July 2, 2004
Teens Depart on Trip of a Lifetime:
NCSY Summer Programs Visit Jewish Past
in Europe and Jewish
Future in Israel
From all over the United States and from Canada and Latin America as
well, almost 550 teenagers converged on John F. Kennedy International
Airport in New York in late June and early July ready to leave on the
trip of their lives. Organized by the National Conference of Synagogue
Youth (NCSY), the youth movement of the Orthodox Union, the high school
students were boarding planes to travel to Europe exploring Jewish
history, then ultimately to converge in Israel.
Prague, Poland, the Ukraine and Spain are the destinations NCSYers will
explore as they travel back in time to the Golden Age of Spain, the
height of Eastern European Torah scholarship, its demise in the
Holocaust and the miracle of the modern State of Israel.
“All of our programs converge in Israel,” declared Rabbi Daniel
Schonbuch, the National Educational Director of NCSY. “That’s the point
of the programs because we want the participants to have the opportunity
to see Jewish history in Europe and then to see the future of the Jewish
people in Israel.”
Rabbi Schonbuch says that NCSY summer programs give teenagers an
opportunity to grow as Jews even beyond what they experience on an NCSY
Shabbaton weekend. “Our summer programs are like a five-week Shabbaton
on wheels,” he said. “Imagine the ruach (spirit), the spirituality, the
excitement. Everything we do in the summer programs is an NCSY Shabbaton
on a grand scale, and everything is turned into a Jewish education
experience.”
One of NCSY’s best-known programs, Jewish Overseas Leadership Training,
known as JOLT, brings teenagers to Ukraine to spend three weeks as
counselors at the OU/NCSY summer camp in Kharkov. JOLT then tours Poland
as the students learn about Jewish scholarship and the Holocaust and
then ultimately go on to Israel. Leadership training is emphasized
throughout.
For the first time this year NCSY is offering the Spain and Israel
Adventure, which not only tours Madrid, Barcelona, Toledo, Sevilla,
Cordoba, and Gibraltar -- where the group will observe their first
Shabbat -- but it also allows students to receive high school credit in
Jewish history. With OU Executive Vice President Rabbi Tzvi Hersh
Weinreb as Scholar-in-Residence, participants will visit the birthplace
of Maimonides, see the great tourist sites, and reflect on the glorious
and tragic history of Spanish Jewry before going on to Israel.
Rabbi Schonbuch summed up the importance of NCSY summer programs: “The
teens learn from dynamic educators and enjoy themselves tremendously
while thinking about their own Judaism and their own development as
Jews.”
The following photos are of participants – all
public school students - on the NCSY summer program, The Jerusalem
Journey (TJJ), which will stop in Prague before going to Israel.
Having a snack before departure
Arriving at JFK
* * *
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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