If my 12-year old daughter follows the pattern, her Jewish engagement will begin to severely drop now that she has celebrated becoming a bat mitzvah. The mitzvah checklist completed and synagogue attendance no longer required, she’s now free to forget about Judaism.
That’s how it works for many American Jews. According to the 2001 report from Brandeis University’s Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies, “Jewish Adolescents: American Teenagers Trying to ‘Make It,’” Jewish teens progressively stop participating in Jewish life after reaching b’nai mitzvah age.
There are myriad ways to engage Jewish teens — youth groups, summer camps, Israel trips and other teen programs — but so many young Jews are coming to the conclusion that Judaism is not relevant for them.
They want to know a Judaism that deals not just with prayer, synagogue involvement and concern for its particular needs but also provides a framework for engaging with the wider world.
It was true for me. As a teen, I couldn’t wait to bust out of the bubble that was my sheltered Jewish world. I wanted to see what else was out there. Ironically (and predictably perhaps), as a parent, I admit that I am happy to have my children living in such a bubble, where truancy, violence and teen pregnancy exist primarily in the news.
That seemingly safe world will hopefully give my children a solid foundation and good, strong Jewish values. I want my children to grow to love Jewish practice, feel rooted in Israel and develop a hearty and joyful Jewish identity.
But that’s just the beginning. I also want them to identify and engage with the real issues in our local community. I want them to feel duty bound to work to improve the world. And I want the call — and context — for such work to come from Judaism.
Unfortunately, there’s a gap. As the North Shore mother of two, I feel that we’re teaching our children way too much about serving themselves and not nearly enough about serving others.
The first blaming fingers need to be pointed at me. When my daughter needed to fulfill four measly community service hours for her middle school, we struggled; though we have shown up for ad hoc opportunities to give, volunteering has not been an integral part of our lives.
Though social action is a central tenet in today’s Jewish life — with organizations giving precious funds to support the underserved; congregations devoting countless program hours to direct social service; and social action projects for b’nai mitzvah students becoming standard practice — our community lacks a vehicle for training young people to identify social justice and work to make the world better.
We already boast a few social justice programs for teens. The Coalition for Jewish Learning’s Teen Day for Social Action and Tikkun Ha-Ir have both worked to engage teens. Creative programs led by passionate professionals, they are a great start.
But we need an encompassing and ongoing program that helps our children see beyond the bubble. I take inspiration from Or Tzedek, the social justice initiative of Chicago’s Jewish Council on Urban Affairs.
Through that program’s year-round activities and its eight-day residential summer program, Jewish teenagers learn about issues in the Chicago community — community health care, affordable housing, workers’ rights, access to quality education — in a Jewish context.
They learn about issues, how to act on them and Jewish perspectives on those issues. After spending a week living together in a dormitory and traveling throughout Chicago to learn about a range of social problems, the teens emerge empowered to work for justice as Jews.
That’s the summer experience I want for my children.
Let’s build a similar program here in Milwaukee — a day or residential summer camp that revolves around service. Participants could engage in a variety of real projects in the community.
How about creating a year-round cooperative program between existing youth groups that would focus on community activism? What if the social action element of bar/bat mitzvah training fed into an organized and ongoing community-wide program?
Admittedly, there are other programs available to our children. They could participate in non-Jewish or interfaith programs that focus on ecology or urban issues. But those programs lack Judaism as a sacred framework, whose teachings provide context and explanation for the work.
Our children could also participate in Jewish national programs, such as B’nai B’rith Youth Organization’s 12-day summer program, Project Impact “for emerging community leaders and activists.” Or they could attend the Union for Reform Judaism’s Urban Mitzvah Corps. But those programs lack continuity at home, leaving the children with no local structure for their awakened sense of social responsibility.
We all stand to gain from programs that engage our children in service. By providing a Jewish way to pursue justice in the world, we may indeed help our children love Judaism beyond their b’nai mitzvah celebrations.
I invite you to join me in conversation. Share your ideas and help build community opportunities to show our children what we mean when we talk about being “a light unto the nations.”
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