Andy Epstein, Phil Katz, Moshe Zharnest, Erez Dadon, and Shai Berman flank one of the breakfast customers.

Living in Rex, Ga., Pastor Willie Brown doesn’t have occasion to meet Jewish people — let alone teenage boys wearing skullcaps. But after flooding damaged his home and its basement church, 15 Orthodox high school students from New Jersey dug up his soggy floor tiles, sanitized his moldy walls, and brought his salvaged furniture back inside.

The experience will likely affect the Christian clergyman’s image of Jews for the rest of his life, said Rabbi Josh Kahn, director of student activities at Torah Academy of Bergen County.

TABC selected 10 students for the Oct 21 to 25 service trip, joined by five members of the National Conference of Synagogue Youth, the Orthodox Union’s youth arm.

“In previous years, we sent students to do disaster relief in New Orleans and Texas,” said Kahn. “We’re trying to make an annual mission in partnership with NCSY. This is a way for our combined student bodies to see their ability to make an impact on someone else’s life beyond the immediate area.”

It was also a way to cultivate participants’ leadership skills and to foster fellowship between the yeshiva students and the NCSY members, most of whom attend public schools. Kahn accompanied the group along with NCSY advisers Moshe Zharnest and Yechiel Schaffer of Fair Lawn.

The project was coordinated and directed by Nechama, a non-denominational Jewish disaster response organization based in Minnesota. Nechama personnel briefed the boys when they reached Georgia, stressing that their visibility as Jews carried the potential for a uniquely positive impression.

Brown’s home was one of three the young men worked on. “We had to take out all his things in order to dig up the floor, and then bring everything back afterward,” said Kahn. “He was extremely friendly to us, and as he was going through his belongings, choosing what he wanted to keep and what could be discarded, that helped us think about our priorities in life as well.”

Sammy Schwartz, a TABC floor-hockey team member from Teaneck, said he almost passed up the trip because it meant missing a key game. But after discussing the opportunity with his coach and his parents, he decided to go — and has no regrets.

“I learned how much one little mitzvah can do,” said Schwartz. “I thought we did things that might not make such a big difference, but after seeing people’s reactions, and how thankful they were, I realized how much it meant to them.”

Senior Seth Feuerstein-Rudin of Teaneck helped document the mission for a video to be shown to the entire TABC student body. “One of the homeowners told us that after the flooding she had to be rowed back to her house in a boat, and she started bawling while telling the story,” he said. “At the end, she told us, ‘Thank you so much — it means so much that someone is looking out for me.’ It made a huge impression on us and that she saw Jews, teenage boys, doing these things for her.”

Kahn said that another homeowner commented, “We see so many stories of teenagers getting in trouble. The reporters always seem to catch those stories. But where are the newspapers to see this group come from New Jersey to help a woman they never met before?”

Rabbi Eitan Katz, director of NCSY’s North Jersey region and coordinator for six service missions in the past three years, said the five participants were prepared for their journey in after-school sessions about tikkun olam (“fixing” the world), anti-Semitism, and Jewish and non-Jewish life outside the New York metropolitan area.

“They got a feeling of what it means to actually help other human beings, contribute to the human race, and care about someone besides yourself whether they’re Jews or not,” said Katz. “When you work side by side with people whose houses were destroyed, you can be sure the effects go on for years to come. They will tell their grandchildren about these kids who came out of nowhere to help.”

The NCSY volunteers included Erez Dadon, a senior at Fair Lawn High School; Phil Katz, a junior at Northern Highlands High School; Avi Steinbach, a senior at Paramus High; Brian Steinberg, a Teaneck 12th-grader at Solomon Schechter High School of West Orange; and Benjy Stokar, a Teaneck High senior.

The other TABC volunteers included juniors Shimmy Auman, Jeffrey Berger, Amiad Callen, Ezra Chefitz, Yosie Friedman, and Shua Katz, and seniors Shai Berman and Andy Epstein.

