The T’ruah Israel Fellowship offers a select group of six students spending the academic year in Israel the opportunity for intensive study, experiential learning, development of a rabbinic voice, and cohort building. Fellows participate in monthly study sessions, special opportunities to see human rights issues on-the-ground (in addition to the regular Year-In-Israel program), and leadership training. Fellows also take leadership roles in guiding and facilitating the Year-in-Israel program for their fellow students.
- Scroll down or click to meet our current and past fellows.
- Watch a video about our Year-in-Israel program participants planting trees in a Palestinian village.
- Read an Associated Press article about our Year-in-Israel program.
- Watch Year-in-Israel program participants talk about their experiences.
- Listen to a podcast about our Year-in-Israel program.
Israel Fellows
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Allen Lipson
Allen Lipson is a learner of Torah and a faith-based community organizer, most recently at the Faith in Action national network and the hotel workers' union UNITE HERE. He has studied at Hebrew College (for ordination), the Yashrut Institute, the Yeshivat Hadar year fellowship, and the Jewish Theological Seminary. His writings on rabbinic literature and politics have appeared in Jewish Currents, the Review of Rabbinic Judaism, and Zeramim.
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Audrey Honig
Audrey (she/her) is a rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College (’27). She grew up in Chicago, and her passion for Jewish life was sparked during her summers as a camper and staff member at URJ Camp OSRUI. As a student at Kalamazoo College, Audrey deepened her love of community-building through Hillel, interfaith dialogue, and with young adults on the autism spectrum. Most recently, she spent a year studying at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, and volunteering for Friendship Circle and the Jerusalem African Community Center. She worked with jGirls+ Magazine, an online magazine and justice-centered community for Jewish teenage girls, for several years. Audrey finds joy by playing flute and accordion, and she strives to make brownies as often as possible.
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Gabby Tropp
Gabby Tropp (she/her) is a rabbinical and Jewish education student at Hebrew Union College, expecting to graduate in 2028. She grew up in Trumbull, CT, and graduated from Lafayette College with a BA in history and Spanish and a minor in Jewish studies. At Lafayette, Gabby took pride in leading the Friday minyan and was an advocate for diversity and inclusion on campus, organizing mainly through the Hillel community and the Interfaith Council. After college, she moved to Jackson, MS, where she worked as a Program Associate at the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life, bringing engaging Jewish experiences to congregants of all ages in partner communities across the American South. She is passionate about Jewish life in all its forms, but when she is not doing something Jewish, she can be found learning to play guitar, experimenting with new recipes for cooking and baking, or reading. Gabby loves to meet new people, see new places, and contribute to the betterment of our world in whatever ways she can.
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Matthew Berman
Matthew Berman (he/him) is an incoming rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College, expecting to graduate in 2027. Born and raised in Cincinnati, OH, Matthew attended The Ohio State University with a major in Political Science and double minors in Music and Jewish Studies. After graduating during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, he took a gap year to spend ten months teaching in Israel as a Masa Israel Teaching Fellow; the program, coordinated by BINA: The Jewish Movement for Social Change, allowed Matthew to teach at lower-income elementary schools in Tel Aviv, where he taught first- and second-generation Israeli students from former Soviet countries, and in Nazareth, where he taught Arab students in a mixed Christian and Muslim school. When not teaching, Matthew enjoys improving his Hebrew and Arabic with locals, hiking in Israel’s national parks, and engaging in thoughtful Torah study with his fellow students.