For Eliana Rudee ’14, an insatiable drive to inspire change motivates her each day.
“I truly became a passionate person because of my education at Scripps,” says Rudee, who majored in politics and international relations with a focus on the Arab-Israeli conflict. She also minored in Jewish studies.
“In my classes, I learned about global issues that I care about deeply, and I invested my time in helping improve some of the problems I saw,” she says.
When she first arrived at The Claremont Colleges, Rudee quickly sought to create a space where she and others could openly and constructively discuss Israeli politics. Rudee founded Claremont Students for Israel, an active student group where members from The Claremont Colleges gather to celebrate Israel’s political and cultural contributions to the world.
“Leading this club prepared me for a fellowship in Israel advocacy, for which I wrote op-ed articles for our campus newspapers,” says Rudee, a resident of Mercer Island, Wash.
At Scripps, Rudee dove into political debates, and she channeled her thoughts into her writing. “Founding a club that is political in nature taught me to stand up for my passions and beliefs, while at the same time, backing them up with facts and experience,” she says.
Rudee decided to pursue a career in journalism and learned even more about expressing her viewpoints through the written word at a summer internship at a Jewish nonprofit thanks, in part, to an internship grant she received from Scripps.
She now works at the Salomon Center, a nonprofit educational group that publishes articles about religion, politics, and global affairs in mainstream news outlets. So far, Rudee’s writings have been published in USA Today, The Hill, Forbes, and The Jerusalem Post, among others.
“Through my writing, I hope to spark discussion and challenge mainstream preconceived political notions,” says Rudee, whose senior thesis examined perceptions of gender in modern-day terrorism.
“Scripps gave me the confidence and the space to become the leader I am today and, more important, aspire towards even greater leadership in the future,” Rudee says.
Rudee will be writing a weekly blog for Jewish News Service in Jerusalem, where she will serve as the Jerusalem correspondent with the Salomon Center for American Jewish Thought.