October 21, 2004

Medical School, Film School, and Tour of Italy to Highlight 2005 Offerings:
Huge Success for NCSY Summer Programs Leads to Expansion and New Programs for Next Year

After one of its most successful summers ever, the Orthodox Union’s National Conference of Synagogue Youth (NCSY) is already announcing new programs for the summer of 2005.

Building on this summer’s success -- which included the Spain and Israel Adventure and the Ivy League Leadership Scholars program at Columbia School of Law -- a tour of Italy and Israel will be included in next year’s offerings as well as the Summer Medical School Experience at Northwestern University in suburban Chicago, and the Hollywood Film School at UCLA.

Information and applications for next summer’s programs are available on the OU website, www.ou.org/ncsy.

With a 20 percent increase in overall applications this year over the summer of 2003, NCSY offered a comprehensive series of programs in the United States, Israel and Europe tailored to meet a wide variety of interests. “Our goal is to give teenagers a summer through which to view life in a Jewish context,” explained Rabbi Daniel Schonbuch, Education Director of NCSY. “We want young men and women to enjoy being Jewish and to discover that living a full life and being Jewish is not contradictory but rather, that one enhances the other.”

This summer, 500 teenagers traveled to Israel with NCSY, the highest number since the second intifada broke out in 2000.

Looking forward to next summer, Rabbi Schonbuch declared, the Summer Medical School Experience at Northwestern will allow high school students to take college-level courses from world-renowned doctors at one of the top medical schools in the country, studying everything from medical theory to medical practice, with special emphasis on Jewish medical ethics. Participants will also enjoy the opportunity to experience Chicago’s culture and entertainment.

Providing teenagers with the opportunity to take classes at the illustrious UCLA School of Theatre, Film and Television, The Hollywood Film School, according to Rabbi Schonbuch, will teach screenwriting, directing, film-editing, and editing musical scores. Participants will also have the opportunity to enjoy Southern California by visiting famous sites, amusement parks, Sony Pictures Studios, Warner Brothers Studios, and NBC.

This wide variety of offerings reflects NCSY’s objective to provide summer programs that give many different opportunities. According to National Chairman of NCSY, Moshe Bane, “NCSY is unique in that it can create programs to satisfy the spiritual needs of teens, without concern for the profit-motive. We do whatever is valuable for young people, fashioning programs for different levels of religious observance, while always keeping in mind the enjoyment component summer requires.”

Rabbi Schonbuch explained, “The popularity of NCSY summer programs results from niche marketing. In other words, we look for specific interests on the part of our audience and create programs in response to those interests.” He added that the Ivy League Leadership Scholars was created to capitalize on the trend of high schoolers taking college courses during their summer break. We are trying to find out what teens want to do with their summer and offer it to them in a Jewish environment,” he said.

One Ivy League scholar said the highlight of that program was “the Jewish personalities,” including prominent Orthodox attorney Nathan Lewin; Executive Vice Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations Malcolm Hoenlein; and President of Yeshiva University Richard Joel. “It was fascinating to learn not only how they remained passionately committed to Judaism and Jewish causes despite the demanding nature of their careers, but also how they actually utilized their religious dedication, values, and ideals to contribute to their professional achievements,” the participant said.

A speaker at the Ivy League program, a senior partner at a major Washington and New York law firm, which for many years did not hire Jews -- and later did not hire observant Jews because of the round-the-clock nature of the firm’s business -- addressed how Orthodox Jews have to blend their religious and professional lives.

“There is a special responsibility as an Orthodox Jew to be better than the rest,” he declared. “When you leave for Shabbat at 3:40 p.m. on Friday and other members of your team are working all night Friday and all day Saturday, you have the obligation to make up the time for Shabbat, Yom Tov, and Jewish life cycle events that the others don’t have to do.” He also said that “the firm’s partners of 50 years ago must be rolling over in their graves at the thought that so many Jews, and even Orthodox Jews, are employed by the firm.”

Both the Spain and Israel Adventure and the Ivy League Leadership Scholars programs reflect NCSY’s philosophy of combining a fun summer experience with education. Rabbi Schonbuch pointed to OU Executive Vice President Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb serving as Scholar-in-Residence in Spain as a highlight of the summer.

In an essay that has been published in Jewish newspapers across the U.S., Abby Laub, of Buffalo, NY, a participant on the Spain and Israel Adventure, wrote, “This trip was more than an experience; it was a statement of commitment to the Jewish nation. From our first day in Spain, when we prayed at the medieval synagogue whose congregants had been victims of the Inquisition, to the last day in Israel, when we formed a link of 200,000 Jews from Gush Katif to the Kotel (Western Wall) to demonstrate the solidarity and strength of a unified nation, we learned what being part of the Jewish people means.”

NCSY’s largest contingent travels to Israel, participating in the various learning and touring programs offered there. Michlelet and Kollel are two programs that provide intensive learning for young men and women, while the The Jerusalem Journey and Israel Leadership Challenge offer touring opportunities. Volunteers for Israel, or as NCSY calls it, “the Jewish peace corps,” provides teenagers with numerous options to help those suffering in Israel. The program is expanding for next summer.

The Jewish Overseas Leadership Training (JOLT) program that travels to Ukraine, Poland and Israel had so many applicants, that, like last summer, they took two separate trips.

In addition to Israel and Europe, NCSY has trips that travel throughout the U.S. and Canada, among them Outward Bound, a camping tour for parents and their teenagers. While hiking, camping, rappelling and rafting, NCSY remembers to enhance the Jewish aspect of the summer. “Too often Judaism is contained within the four walls of a classroom,” explained Rabbi Schonbuch. “We strive to address the unique needs and desires of teenagers to experience and to see new things.”

Overall, NCSY offers so many different experiences that no matter what a teen’s particular interest, NCSY will undoubtedly offer a program that caters to it. As one Ivy League Leadership Scholars participant said, “The program seemed almost as if it had been designed for me.”

Photos from this summer:

Ivy League Leadership Scholars at Columbia Law School with former New York State Attorney General Robert Abrams

NCSYers in Spain next to a statue of Don Quixote

A JOLT participant with two Jewish children at the OU summer camp in Kharkov, Ukraine

NCSY

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The Orthodox Union, now in its second century of service to the Jewish community of North America and beyond, is a world leader in community and synagogue services, adult education, youth work through NCSY, political action through the IPA, and advocacy for persons with disabilities through Yachad and Our Way. Its kosher supervision label, the , is the world’s most recognized kosher symbol and can be found on over 275,000 products manufactured in 68 countries around the globe.

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