By Evan Traylor and Jacob Georginow, NFTY’s President and Religious and Cultural Vice President

From January 6-12, representatives from 11 countries descended upon Jerusalem to engage in thoughtful sharing, learning, and collaboration as a part of the Netzer Olami Veida. Although we all came from different Jewish backgrounds and lifestyles, we all united as leaders in Netzer Olami to share and appreciate these differences and discover common ground as the Progressive Jewish youth of the world.

Prayer is definitely one component in Reform Judaism that has the power to unite people all across the globe. Throughout the week, representatives from most of the sniffim led our group of about 20 in ma’amad, meaning prayer experience. In most sniffim, ma’amad does not necessarily mean a formal prayer service, but rather it is an opportunity to engage the community in an activity or group experience surrounded by Jewish text and prayer. While it was interesting hearing other melodies that other sniffim use in their prayer services, it was incredible to see that Progressive Jews from England, South Africa, Barcelona, and more knew the melodies of Dan Nichols, Debbie Friedman, and Josh Nelson. Ma’amad became a daily reminder of the power of prayer and how it can serve to unite Jews from all over the world.

We all had the opportunity several times throughout the 10 days to propose, discuss, and formulate initiatives for Netzer Olami through Asefot, or board meeting. Collaborating with representatives from each sniffim, we worked towards enhancing Netzer Olami as a youth movement through Tikkun Olam, organization of principles and ideology, and connecting sniffim to one another through camp and Israel programs. It was incredible to be able to represent all NFTYites across North America in all of these proposals and contribute their voices to the future of Reform Judaism in the world.

Throughout the Veida, many different Jewish professionals, Rabbis, songleaders, educators, as well as the sniffim representatives led peulot, meaning activity or programmatic experience. Ben, a Harvard University professor, led a session on enhancing your argument and constructive ways to talk about the Israel/Palestinian conflict as part of the organization Kol-Voice, an organization committed to strengthening the identity and improving the standard of activism across the Jewish world. We led a session for all of the snifim representatives about the facts and myths of mental health and on the many ways that NFTY commits itself to Tikkun Olam through our NFTY Action Theme this year. We also took a trip to the culturally diverse city of Ramla to visit both a mosque and a church and learn about some of the Arab culture in the area.

After all of these incredible experiences at the Netzer Olami Veida, we have safely returned to the United States with a broadened connection to Netzer Olami and our Progressive Jewish communities and friends from around the world. Know that the next time we all sing “Noar Tzioni, Tzioni Reformi” at the end of the NFTY Cheer, there are 11,000 other Progressive Jewish teens singing with you!

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Netzer Olami is the worldwide youth movement of the World Union for Progressive Judaism. Today there are 16,000 members active in different sniffim (chapters) that are located around the world. You can look back at the day-by-day action of the veida by viewing our social media timeline.

“On this site you will find everything you need to be successful for anything that inspires you in your effort to help others…” Talia Lehman, CEO and Founder of RandomKid.org, has devoted her life to mobilizing youth to help solve the world’s problems. The non-profit organization Talia created helps to connect youth with similar passions work together to make positive changes in the world.

This website goes way above and beyond providing you with the tools to successfully give back. If you are looking to do right in the world, RandomKid is the place to start. From assisting with collecting of funds or supplies to bringing your peers together for a common cause, RandomKid.org helps develop your initiative in a variety of ways. Through Talia’s innovative idea brainstorming page, she shares a five-step process of which outlines the specifics of being successful in creating social change. If you are looking to support a cause or even go above and beyond to create your own for something you’re passionate about, the tools to make this possible are just a few clicks away.

Since the start of RandomKid, over 12 million youth from 20 different countries have been mobilized to provide services on four continents! Back in 2005, Leman and Anne Royse Ginther combined their efforts into aiding survivors from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Togher, they were able to collect 10 million dollars for Katrina Relief. Today, RandomKid reports the mobilization of between 50,000 and 100,000 youth per year around a variety of causes.

