Teens & Screens Part 1: Raising Smart Cyber-Citizens in Social Media

By Sue Scheff for The Canteen on MyJewishLearning.com

The following is the first in a three-part series on how to help safely navigate the world of social media with your kids from Sue Scheff, a mother, author, parent advocate, and expert in internet safety education.

Do you consider yourself a savvy digital parent? While your kids are away at camp during the summer, it can be a great time to get caught up on learning about the cyber-lives of youth today. The more you know, the more you can better communicate with your kids regarding their digital lives.

The results of a recent 2014 study by McAfee titled, Teens and Screens, should be a wake-up call for parents. Some of the staggering findings include:

• 59% of tweens and teens engage with strangers online
• Cyberbullying has tripled, yet 24% of the respondents admitted they don’t know what to do in the event of online abuse
• Tweens and teens are still over-sharing their personal information, with 14% admitting posting their home address

Exactly what do you know about your child’s online life? Most know about cyber-safety 101:

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Hacking Hanukkah to Design the Jewish Future

By Rabbi Charlie Schwartz on EJP

The epiphany came half way through the session. My design team, a rag-tag group of Jewish high school students, had already identified the centrality of food in creating powerful experiences with family and friends. Then, during a frenzied brainstorm, a jaunty ninth grader shouted, “Wait – there are no good Hanukkah drinks!”

Thus, after several iterations, the Flaming Hanukkah Milkshake was born: sixteen ounces of milk-chocolate deliciousness with a ribbon of strawberry jelly running throughout, served in a double-paned glass with ignited olive oil floating between the layers, and a nine pronged sparkler put in for good measure.

This design experience was part of a series of Hanukkah Hackathons run by the Brandeis Design Lab – a joint project of The Union for Reform Judaism, Combined Jewish Philanthropies and Brandeis|HSP. These sessions instruct teens in the methodology of Design Thinking and provide them with the tools to innovate Jewish life and practice. At first glance, the idea of a Hanukkah Hackathon seems kitschy, a mash-up of old words with new jargon. But the idea of hacking Hanukkah – that is, repurposing and/or refining it in ways not previously imagined – has ancient origins.

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Jteenleadership.org

Are you a teen looking to get involved in service activities?

J-Teen Leadership is a community service leadership development initiative for Jewish high school students who want to make a difference in the world today. What makes us unique is that teens plan and lead projects. Based in Westchester, we welcome teens from New York and beyond, of all backgrounds and affiliations. Through local service projects and hands-on service trips, with skill building in leadership, advocacy and philanthropy, we do our part to improve the world (tikkun olam). Our programs are empowering, collaborative and fun. At J-Teen Leadership, we know how busy high school schedules are so we tailor programming to manageable time commitments. And our work continues to be recognized with service hours and awards. With the help of  adult allies, we coordinate our efforts and make a difference. We hope to see you at an upcoming project. Get Involved!

Has the Bat Mitzvah Party Overtaken the Bat Mitzvah?

By Francie Arenson Dickman for Raising Kvell

I knew bat mitzvahs were a bad idea. I told my husband this in 2001, about 20 minutes after we returned from the hospital with our two new daughters and he said, “My parents want to know when the baby namings will be.”

I like to think of the baby naming as a “bris for girls,” a custom created by Reform Jews rather than God and therefore, in my mind, totally optional. So, over babies crying, I hollered as best I could—given the fresh incision across my abdomen—that there’d be no baby namings. Then, as I struggled to attach a newborn to each of my nipples, I added, “And there’ll be no bat mitzvahs either. So tell your parents not even to ask.”

But they did ask, and so did my husband, who typically asks for nothing.

“Why do you care so much?” I’d question.

Like Tevya, he’d answer, “Tradition.” Then he’d add, “Why do you?”

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Jewish teen among dozens of French girls joining jihad in Syria

Follow us on   By Lori Hinnant for Haaretz

AP - A French Jewish teenager is among the approximately one hundred girls and young women who have left France to join jihad in Syria during the past 18 months.

According to a security official who spoke anonymously because rules forbid him to discuss open investigations, these girls come from all walks of life. They include first- and second-generation immigrants from Muslim countries, white French backgrounds - and one Jew.

These departures are less the whims of adolescents and more the highly organized conclusions of months of legwork by networks that specifically target young people in search of an identity, according to families, lawyers and security officials. These mostly online networks recruit girls to serve as wives, babysitters and housekeepers for jihadis, with the aim of planting multi-generational roots for an Islamic caliphate.

While girls are also coming from elsewhere in Europe, including between 20 and 50 from Britain, they pose a particular dilemma for France. The country has long had a troubled relationship with its Muslim community, the largest in Europe, and investigators say its recruitment networks are well developed. A bill in France's parliament would treat those who join jihad abroad as terrorists liable to arrest upon return, despite the pleas of distraught families that their girls are kidnap victims.

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That Time I Became Too Religious For My Father

By Allison Josephs for Raising Kvell

When I first started exploring Jewish learning and observance in my late teens, all of my family and friends thought I had lost my mind. But there was one person who was especially opposed to my newfound interest–my father.

Oh, he wanted me to be Jewish all right (from the youngest age, my sisters and I understood intermarrying would leave my pork-eating parents sitting shiva for us); I just was not allowed to be too Jewish. So when I began observing Shabbos every week during my senior year of high school, replete with unscrewing the light bulb in the fridge and taping lights around the house (so I wouldn’t be left in the dark–literally), good old dad would follow my trail and screw-in and un-tape. No daughter of his would become one of them.

My father had treated “ultra” Hasidim from some of the most extreme sects when he was training to be a doctor in Manhattan and was convinced that I was on a similar path. “You’re becoming a zealot,” he would tell me over and over again, even though I was making small changes at a responsible rate and I had no intention of ever leading an extreme life.

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The Secret Jewish History of 'Gilmore Girls'

By Sigal Samuel and Anne Cohen for The Schmooze

Today is a big day. Today is the day we reconnect with Lorelai and Rory. Today is the day Netflix starts streaming all seven seasons of Gilmore Girls.

WE. JUST. CAN’T. EVEN.

The Gilmores themselves aren’t Jewish — Richard and Emily would gasp at the thought — but the show did give us such gems as the dancing rabbi, Kirk as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, and “Oy with the poodles already!” And those mandatory Friday night dinners at the parents’? Come on, they just scream Shabbat.

But more than that, there’s the theme song. Yes, that theme song.

Who knew it had a secret Jewish connection?

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