Organizational Leadership

Onward Israel

Onward Israel transforms young adults through 6 to 10 week professional internships with Israeli businesses and organizations and other resume-building experiences, such as service, mid-term academic courses, and fellowships. These experiences foster personal and professional growth, facilitate a direct immersive living experience in Israel, encourage a deeper, wider and more nuanced understanding of Israel, and cultivate greater post-program Jewish involvement and affinity. Robust evaluation shows that this unmediated and authentic experience of Israel produces strong, positive cognitive and behavioral changes in participants regarding attachment to Israel and Jewish engagement. Onward Israel has doubled in size since launching in 2012 with 250 participants and plans to grow to 5,000 participants by 2019.

Laura was inspired to become involved in Onward Israel after her son participated in a summer-long internship in Israel in 2014. Laura brings to the program a vision for incorporating technology, such as crowd funding, to help bring the Onward Israel to scale. The Laura and Gary Lauder Family Venture Philanthropy Fund invested $100,000 in initial funding to Onward Israel to pilot national outreach efforts and joined the organization’s Advisory Board in 2015.