Scarsdale Synagogue Temples Tremont and Emanu-El

A few weeks ago, I alongside members of both our professional staff and fellow lay leaders attended the URJ Biennial Convention near Washington, DC with over 6,000 fellow Reform Jews.  Attending a Biennial always provides me with new ideas to transform synagogue worship, social action, and community building.  This year's Biennial was no different and was the most exciting Biennial that I've ever been privileged to attend.

Reform synagogues all over the country have been re-envisioning the Jewish future, most specifically re-thinking approaches to engage our post B'nei Mitzvah students.  The Reform Movement heard this call and created a special Education Summit that Ivy Cohen, our youth director, and I both were able to attend.

As I'm sure you know, across the United States, over 80% of children who become B'nei Mitzvah have no connection to the Jewish community by the time they reach 12^th grade.  The Reform Movement's new Campaign for Youth Engagement hopes to dramatically improve the Reform Congregations ability to involve young people in a meaningful Jewish life and to help strengthen post B'nei Mitzvah engagement and retention.

As a congregation, we've already begun our own journey over the last couple of years.  The congregation hired a full time youth educator, Ivy Cohen, who has the ability to forge new relationships with our youth of all ages and to connect them to synagogue life.  We've built new partnerships with the Jewish world, including piloting a teen philanthropy project with the URJ and the Jewish Teen Philanthropy Project.  We've done our homework by collaborating with the Jewish Education Project and Brandeis University to research our community's needs as part of a New York area survey.  Most importantly we've created new vibrant programs for our youth: Team Tikkun, a social justice based program; Team Middot, a peer mentorship program which addresses topics important to young adults; and a reinvigorated STEamY (senior youth group).

This is only the start of SSTTE's Campaign for Youth Engagement, but with the Reform Movement's wish to make this a priority, we will have the resources we need to dramatically change our synagogue's relationship with our youth.  If we wish to commit to the Jewish future, we need to start now by thinking and rethinking our approach to welcoming teens into Jewish life.

L'shalom,
Andy Gordon