Reflections on My Time at Hebrew University
By Cynthia Knight, Montreal
I came to study at Hebrew University in 1990-91. I was 16, fresh out of an all-girls Catholic school (yes, I’m Jewish; yes, that’s bizarre) and found myself alone in the Middle East across the globe from my parents, with no phones in our dorm rooms and no cell phones in sight. Needless to say, I was in heaven. It was also the year of the first Gulf War as well so, as always with Israel, it was a complex, challenging and utterly fantastic year.
Studying at Hebrew University impacted – and continues to influence – my life in so many ways. I came for a year of fun and adventure and, though I had plenty of that, I also ended up making life-long friends and taking the first steps toward figuring out who I was and who I wanted to become. It ignited a life-long passion for history, for travel, for exploring new cultures and points of view. It gave me a deep pride in my heritage and a profound love for the land of Israel and it sparked me to become an inquisitive and curious person, wanting to understand the world around us and how it came to be.
All of these traits are ever-present in my work as a screenwriter. Indeed, I’m in the midst of developing a TV series about – you guessed it – a teenage girl who goes to Hebrew U for a year of fun and adventure and gets way more than she bargained for!
I’ve lived many years since I was at Hebrew University and yet it remains one of the best years of my life.
- Cynthia Knight is a graduate of the prestigious Canadian Film Centre, and is a writer, story editor and executive producer with extensive experience in both factual and fictional production.
