Aaron Zelinsky is a rare student in Yale's law school: a New Haven, Conn., native who also attended Yale for undergrad. But this summer, after spending most of his 25 years in New Haven, he worked in a far-off place that's constantly in the news, where there's as much security in cafés as in court buildings.

Zelinsky served as a clerk for Dorit Beinisch, the president of the Supreme Court of Israel, the equivalent to the chief justice in America.

"She was a warm person, and she really cared about people," said Zelinsky, who met with the court president, the first woman to hold that position, on a weekly basis. "She made a real effort to reach out to foreign clerks as well as the clerks on her staff. You definitely saw a human side."

Overall, said Zelinsky: "I had a really fantastic time there."

He initially found out about the clerking program from a former president of the court, Aharon Barak, who spoke in one of Zelinsky's classes last fall as a visiting professor.

After a lengthy application process, he was accepted into the program in March.

Once in Israel, he gained security clearances for the Supreme Court and got into the thick of research in a legal system that is similar to the American and British systems.

With Zelinsky were nine other part-time foreign clerks working in support of the 15 Supreme Court justices and multiple other full-time clerks. "It was a lot of fun to meet law school students from all over the world," Zelinsky said.

ON THE JOB

Typical work days usually started at 9 a.m. after Zelinsky made the 10-minute walk from his apartment in Jerusalem to the courthouse. A meeting then took place with the senior clerks and sometimes Beinisch to discuss legal issues that Zelinsky was to research and draft comparative analysis memos on. He was briefed on the facts of the case and then required to look up legal precedents in the United States.

He and other foreign clerks had desks in the library, where the first floor was dedicated to Israeli and global law, the second floor American law and the third floor British law. Most of the research, however, was conducted online. The cases could involve, "literally, any kind of law," Zelinsky said. "And it was a lot of fun."

Depending on the complexity of the matter, it would take between a couple of hours and a week to draft the comparative analysis memo. The first draft was read by the clerks and Beinisch before being returned to Zelinsky with questions or requests for additional research.

Though he speaks some Hebrew, Zelinsky said the memos were all written in English in order to eliminate mistakes; the full-time clerks' English is stronger than Zelinsky's Hebrew.

Zelinsky, typically, wrote two memos per week. His work days ended around 5 p.m., while the Israeli clerks usually put in 12-hour days starting at 8 a.m.

"The court works very hard, and I was amazed by the amount of hours they put in," he said. "But they encouraged us to get out and see other parts of the country."

Zelinsky also got to sit in on oral arguments in the Supreme Court, which were presented in Hebrew by attorneys required to wear robes. The court hears approximately 5,000 cases per year, and its caseload includes all appeals from the trial courts, since the Israeli legal system has no intermediate appellate court.

He said he was most surprised by how prepared he was to handle the workload.

Coming into the program, "you think you're going to get blown out of the water," he said, "but you find out that you know a little bit of law."

BLOGGING AND BEACHING

One thing that Zelinsky discovered was Israelis' vast appetite for American politics. He, too, was interested in following the presidential race and the accompanying debates, so he and two other law school students he met in the Israeli Supreme Court started The Presidential Debate Blog. It was an easy side project to launch because all of Jerusalem, including the Old City, features wireless Internet. "The city itself is a very modern city," he said.

Zelinsky also visited outdoor markets where he haggled over prices. In early July, a Palestinian man drove a bulldozer into a bus and several cars in Jerusalem, killing three people before being shot dead. The attack occurred on Jaffa Road in the city's center.

"That was near the outdoor market where I did my shopping," he said.

Safety precautions are a part of everyday life in Jerusalem. Anytime he entered a café, Zelinsky had to pass through a metal detector and get patted down by a security guard.

"The first couple of times it's scary, but you get used to it," he said. "Anywhere in the world can be a trouble spot. It's just the way of life, unfortunately. I was in one of the safest places in the world when I was in the Supreme Court building."

On weekends, which consist of Friday and Saturday in the Jewish state, Zelinsky frequently escaped to the beach. Tel Aviv, which is about 45 minutes from Jerusalem, is a premier beach destination for Israelis and features a livelier energy than Jerusalem, which Zelinsky observed to be more religious and reserved.

And as far as the culinary comparison between Jerusalem and New Haven, Zelinsky said it's simple: "Superior falafel, inferior pizza."

His work in the Israeli Supreme Court after one year of law school has set the bar high for the future. Zelinsky is now pretty certain he wants to spend at least a year after graduation clerking for a judge somewhere.

"It's a tough experience to follow up," Zelinsky said. "If it's a once-in-a-lifetime event, I'm glad to have had it."