This past erev Shabbat I was honoured to give a drosh at the Scotland Limmud dinner about youth movements in the Glasgow community. Full text is below, but the main point is that Jlgb Habo Dror and FZY all provide weekly or bi-weekly spaces for young Jews to actively engage in their Jewish identity and shape it how they want, which is essential to building strong Jewish leaders and a strong Jewish community. So I want to encourage every youth to get involved in a youth movement that they feel represents them and gives them the opportunity to form and inform their Jewish identity. #makeyourmark #JewishYouthMovements Habo Dror Glasgow Ken Glasgow Jlgb FZY Project 500 Shabbat Shalom everyone, My name is Julie-Rae King and I am currently the UJIA Youthworker in Scotland. I grew up in Toronto, in a massive and vibrant Jewish community. I attended Hebrew Day School, went to shul, and celebrated shabbat and festivals at home. However, what I think forms the backbone of my Jewish identity today were my summers, spent at Habonim Dror Camp. From the age of 10 I left home every July to spend two weeks, then a month and later on 3 months at a time in a community of other Jewish youth. At first what kept me involved was the chance to see my friends and spend time with them, but later as I grew older and more independent I stayed involved as a way to express my Judaism and help it grow. With so many other options available to me, I kept coming back to my youth movement roots in defining my Jewish identity. I was asked to give my drosh this evening about my experience with youth in the community and what I really want to focus on for the next 5 minutes is something which in my opinion is the most important aspect of my job – supporting our youth movements. In the 9 months that I have worked within the Jewish community here in Glasgow I have been constantly amazed at the level of dedication the communal organizations exhibit. Glasgow may not be the largest of Jewish communities but there is a lot of enthusiasm and heart put into programmes and events which support Jewish life and culture. Despite all of this amazing activity, it wouldnt be a Jewish community without a little bit of complaining. Two tropes I hear constantly are that anti-semitism is on the rise, and that young people don’t embrace their Jewish identity enough. There is definitely a connection between the two. A strong Jewish identity helps one be more assertive in the face of anti-semitism. To this end we encourage our youth to have Jewish friends, to go to synagogue and participate in Jewish activities and to feel pride in their Jewish identity However, I think there is a flaw to this approach, in that it skips over the questions of why? Why should I or any other young person be loud and proud about my Jewish identity? What does it even mean to have a Jewish identity to youth of today? This is where the youth movements are essential. They challenge young people to answer the why what where who and how of their Jewish identity. Youth movements go behind being a space for young Jews to gather socially and become centres of debate, challenge and discussion about personal Jewish identity, weaving in history, politics, Zionism, culture, religion and modernity. Running a youth movement in Toronto wasnt too difficult. There was a big enough market within a diverse community to be sure that you would get enough kids through the door to feel successful. However in Glasgow, the movements face an aging community, and declining numbers and what they stand for might be considered radical or unconventional. JLGB, Habonim Dror and FZY all have active weekly or bi weekly run by strong leaders and Field workers. they might be getting less than 5 youth through the door, and yet they still persevere. To them the work they are doing is important, more important that counting heads. Our focus needs to be in building up these youth movements, encouraging youth to join them and participate, not only on a local, but a national and in some cases international level. We should not be waiting until they are ready to go on Tour, we should be introducing them to an environment in which they can engage in a deeper exploration of why they should be proud of a Jewish identity and what that identity means to them from a much younger age. Education in these environments is essential for young people who want the answers to those why questions of identity and are not satisfied with because thats the way its always been. Youth Movements encourage youth to actively choose education and challenging themselves to move forward with critical thinking. That is the type of generation which is going to bring Judaism into the future and combat anti-semitism and hatred. This is also why events such as Limmud are so important to Jewish life as they also provide space to debate and discover our personal Jewish identities in an open and free environment. I will be joining the Limmud Conference in Warwick this winter with a delegation of Habonim Movement Workers and Bogrim and I am so excited to continue to challenge my understanding of Judaism and Jewish identity in a movement context, and to bring that experience back to Glasgow to encourage further participation among the youth here.
Posted on: Sun, 09 Nov 2014 15:08:25 +0000
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