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Alumni Stories
Ethan Kahn
Medical Student at the Keck School of Medicine at USC
Yahel Social Change Program 2020-21
I am incredibly grateful to have participated in the 2020-2021 Yahel Social Change Fellowship in Lod. This experience brought meaningful service opportunities, fostered strong personal growth, and deepened my commitment to engaging positively in the world.
As part of the fellowship, I taught English at a public Arabic-language high school and at two after-school programs serving Arab and Eritrean youth, which strengthened my language skills (both Arabic and Hebrew). I also supported an Arabic language and cultural education organization, Blend.Ar, by assisting with development and translation work. I also worked in a community garden. In addition to organizing opportunities for volunteer work, Yahel provided support for participant-led activities: for example, I co-organized a cohort trip with my Arabic language partner to her town (Kufr Samea’) to learn about Druze society. I also teamed up with my roommate, Daniel, to produce two podcast episodes interviewing social change-makers in Lod.
These activities, plus frequent educational programs, were tremendous opportunities to experience Israeli society in all its cultural, social, and political complexity. I left with an even deeper curiosity about Israel, the region, and the world, along with a strong desire to understand the politics and policies shaping the communities and institutions with which I engaged.
"I strongly recommend the Yahel Social Change Fellowship to anyone with curiosity about the world and a desire to join a team of committed people working to help communities thrive."
Yahel taught me some key lessons:
Making change at any scale requires tenacity, creativity, excellent communication skills, and strong relationship-building.
My personal impact consists mainly of 1) a continuous process of incremental progress, and 2) treating the people around me well.
Acting in a humane and empathetic way is not always intuitive, easy, popular, valued, or rewarded. Which means that when I succeed in doing so, I have made a positive contribution.
These lessons have influenced my public service work at home (in the United States). Following Yahel, I began a four-year program at Princeton University called the Scholars in the Nation’s Service Initiative (SINSI) Graduate Fellowship. SINSI combines two years of coursework for a Master in Public Affairs and two years of (professional) work in the U.S. government. I have had the opportunity to work on regional and thematic foreign policy issues at the U.S. Institute of Peace; the U.S. Department of State, and the U.S. Department of Defense.
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