All of this started because of one girl’s dream of helping others succeed. Talia Leman, still in high school, demonstrates the clear power and influence that youth can harness. That is why NFTY is thrilled to welcome her as one of our influential speakers at NFTY Convention 2013 in Los Angeles, CA! Get ready to get inspired, NFTY!

As the captain of our US Airways flight asked us to take our seats for the last half hour of our flight, I started to realize that I was actually going to be touching down in Israel soon. It would mean that I would finally be a part of the community that gets to stand when asked “Who in this room has been to Israel?” Sitting between Evan Traylor, NFTY President, and Beth Rodin Director of Education and Special Projects was a very special moment for me, as I was going to the Holy Land to represent NFTY at the Netzer Veida, the worldwide Progressive Jewish youth conference in Jerusalem.

Before we touched down I was thinking about what my first words on Israeli soil would be— I didn’t know what people say at these things! I literally sat contemplating this for five whole minutes – and as we touched down I was still silent. I guess that’s what was so special about coming here: it left me speechless.

The first day we met up with some of NFTY’s Shnat Netzer representatives, Jake Levine, Rachel Blackburn-Parish, and Rachel Horne. We had a fun time sharing stories about NFTY’s accomplishments this year and how their experience on Shnat has been this past few months. Their insight into Shnat has given us an inside look at how some of Netzer works. For example, I learned more about how strongly Netzer is attached to the ideology they live by. While NFTY has hundreds of regional events throughout the year, some of the other Snifim only have two week camps where they come together to study their ideology and build leadership skills.

I am excited for the next 9 days and I can’t wait to see what the Veida has in store for us. Keep watching the NFTY Blog for more updates! Also follow @NFTYRCVP and @NFTYPresident on Twitter and Like our pages on Facebook! (NFTY President / NFTY RCVP)

Tonight we are hosting a NFTY reunion on Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem.  Be sure to follow us and watch for pictures of past NFTYites from your regions. Shabbat Shalom!

]]> http://blogs.rj.org/nfty/2013/01/04/nfty-board-at-netzer-veida-2/feed/ 0 http://blogs.rj.org/nfty/2012/08/14/progress-and-benchmarks/ http://blogs.rj.org/nfty/2012/08/14/progress-and-benchmarks/#comments Tue, 14 Aug 2012 21:22:54 +0000 From the NFTY Blog http://blogs.rj.org/nfty/?p=2581

By Jacob Georginow, NFTY Religious and Cultural Vice President

Throughout Jewish life there are many benchmarks. Some are optional, and some come with tradition. The path I have taken has definitely been one of structure. First there was the bris, than there was Sunday school, then Hebrew school, then my Bar Mitzvah, then Mitzvah Corps, then Confirmation, then NFTY-STR regional board, and now North American Board.

By the end of one’s B’nai Mitzvah, many Jewish youth simply stop taking a Jewish path. Trends show us that around 80% of Jewish teens just stop being…well, Jewish. For those of us who have found our post-bar/bat mitzvah niche, it seems like a wild idea- to just simply stop living a Jewishly structured life.

So there are two big questions: how and why? WHY? It could be a multitude of things.

At the URJ Kutz Fellowship this summer, I had the opportunity to observe and take notes on the Kutz Fellowship program, in which they broke down these stages of childhood and teenage reform Jewish life. The participants were questioned about their own experiences through Hebrew school, and their families’ engagement in Jewish life and the Synagogue thereafter. I heard things like, “My family never pushed me to continue…” or, “My parents promised me that I could stop after I did my Bar Mitzvah.”

WHY do these young Reform Jews develop a negative view on maintaining a Jewish life through their adolescent years? Another type of answer I heard (which upset me because I had a vastly different experience) was, “I hated Hebrew School. It was so boring and it was such a drag. It was a chore to go.” This answer wasn’t universal, but many of the participants in the group I was in shared this sentiment.

