Tivnu Blog

Here are five things I’ve learned in these first few months of the Tivnu gap year program. They range from pretty concrete tips to bigger life lessons - and I’m surprised by how often the two are related....

Tivnu has had a fun and busy two weeks! We had our first full work week. I started off my week by going to Saint André Bessette, a homeless shelter that provides food, clothes, blankets, and sanitary supplies to people experiencing homelessness- all done with a smile....

New York Times best-selling author William Deresiewicz wrote a great piece about Tivnu in the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. Check it out for inside information about founder Steve Eisenbach-Budner, past and present participants, and our gap year program in Portland, Oregon connecting Judaism and social justice....

Hey! My name is Nadav, I'm from Newton Massachusetts, and I’ve spent the past four weeks living the Tivnu life! Friendships have been formed, beds have been built, and the great outdoors have been explored. ...

Tivnu is excited to welcome two new staff members! Adinah Miller has been hired as our new Program Director. She has been the Dean of Jewish Life for the last 6 years at the American Hebrew Academy, the Jewish boarding school in North Carolina....

Saying my goodbyes is an increasing phenomenon as the program nears its end. I want to share a few of these goodbyes here, to thank those who have impacted me these past few months....

I enjoy the fact that its something new to what we did earlier in the program which was four days a week at Habitat. There is a lot of variety for Wednesday programming, which makes me, look forward to each week and the new activates that we have. ...

As a group, we planned an exciting yet relaxing weekend to Seattle. Upon arriving to to the city, first thing I noticed was how much more urban it was in comparison to Portland....

On Sunday of this week Tivnu went to a play called The Ministry of Special Cases, put on by the Jewish Theatre Collaborative, which is set in Argentina in the 1970’s....

The past few weeks have been really powerful and intense for me at Portland Homeless Family Solutions, where I intern every Monday. There’s a seven-year-old boy and his father who have timed out of the 8 family spots in the night shelter but have luckily been able to stick around the day shelter. Two weeks ago I was coloring with the boy and he leaned over as if to tell me a secret....