JTA Intern Program in Eighth Year

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s summer intern program, begun in 1970, is now in its eighth season. Continuation of the program, which provides on-the-job training for young people interested in Jewish journalism, was made possible by a special grant by Dr. Abraham Goodman, of Kearny, N.J., a prominent Jewish philanthropist and community leader. Dr. Goodman is president of the Tarbut Foundation and Treasurer of the JTA.

The two interns working at JTA international headquarters in New York this summer are Reena Sigman Friedman and Lisa Schiffman. Ms. Friedman has just completed her second year as a graduate student in American Jewish history at Columbia University and is especially interested in the history of Jewish women in America. Her Master’s thesis is a study of the National Council of Jewish Women in the early 20th Century and its efforts to assist Jewish immigrant women from Eastern Europe. She is also author of a paper dealing with husband desertion in the Jewish immigrant community which will be published in the Working Papers’ Series sponsored by the Columbia Center for Israel and Jewish Studies.

Ms. Friedman has edited several school papers and bulletins for New York City government agencies. She founded “Kolenu,” the Cornell University Jewish student newspaper and edited several local community bulletins. She also worked on the publicity staff of the New York City Urban Corps where she edited that agency’s monthly newsletter. She has contributed articles to a number of Jewish publications, including “Lilith,” “Network” and Jewish Student Press Service releases.

Ms. Schiffman, a senior at the University of Rochester, holds a student internship position at “Lilith,” concurrently with her internship at the JTA. She is a religious studies/Sociology interdepartmental major and news editor of the student daily at the University of Rochester, the “Campus Times,” a position she has held for the past year. She was one of the founders of the “Israel Weekly Perspective,” the first campus newspaper devoted to the concerns of the Jewish community.

Last semester, Ms. Schiffman was employed at Temple Beth EI in Rochester as an administrative assistant for the Hebrew school and ran a workshop during an Israel leadership training seminar in which she advised students from several colleges on ways to begin campus newspapers similar to “Perspective.” Ms. Schiffman has been accepted in a program sponsored by the Jewish Student Press Service to travel to Israel with a group of 30 Jewish student editors and journalists. She plans a career in Jewish journalism in the U.S. or in Israel. She intends to spend an extended period of time in Israel after her graduation.