HOW do we change this? How do we make it so that NFTY as a movement can stand strong at 10,000 members, or more? How do we reach those teens that are uninspired to become engaged in their Reform Jewish lives? We need to start reaching them earlier. Those of us in Temple Youth Groups have a responsibility as the grassroots movement of NFTY to create amazing programming and fun activities for those younger groups of Jewish children, so that by the time they reach the end of their Bar Mitzvah, instead of saying, “Whew, glad this is over,” they can say, “Whew, now on to the next step!”

So how do we inspire those to join us who haven’t yet been inspired?  There is a leadership model that I encountered this summer that explains the difference between pulling and pushing in our our movement. As the North American Board, Regional Board members, and TYG board members, we can pull our regions along as much as we want, but they’ll never go farther than where we pull them. But, if we get under them and push them, there is no telling how far we’ll go and how much success we will achieve.

As my teenage Jewish journey comes to an end, I reflect back on the experiences that have shaped who I am. Regional board was an experience that I will never forget. It allowed me to understand the important connections that TYGs make to their congregations. North American board, even though I am just beginning my term, has already taught me so much. One lesson I’ve learned is particularly important: when we reach a place of leadership, it is no longer about the goals that we own that we see fit for our respective homes. The needs of our constituents become our own, and we shape the movement in their vision.

When my term officially ends next June, it will mark the end of my five year NFTY Journey. I am truly honored and grateful to be one of five NFTY-ites who get this extra year of opportunity. NFTY has been my safety net for keeping a Reform Jewish life, and I am a bit nervous about leaving it behind in my sophomore year of college.

What other experiences lay ahead for me in the Jewish world? Hillel and Chabad perhaps, maybe even a Jewish fraternity. It is all brand new, but I know that because of NFTY, I will have the skills it takes to create yet another meaningful Jewish experience. I will be forever grateful to our movement for providing teens like me with those skills.

It is time for us to start broadening our horizons. It is time for all seven thousand of us to get with our TYGs, have a meeting, and say “NFTY is a great place, but what does NFTY need? How can we make Youth Group event even better than it is now?” We need to start asking, “How can we broaden our Jewish identities, and what would we love to experience in a Jewish light that we may have not been exposed to yet?” All of these questions will strengthen our movement, and create a positive space for those who will soon be acquiring this great land of opportunity after we’ve departed.

Jacob is from West Palm Beach Florida, where he was an active member of NFTY-STR in high school.  He is currently a Freshman at the Univeristy of Central Florida. Follow Jacob on Facebook (NFTY-RCVP) and Twitter (@NFTYRCVP). 

Continue the conversation at www.reformjudaismmag.org/teens, where four other teens from across the nation share their experiences as Jewish youth.  Comment on their stories and let your voice be heard!

By Jacob Georginow, NFTY Religious & Cultural Vice-President

I’ve wonder why the majority of people that I’ve talked to said that they “hated their first NFTY event.” I know I did.

My first NFTY event was at a temple in Boca Raton, FL, which, coincidentally, was actually where my final NFTY event in the Southern Tropical Region was. It’s funny how things come full circle.  Anyway, I’m at my first NFTY event and I get there and the registration line is huge, full of people hugging and pushing to get their nametags. If you think outside of a NFTY setting, wearing your ID in middle school was never a really cool thing, and I was an eighth grader at the time, so you could understand my reservations about this identification card swinging from my neck on a weekend, when I had to have one all week at school. Beyond this, being an extraordinarily introverted person, I was not going to throw myself into a meeting and greeting kind of situation if I didn’t have to.

Most of the event was really a blur, but I do remember bits and pieces about being in the wrong room for track time, or getting lost in the three-story synagogue. It was a struggle being in a foreign place for a weekend.

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Fast forward four years. I’m in the middle of one-hundred and fifty sweating, screaming NFTY-STR men in a gender program in the Orlando Marriott Airport Hotel, screaming Adonai S’fatai as loud as I can. I am on my second term as NFTY-STR Religious and Cultural Vice President, and my three board brothers Lucas, Jordan and Michael are there with me in the middle, supporting each other like family.

