing to go to Israel for the first time. I had found a program that would send me to Israel, got my entry permit, found an internship, gotten through the multiple security checks to get to the plane, said goodbye to my mother and (finally) there I was. After all that. Sitting in an airport terminal wondering if I was completely off my rocker. There was still a pandemic, I had never been to Israel, and to top it off I spoke zero Hebrew. 

    Mid-panic, out of the corner of my eye I saw a curly haired girl come up to me and ask “are you J-Internship?” surprised I responded “Yes! Are you?” She immediately took the spot next to me and we began with the standard small talk. Where we’re from, what we’re studying, where we’re living and how overwhelmed we were. She was bubbly and fun and chatty and I knew we would get along well. As the panic started to dissipate, she asks, 

    “So what internship are you doing?”

    I responded, “Oh I’m at ENP! It’s a really cool nonprofit that helps Ethiopian Jews. I think I’ll be doing social media and stuff for them”

    Her eyes bulged open and she said “I have an offer from them!” From there she quickly whipped out her phone and sent in her acceptance to ENP, solidifying not only her internship, but me as her friend. 

This had to be maybe one of the craziest coincidences of my entire life. Not only were we three years apart in age, but we were also from different cities on opposite sides of the country. There were multiple flights leaving O’hare that day, and we just happened to both choose this one. And to top off the crazy coincidence, we both had the same internship. 

So now here we are, the second day at ENP both so excited with our projects. I have to say that this was the right kind of start to my journey to Israel, and I can’t wait to see what happens next.