Jewish Community Partners

By Dotan Weiss

Dotan Weiss, son of Jessica and Dr. Daniel Weiss, is a junior at the Cooper Yeshiva High School for Boys. Memphis Jewish Federation’s Lemsky Endowment Fund provided him with a Teen Israel Experience grant to offset the costs of his NCSY Next Step Internship Israel program. All rising juniors and seniors are eligible for grants of up to $3,000 to attend a recognized teen summer or semester program in Israel. Teen Israel Experience applications for Summer 2026 are open and can be accessed at Lemsky Endowment Fund | Jewish Community Partners.

The focus of the NCSY Next Step Internship summer Israel program is working Sunday through Thursday at an internship in and around Jerusalem. My internship was with a video production company called Jerusalem Media Group. During the day we worked and, in the evenings, we participated in programs and visited sites in Israel. We also spent the first few days in northern Israel getting to know each other and the last few days traveling the country. I had the opportunity to visit Israel with Bornblum school at the end of my eighth grade with help from Memphis Jewish Federation’s Lemsky Endowment Fund and again with Baron Hirsch Youth on a volunteer trip in the ninth grade. During this past summer, I experienced many things but one thing that I have reflected on is how small the Jewish World is.

Before I went on my summer trip, I knew only one person who was going on this program, and she was from Memphis. Throughout the trip, I learned that I had connections with many of the other participants. Although some people had connections because they went to the same school or were related, my connections were not like that. I was on my own. One connection I found was someone from Columbus, Ohio. We determined that an our grandmothers are close friends and celebrate Shabbat often and he knows many of my friends from that area. Another connection that I had was with someone whose cousins are friends with my older brother and attend the same yeshiva in Modiin.

One day, when we were visiting the Kotel, we went on a tour of the tunnels. After the tour, we were standing up above a deck that you can look out from and see the whole Kotel and more. While I was looking out at the Kotel, I saw familiar faces. Eitan and Dina Selter had just moved back to Israel after working in Memphis for four years. When I saw them, it dawned on me how small the Jewish world is and how lucky we are as Jews. As Jews, we can talk to someone we have never met before but still have a connection with them.

On our last day of the trip, we went to Just One Chesed (an organization that provides educational resources, hands-on opportunities and the technological tools that empower people to make Chesed – kindness a driving force in their lives) and split into distinct groups. Some people were making pizzas for soldiers, coloring pizza boxes for the pizzas, making cards for the soldiers, or making beds for children who do not have beds. I was in the group making the beds.
In this group we sanded wood, colored wood, and connected all the frames together. One of the workers at Just One Chesed was Uriya Ben David who used to be part of the Kollel Torah Mitzion three years ago in Memphis.

Going on this trip showed me how small the Jewish world is and how all Jews are connected, even if they do not realize it.

Thank you to the Memphis Jewish Federation’s Lemsky Endowment Fund for enabling me to have an impactful summer with NCSY Next Step: Internships, and for letting me reflect on how everyone is related to each other in some way or another.