In that moment, in the two years as RCVP , all of the things that I had been doing finally made sense, and I couldn’t just stop in June of 2012 when I was to graduate from high school. No way was I ready to be done creating meaningful relationships with reform Jewish high-school teenagers across North America. No way was I done working and struggling with advisors who pushed me past my limits in programming and in life lessons; no way was I done bridging the gap between NFTY and BBYO and the other great youth movements of our time. There was still work to be done, and there ARE still youth that are not yet engaged.

Fast forward two months. I’m back at URJ Henry S. Jacobs Camp in Utica, Mississippi, where I spent my summer. I’m already back after six months- which only felt like a few days. I’m reading my speech to the General Board of NFTY regarding my candidacy for the next Religious and Cultural Vice President of NFTY. My speech was over the allotted time if I spoke it at the normal speed, so I rushed with a combination of excitement, nervousness and the time-allotment on my mind.

Fast forward two days. After a very fulfilling, all day Asefah session, where we decided the next NFTY study and action themes, where we passed resolutions and recommendations on NFTY’s use on polystyrene and launched the resolution to add Mitzvah Day to our calendar each year, it was time for the voting procedures.

Fast forward 45 minutes. Evan Traylor is the next NFTY President. The room is buzzing, and I am sitting just two tables away from the next President.

Fast forward an hour. Jordan Rodnizki is the next NFTY Programming Vice President. The room explodes, and I’m overwhelmed at how proud I am of my fellow STRite, board member and close friend. Now that I’m between both the President and PVP, things start becoming more and more real.

Fast forward 45 minutes. Joy Nemerson is the next NFTY Social Action Vice President, she steps forward and shes smiling so big and people are crying and hugging and her radiance fills the room. Three-fifth’s of the next NAB was just elected, and I’m asked to leave the room to go to a holding room with three of my very best friends. It felt like an eternity until Forrest Yesnes, the NFTY President at the time, came in and announced to us that there was a run-off. When he said my name I was so stunned and everything hit me like a ten-ton truck. Jesse Paikin started to read us descriptions of movies backwards, and it eased the room a lot. 25 minutes passed.

Suddenly, I am the next NFTY Religious and Cultural Vice President of NFTY. Walking. Embrace. Tears. Laughter. Happiness. Zoot. That’s basically all I remember from that 5 minutes of trying to reach my table to vote for the MCVP.

Fast forward another 30 minutes and I am in the middle of the Asefah room, holding Marlee, Joy, Jordan, Evan and Beth so tightly and so happily.

If you had to ask me why I came back to NFTY I would tell you that I didn’t want to. I skipped a fall event, and was signed up without a choice by a boy in my youth group and my mother in my temple youth lounge. At that event were a few defining moments. One of which, I met my would-be president of my first regional board, Jenna Gorlick, and the NFTY-STR President at the time, who would soon be the NFTY PVP, personally handed me a Kutz flyer and said, “Jacob, I think this opportunity will be good for you. I challenge you to look into it.”

Fifteen minutes later I was in my hotel room on the phone with my mother asking her to sign me up for the Kutz: NFTY’s Summer home for reform Jewish teens. And now, two camper-summers later, I’m on staff here.

Mike Fuld, the assistant director of the Kutz camp runs a program for a small group of campers called Advanced Leadership Seminar. One of the intense things we did in this minor was something called a “This I Believe” statement. Looking back, my This I Believe still rings true.

Time, place and people are everything- this I believe.

As the school year comes to an end, there are hundreds of NFTYites who will be graduating and taking their Judaic leadership to the next big thing. Whether that is Hillel at a University campus, some form of religious education or forming one’s own religious identity, there will most definitely be a transition period. The most important part of that transition, though, is to not forget where you came from.

