Doing science in Israel
Area college students contribute to advanced research at Bar-Ilan
For the last 14 years, Orthodox college students have been traveling to Israel to take part in the Summer Science research internship program, a joint initiative of Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan and Yeshiva University in New York.
Despite the ongoing war in Gaza, this summer is no different.
Teaneck college students Alyssa Polonetsky, Ella Nasser, Tuvya Macklin, and Shai Kohn were among 29 participants in the 14th annual internship program on the campus of Bar-Ilan, near Tel Aviv, from June 20 to August 7.
“Being here at this time is very important,” Ms. Polonetsky said during the final week of the program. “I felt a sense of responsibility to come to Israel and be here with the Jewish nation.”
She noted that the group’s day trips included a visit to sites near the Gaza border that Hamas terrorists had attacked. “Being able to see these places and get a glimpse of the terror from October 7 added a new layer of meaning to my personal feelings on what happened on that tragic day.”
But mostly, as it always is, the seven-week summer program was about giving the students hands-on, high-level experience in whatever field they hope to pursue after graduation. Placement choices include nanotechnology and advanced materials, brain research, engineering, life sciences, education, mathematics, chemistry, physics, or psychology.
Program director Arlene Gordon, a professor in BIU’s chemistry department, said she tries to pair students with BIU faculty members and research assignments “that would best enhance their summer experience and promote individual growth and career development.
“Working with leading faculty members and graduate students specializing in a wide range of research — from Alzheimer’s disease and depression to aging and language acquisition and much more — this program offers students a unique opportunity to conduct research in BIU’s state-of-the-art labs and to become acquainted with researchers from all the diverse sectors of Israeli society,” Dr. Gordon said.
Ms. Polonetsky, 21, and Ms. Nasser, 20, are majoring in biology at YU’s Stern College for Women. They were placed in the research lab of world-renowned aging expert Professor Haim Cohen, director of Bar-Ilan’s Sagol Healthy Human Longevity Center.
Their main task was studying the effects of the enzyme sirtuin-6 — a protein with the potential to extend lifespan — on liver tissue from mice. Using immunofluorescence, they pinpointed and highlighted the abundance of sirt6 in the nuclei of the liver cells, and ultimately proved the efficacy of two different sirt6 antibodies. A big part of the project was preparing slides for the study — a total of 90 slides using 19 mouse livers.
Ms. Polonetsky — whose parents are Susan and Steve Polonetsky and is a graduate of the Frisch School in Paramus — said the interns were “encouraged to take our own path and put our own personal stamp on the research. This is real hands on, seeing new things and doing new protocols and procedures.”
Ms. Nasser — whose parents are Leonard and Simcha Nasser and is an alumna of Ma’ayanot High School for Girls in Teaneck, said that “seven weeks in Israel was an option I could not turn down, especially during a time like this.”
She had volunteered in Israel during the January semester break, she said. “This summer presented itself as a similar yet very different opportunity, being able to once again connect with the land but to contribute a bit more indirectly through my work in the lab.”
Ms. Nasser added that the interns were housed at YU’s Jerusalem campus, giving them an opportunity to get to know one another on the commute to Bar-Ilan. These hourlong bus trips, she said, “were fun, and filled with deep conversations and learning.”
Mr. Macklin, who graduated from the Torah Academy of Bergen County in Teaneck and whose parents are Danit and Garron Macklin, plans to make aliyah when he graduates. His sister already is in Israel, majoring in Middle East studies at BIU.
He said that the interns’ trip to the south, and the opportunity to talk to residents affected by the horrors of October 7, “made me feel more connected to Israel as a country and to the people here. I can’t fully understand because I don’t live here, but it became more real for me.”
The 23-year-old rising senior at Yeshiva College is majoring in computer science with a specialization in AI.
He was placed in the lab of Dr. Dor Atzmon of BIU’s Kofkin Faculty of Engineering, where he helped develop and apply AI methods to solve pathfinding and multiple-agent problems. These problems can occur, for example, in automated fulfillment warehouses where AI agents — aka smart robots — must be able to avoid collisions while maintaining efficiency as they zip around the space getting items ready for delivery.
Mr. Kohn, a 21-year-old TABC graduate and son of Moshe and Faye Kohn, is majoring in physics at Yeshiva College with an eye toward the engineering sector in Israel. He also was placed in the Kofkin Faculty of Engineering.
Under the mentorship of Professor Tomer Lewi, Mr. Kohn worked with a new material, simulating and optimizing a metasurface from resonators that are 100 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair. He performed computational studies to explore how light interacts with this material, gathering data that could lead to the development of new sensors and electronic devices.
He, too, said that he did not hesitate to come to Israel.
“I didn’t give it a second thought,” Mr. Kohn said. “Of course I was coming. Israel is the safest place on earth — and it’s where we’re supposed to be.
“When I arrived, I had exactly the opposite thought: what had taken me so long? The Rambam speaks about national identity being cultivated particularly in trying times. I felt a ‘mechuyavut,’ an obligation, to come join my people — to grow academically, but to do so in our homeland.”
The Summer Science research internship program — funded by the late Dr. Mordecai Katz and Dr. Monique Katz, the Irving I. Stone Foundation, and the Zoltan Erenyi Fund — includes day trips to destinations such as the Teperberg Winery, Israel Aerospace Industries, the National Library, and the government’s Volcani Center-Agricultural Research Organization.
The program also includes lectures by BIU scholars on a wide range of topics, as well as night activities, Torah learning, and Shabbatonim.
In addition to Yeshiva University, this year’s cohort included students from Columbia, , Cornell, Rutgers,, Cooper Union, Queens College, Brooklyn College, Touro College, Lander College, and the State University of New York at Binghamton.
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