By Einav Garten, Muss alumna Spring 2026
Since before I could walk, I identified the land of Israel as my second home. Born and raised in California to Israeli parents who only allowed my siblings and I to speak Hebrew at home, they set a precedent to remember our culture. My family and I would visit grandparents and cousins in Herzliya and Ra’anana once a year, spending a month in the country where I knew I belonged. The connection I felt during these visits made the choice to spend four months at Alexander Muss High School in Israel (Muss) one of the quickest of my life. Sitting in the plane seat as I flew out to Israel a week before the program started, I thought about what I wanted to get out of this program—independence, friendships, academic success, travel—but I had no idea it was about so much more than that. Muss doesn’t just give a group of high schoolers an opportunity to live on their own and find a passion for hiking. It allows every one of us to build a relationship with our Zionism and Judaism and grow that connection throughout an entire semester and the rest of our lives.
Final visit to the Western Wall in Jerusalem
As someone who comes from a traditional Jewish family, Judaism had always been something that existed around me but was celebrated more so to create a sense of community than for its religious aspects. Coming to Israel, I suddenly immersed myself in a place and among people from all walks of Judaism for the first time in my life. I was gifted the opportunity to test practices, cultures and lifestyles; I prayed along with young Ashkenazi families and old Sephardic grandmothers, lit candles with young Hasidic girls, and felt fulfillment I had never felt before. Not by suddenly committing myself to religion, but by getting to know the diversity of the Jewish people in the State of Israel. We traveled to another kibbutz, another mountain, another cemetery every week and slowly but surely my identity built itself anew. A Jewish value here, Zionist strength there, and cultural beliefs all around me began to blend into what I wanted my life to look like.
Muss students at the Jerusalem Marathon
And right as this routine was becoming habit, five weeks into our program, adversity came to test all of us in the form of the Iran war. Our bonding during trips around Israel became bonding during bomb-shelter sleepovers, and as AP exam season came and passed, studying in between sirens and taking tests in the miklat (bomb shelter) was instinctual. Every one of us chose for ourselves how to deal with the fear, sadness, anger, or just flat-out annoyance, and I decided to simply appreciate the Israeli resilience instead of grieving our situation. I scrolled through videos of makeshift nightclubs in underground parking garages, watched mere nineteen-year-olds take buses to serve during wartime, and felt my friends and I become even prouder to be in Israel during a time like that. Our trips may have helped solidify our Judaism, but the war strengthened our Zionism. It was ever so important that we volunteered in the Gaza Envelope, packaged food for displaced families, and carried Israeli flags while running the Jerusalem Marathon. Because everyone in the country was doing their part to help, inspire and find joy during such an uncertain period. It is exactly that feeling, that sense of pride and belonging and fortitude that I chase as I start preparing to enlist in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) as a lone soldier. It is exactly those traits that I have earned from Muss that will guide me into the next chapter of my life as a newly knowledgeable, mature, and self-assured version of myself.
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Einav Garten is a high school student at Los Altos High School and alumna of Alexander Muss High School in Israel, the premier study abroad in Israel experience for American teens. Through fully accredited academics, experiential Israel education, leadership development, and immersive campus life, Muss helps students grow into confident, resilient, and independent young leaders. For more information, visit amhsi.org or email discover@amhsi.org.
