Letting Go Before the Nest is Empty

It’s only 8 at night, and when our 16-year-old son rambles home, we pounce. “Want to grab ice cream?” I invite. “What about a movie?” says my husband. Our son stares at us, impassive.

“I’m going to bed,” he says, and my husband and I exchange glances. We know that “going to bed” is code word for I’m-going-into-my-room-and-shutting-the-door-and-staying-up-for-hours-without-you. I hear the door close and even though my son is right upstairs, I miss him. And I know that he’s going off to college in two years and I’m going to miss him even more.

I don’t know why I’m so surprised he’s independent. We wanted him to be that way. My parents had raised my sister and me to be dependent on them, to stay close to home, to reveal all our secrets. I, of course, balked and flew out on my own at 17, lived states away, and kept my thoughts locked up like a safe. Even now, my mom still scolds me for being “too independent for my own good” but I always considered that a plus.

Until I had a son.

Right from the start, we encouraged our son to be fearlessly self-reliant, to know the joys of spending time alone. We loved it that he had no separation anxiety when he strolled into preschool, that he felt secure enough to be able to stay at a friend’s house for hours without caring that we weren’t there, and we were thrilled when he came back home to excitedly tell us about his day. But then he entered high school and everything shifted. Nowadays, he’s only sort of here, because even when he is, he’s making plans to be with his friends, his music, his increasingly private life.

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Technology can help Jewish teens give back

After a bar/bat mitzvah, giving back to the community doesn’t automatically become a priority, as most tweens stop receiving formal Jewish education where this idea is reinforced. Why does this extensive process of giving back stop here? As these tweens grow and mature, isn’t it important to continue the mitzvot of tikkun olam, or giving back?

In the 2010-11 school year I participated in the Jewish Community Centers of Greater Boston Diller Teen Fellowship program. The Diller Teen Fellows is an internationally run program that focuses on four pillars: leadership, tikkun olam, Jewish identity, and Israel. During my "Diller year" I was able to participate in a number of incredible service projects, including teaching in the Gabrieli elementary school in Haifa. Alongside four other Diller fellows I was able to overcome the language barrier and teach English to Israeli children. Through this experience, I learned the importance of communication, and how verbal communication is not the only way to interact with others to rely a message. More specifically, when I began thinking about my own community action project this experience resonated with me. I wondered how all the Diller teenagers from 16 different cities were going to stay in touch, not just socially but intellectually as well. I decided to form a Diller Teen Fellows social network; a lofty goal for a then-15 year old.

Diller then helped turn me to JChoice.org (www.jchoice.org), a Jewish charity website where people can donate to over 200 non-profits from a unique and relevant Jewish perspective. Each year through their extensive database of charitable organizations, JChoice allocates tens of thousands of dollars to causes that people truly care about. However, JChoice doesn’t just stop at facilitating donation transactions, they also inspire people to utilize the many forms of multi-media to build and promote their own mitzvah projects rooted in Jewish values. JChoice inspires people to not stop giving back to their community after completing a bar/bat mitzvah project, but rather to continue to help repair the world.

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ANNOUNCING: New Voices’ First Ever Essay Contest

We’re proud to announce our first ever Middle School/High School Israel Essay Contest.

Every summer, thousands of high schoolers pile onto tour buses to traipse around the Holy Land. Some travelers return home spiritually awakened, others with a new view of Israel’s political climate. They come back full of ideas, angst and passion. And New Voices wants to hear all about it – and give our readers an inside view of those experiences.

We want students to explain how they would finish the following sentence: “The Thing They Don’t Tell You About Israel Is….”  The essay should explore something unexpected you saw, learned, experienced, questioned, etc. on your trip to Israel. Think about ways in which Israel defied your expectations. You might consider some of the following things:

What no one told you about Israel (but that perhaps you wish they had)
Something that surprised you about the people there (Jewish Israelis, Arab Israelis, Palestinians, other students or tourists)
Surprising elements of the daily life in Israel that you saw
A realization about Israeli art, music, politics and/or pop culture
Your essay should focus on a personal experience of Israel that went beyond what you learned in Sunday school, day school, youth group — and any other formal Jewish educational programs you may have been a part of.

Plus we’re giving away $100, $75 and $50 Amazon.com gift cards to the top three winners.


See below for our FAQs about the contest.

What is the New Voices Israel Essay Contest?
A new contest for students in grades 8-12 to talk about their experiences in Israel and win a gift card at Amazon.com. The winning entries, three prize winners and three honorable mentions, will be published on our website in mid-May.

Who can submit entries?
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New study offers tips on engaging Jewish teens

Trying to interest teenagers in activities is difficult, parents and teachers know well, especially given what technology has done to the attention spans of young people.

So how to get them to partake in doing Jewish over other pursuits?

The Jim Joseph Foundation commissioned two consulting firms to carry out a two-year study to figure it out. BTW Informing Change and Rosov Advisors mined data from 21 organizations geared toward Jewish and non-Jewish teens.

Their conclusions: Hire good staff, be flexible on attendance and target teens through social media.

As a teen might say, “Duh!”

“People who know the teen space well will not be shocked by the findings, but they are important realizations for anyone involved in the field,” said Josh Miller, the senior program manager at the Jim Joseph Foundation, which has invested $270 million to promote Jewish education since 2006.

The $200,000 study, which cost $40,000 to print and disseminate according to a spokesperson, comes at a time when the majority of young American Jews are not enrolled in Jewish schools.

According to a 2008 paper commissioned by the Avi Chai Foundation, an estimated 460,000 American Jews—about 45 percent of the school-aged demographic—are enrolled in either Jewish day schools or Jewish supplementary education. Participation in Jewish activities outside school hours was lower.

The Jim Joseph Foundation’s study offers 10 “implications for strategy development” aimed at boosting those numbers. Among them: Accept teens as they are. Don’t punish kids who show up irregularly for events. Create a recognizable brand. And, perhaps most important, find good staff to mentor teens.

“You might call them Pied Pipers, people who can create a relationship with others,” said Jerry Somers, a board member at the Jim Joseph Foundation. “This is very essential to establishment of strong engagement.”

The paper notes that younger staffers tend to be better at forging such ties with adolescents, but cautions that employees in their early 20s have a higher turnover rate than those in their late 20s and early 30s.

It also recommends using digital tools such as Facebook and text messaging to reach teens, citing the success of DoSomething.org, a website that motivates youths to partake in social activism and has pioneered the use of texts to stay in touch with its user base.

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The First—and Only—Jewish Miss America

In September of 1945, just after the end of World War II, a young woman from the Bronx named Bess Myerson became the first—and, still, only—Jewish woman to win the title of Miss America.
But winning the crown was just the beginning of the battle. Myerson was urged by the pageant director to change her name to sound less Jewish and, unlike most Miss Americas before her, Myerson did not pose with Ford cars or model Catalina bathing suits. "Those companies didn't want a Jewish woman representing them," Myerson recalled in an interview.
After being denied entrance to a southern country club that didn't admit Jews, Myerson accepted a post with the Anti-Defamation League, speaking out about religious and racial discrimination. Later, Myerson successfully pursued a career in television—as a panelist and MC on popular 1950s shows—as well as in politics, as New York's first Commissioner of Consumer Affairs.
While three more decades would pass before a woman of color took the Miss America crown, Myerson's groundbreaking win helped Americans see another image of beauty. Nearly 70 years later, Myerson is still gracing New York City with her eloquence and vivacity.