In NFTY, we are each given very distinctive skills. Some of them are intentional training: we are often taught prayers, organizational tactics and group-leading. So many of these things, though, are not taught so much as brought out within us. We are given the voice that we always had, but never knew how to use. We are given the opportunity to be leaders without being show-offs. We are given the opportunity to mean the world to someone, when we would have felt worthless before.

In all of the other endeavors that NFTYites take on, there are people who did not receive these gifts. There are those who lack the creativity to make extraordinary things happen. There are those who even resent the enthusiasm that we bring to the table, simply because they do not want to change their own way of thinking to reflect the “new” image that we bring to the situation.

Don’t let that stop you, though. Let your passion sweep you away and take you to new heights. Don’t be afraid to let the extraordinary become the norm. Show anyone and everyone who is around to watch exactly what it is that NFTYites can do for the world, and how much better it will be for it.

All of the gifts that NFTY has given us are too valuable to squander. For that, we have to take them to whole new heights. When we leave NFTY, it can often feel like an ending. The best four years of our lives coming to an end. Yet, NFTY does not want these to be the best four years of our life. Instead, NFTY is looking to give us the tools to make every year of our life amazing.

For those of you not graduating, though, there is still so much to be done. There is more to soak in, more to learn and more ways to grow. That being said, the clichéd “Don’t waste even one minute,” holds truer here than anywhere else. Because when you are done you can’t get that time back. You can only take the amazing things you learned and run to the future.

One of my favorite characters in Jewish history is Yitzhak Rabin. In our entire history, we have never gotten closer to peace between Israel and Palestine as we were during his time as Prime Minister. We have never seen hope that was as contagious as it was during his time.

We have also never seen the work replicated. After his assassination, we saw a grinding halt. The peace discussion ended, the hope dissipated, and the future was thrown back into mystery. Rabin left a legacy of great strides toward peace, but also of unfinished business.

As a NFTY leader, I am starting to consider my own legacy. Clearly I am not solving the conflicts in the Middle East (at least not yet), but I do have to consider what it means to leave behind a legacy.

NFTY’s General Board recently elected the new North American board, and is preparing to elect successors all across the country, at regional and temple levels. That being said, we, as leaders, are facing the end of our NFTY leadership as we know it, which is a scary thought, especially to those who have been part of this movement for the best part of four years.

We also may not have accomplished everything that we had intended. We leave projects undone, ideas unfinished. How do we come to terms with the work that we have done, and the work we have yet to do, when we clearly see that we cannot finish it all?

Again, we turn to Rabin for guidance, or rather, for an example not to follow. Rabin saw his work crumble after his death. We, on the other hand, do not want to see the work that we have been doing end just because our time in NFTY does. We as a movement focus so much on generational leadership. We even have a hashtag, which means it must be serious. That being said, we have an obligation to pass down the work that we have been doing, and make the work transcend the nameplate that we give it.

NFTY, as I have come to learn, beats the ego right out of you. We can’t get wrapped up in getting our name the notoriety of success based on our NFTY work because, all too often, we have to either pass down our ideas or, on the other hand, accept the passing down of the ideas of those coming from above.

This means that we have to be comfortable walking away knowing that the work that we have done is in the strong hands of those we elect to succeed us. We have to be willing to be present, to give guidance to those who come after, but yet also have the grace to walk away and allow those who come after to be strong, valid leaders of their own right, and not to be too wrapped up in “getting the credit” for the work we do, but rather in cherishing the changes that we make, no matter who it is that makes them.

This D’var Torah was presented by Austin Zoot, NFTY Religious & Cultural Vice-President, during NFTY’s Veida at the URJ Henry S. Jacobs camp in February.

Shabbat Shalom. As our Torah readers so beautifully just read, this week’s Torah portion is Mishpatim, which is our first portion after the giving of the 10 commandments. After we see the big ten, we see a progression of what seem to be random laws. When you take a closer look, though, three of the most random elements of this text actually link together to strike a significant chord to our community that we have built.

