Adina Feldman (SCW '26) is a Straus Scholar majoring in Psychology. Over the course of the 2023-2024 school year, Feldman was active on and off campus, pursuing a variety of unique extracurriculars and professional enrichment opportunities. This summer, Feldman will be in Jerusalem interning for therapist Micki Lavin Pell at Kav L’Noar, a mental health clinic treating Israelis impacted by the events of October 7th. Below, she reflects on her internship experiences in the fall and spring semesters working on several different projects.
Over the course of the 2023-2024 academic year, I interned for the Honorable Mitchell Silk, the immediate former United States Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for International Markets. In addition to his unique professional accomplishments in the political realm, Mr. Silk also happens to be a Nodvorna Chassid, and he had been working with Artscroll to publish the first English translation of the Berditchever Rebbe’s Kedushas Levi. This effort is part of his broader project, Chassidic Classics, an effort to translate classic Chassidic texts into English.
During the first few months of my internship, I edited, reviewed, and produced promotional material, worked on marketing campaigns and pursued sponsorship opportunities. I drafted material for Jewish podcasts and radio shows, and for wider outlets like Fox News.
In the aftermath of October 7th, Mr. Silk was determined to produce material that would resonate with people seeking Chassidic inspiration, but who may have found Kedushas Levi to be inaccessible to them. I worked with him to publish a shorter version of the book, featuring highlights of practical wisdom from the longer text that people find applicable to their everyday lives; themes included grief, love, war, anxiety, and bravery.
The internship with Mr. Silk provided me with opportunities for professional and personal growth, particularly in my writing skills. I see my work with Mr. Silk - in particular, the efforts to engage Americans of all backgrounds with Chassidic thought and ethics - as perfectly aligning with the Straus Center’s ethos of bridging the worlds of Torah and Western thought, working to creatively communicate Torah values to a wider audience.
In addition to my work with Mr. Silk, I spent the spring semester interning at the Tikvah Fund, marketing Zionism and Anti Zionism: A History of Two Opposing Ideas, a new production co-produced by Tikvah and Levana Studios. The film, broken up into several episodes, is the capstone project of Tikvah Beren Fellow Zoe Tara Zeigherman, and is essentially a digitized version of a university course that she took with former Knesset Member Dr. Einat Wilf, who stars alongside her in the series.
While the film was still in its editing stages, I was tasked with developing a marketing campaign to promote the film’s upcoming release, and connecting the project with other online pro-Israel voices. For this, I drew on contacts I had from past experiences in the field of digital Israel advocacy. In addition to the marketing campaign, I wrote several grant applications to potential supporters of the project, and I assisted in designing the website design.
In December 2023, the series premiered at Hillel UCLA. I wrote promotional pieces, created trailers, and produced content for social media.
This internship helped me refine my marketing and analytical skills, online content creation, and website development. The experience was particularly formative for my studies at the Straus Center and my understanding of the worlds of Jewish activism and public policy. At Tikvah, I learned to optimize the impact of pro-Israel messaging, and both the experiences with Mr. Silk and the Tikvah Fund gave me crucial skills, both practical and intellectual, that I will take into future endeavors as a young Jewish leader.