One of the first set of instructions concerns the actions of a goring ox. We see two different situations set up. The first is that the animal gores a man or woman to death, and that the animal is not eaten, yet the owner is not punished. Basically, we punish the animal for the problem, not the owner. In the second situation, however, we see an owner who knows that the ox has a prior history of goring, and does nothing to stop the incident from happening. The question is though, why is there this dichotomy? Wouldn’t it make sense that if your animal gorges someone, you should be held accountable?

When we read a text, we each draw something different from it. We have an outline, a meaningless string of words. We must then fill it with the intention, the meaning, the resonance to it ourselves. As NFTY’s General Board, we see this text as an instruction. We are told that we must work to be understanding of the random incidences that happen to us. Sometimes programs go wrong. Sometimes guitar strings break. Sometimes aliens land in the middle of our programs. (Bet that hasn’t happened to you). We are told in this portion that we are not to be held accountable for the actions of fate, because it is not by our fault that they occurred. If, on the other hand, we know that the ox has a history of goring, or the program materials were turned in late, than we must be held accountable. This is not a way of point fingers. The blame is not given simply for the purpose of busting someone. The real intention of this is to say that each and every one of us is responsible for the actions that we knowingly take on, and that we must be willing to face the consequences of these actions. We are not allowed to look the other way and pretend these things aren’t happening.

Another segment of the text discusses the requirements when someone find’s their neighbors livestock running loose in the fields. We read “When you see the ass of your enemy lying under its burden and would refrain from raising it, you must raise it with him nevertheless.” What does this mean to us? We aren’t exactly shepherding animals around in our lives, although sometimes it feels like that at regional events.

What really rings true to us is the necessity to depend on one another. It isn’t just enough to being willing to work to make our own work valuable to the community. I can’t lead an entire region by myself. I can’t make an event run simply by my own work. We have to depend on one another to ensure that the work gets done and that it works done well. It is not enough to just get your ass up. You need to make sure you get everyone’s ass moving.

The distinction is also made that it is the property of your enemy. Cleary, we, as people, are disinclined to make the lives of our enemies easier. Why, then, does the Torah ask this of us? Because we are taught in Judaism that we are not just meant to do what is easy. We have to do what is right. What is right is to strengthen the whole community, despite the way that we may feel about these people. Because, in our line of work, we are asked to work with people of all different kinds; from our best friends to those who we cannot stand. We will lose all of the benefit that we derive from NFTY if we allow our dislike of someone ruin the product or the holiness of the actions themselves. This means that it is not about who we are working with, but what we are working for.

The final section that Evan read this morning discussed not oppressing the strangers in our midst, because, as we are constantly reminded, we too were strangers in the land of Egypt. We are constantly having this stranger situation thrown upon us. We make such a significant deal about our past as slaves. We, as NFTYites in 5772, know very little of what it means to be slaves. But we do know what it means to be a stranger. Because each and every one of us was a stranger at some point in our NFTY lives. We were new members, we were awkward and shy. We, as is always the case, have an obligation. As God reminds us to remember what it was like to be a stranger in the land of Egypt, we must remember what it was like to be a new participant and make that experience all the less strange and awkward for the participants.

So where does this portion leave us? We seem to be all over the place with these laws. How does a Torah portion that is filled with such random legal clarifications speak to us and resonate in our lives as the General Board of NFTY? Because we are asked to be held accountable. We are asked to own up for the shortcomings of our community, and take full responsibility. We are taught that not only must we be responsible for the work of our own hands, but also for the work of every member of our community, no matter how we may feel about them personally. And we are taught that we must be conscious of everyone in our midst, whether they be stranger or otherwise.

We, as one community, are challenged by rules. We have so much coming at us, and it can be such a challenge to make sense of it all. But having the book in front of us can help guide the path. We aren’t in the dark. By adding meaning to what is written so long ago, we are able to add all of the ingredients together to make the kind of Holy community that we are striving for.