On the final day of the mission, the boys volunteered with an Atlanta organization that brings meals to the homeless in a parking lot. “For some of them, that was the most powerful part of the experience,” said Kahn.

While a few boys served, the others socialized with those who had come for a meal.

“We were all surprised at how polite and thankful they all were,” said Schwartz. “One man noticed the [star of] David necklace my friend was wearing, and he said that sometimes you can be down like the bottom point and sometimes you’re up like the top point. He told us that right now he’s at the low point but he wants to get back to the top.”

Kahn said the mission was heavily subsidized in order not to restrict it to students who could afford the airfare and accommodations. “We see it as an investment in developing leaders, something both our organizations are committed to doing,” he said. “When these young men hear about a tragedy in the future, they might think, ‘What can I do to help?’ They will know that their actions made a difference in the lives of three people.”

WASHINGTON – Teenager Adam Nesenoff and his father, Rabbi David Nesenoff, are pretty far down the media food chain.

The son, an active member of the National Council for Synagogue Youth, the Orthodox Union’s affiliated youth group, runs his own newsy site, Shmoozepoint.com. Dad operates a website called RabbiLive.com and sometimes portrays the satirical character of Julio Ramirez, a Hispanic priest who teams with a rabbi to deliver “Holy Weather” reports.

So it was impressive enough that both managed to snag media credentials for the American Jewish Heritage Month celebration May 27 at the White House. But in the past week, the senior Nesenoff took things to another level, turning his few hours as a hobnobber into 15 minutes of fame as the YouTube journalist who brought down a media icon.

Helen Thomas, known for her rough questioning of presidents, resigned this week after being assailed for saying that Israeli Jews should “go home.” Michael Foley/Flickr

It was the rabbi, armed with a camera and accompanied by his son and his teenage friend, who went around asking notables if they had any “comments on Israel.”

As the world now knows, Helen Thomas sure did.

“Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine,” the doyenne of the Washington press corps said, and laughed. “Remember, these people are occupied, and it’s their land.”

Nesenoff asked where she thought they should go.

“Go home,” she responded.

Asked to elaborate, Thomas said, “Poland, Germany,” and after more prompting by the rabbi, added “and America, and everywhere else.”

The rabbi didn’t post the video until June 3, but it quickly gained national attention, unleashing a flurry of demands for Thomas’ marginalization, if not dismissal.

On Monday, Thomas, 89, heeded the calls and quit, according to her employer, the Hearst Corp. Thomas’ phone number was not answering.

The Nesenoff video went viral after being picked up by Yidwithlid, a popular site run by the conservative commentator Sammy Benoit, and then posted to the hyper-popular conservative video site Breitbart TV.

That’s when the complaints started: First out of the box was B’nai B’rith International, which issued a June 4 statement from its president, Dennis Glick, demanding that Thomas be fired.

A diverse slew of other Jewish organizations soon followed with their own condemnations. Officials of the two most recent administrations — Ari Fleischer of the Bush administration and Lanny Davis of the Clinton administration — also slammed Thomas and called for her to be sacked.

The first death knell for Thomas’ career, though, probably came when she found herself being criticized on liberal Websites such as Huffington Post and Talking Points Memo, which have long lauded her for asking discomfiting questions of presidents — particularly her encounters with George W. Bush during the Iraq War.

Joe Klein, the Time magazine scribe who has been a tough critic of Israel’s Netanyahu government, called her views “odious” and said she should no longer have the privilege, accorded by the White House Correspondents Association, of a front row center seat.

Thomas’ apology, posted June 4, preceded most of the broadsides against her.

“I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians,” she said in the apology. “They do not reflect my heart-felt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon.”

Critics, including the Anti-Defamation League, said it did not go far enough.

By Monday, such requests appeared moot: After a series of blows, it was clear her career was finished.

On Sunday, Thomas was dropped by her speaking agent, Nine Speakers. The following day, the Washington Post reported that Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Md. — a Washington suburb with a substantial Jewish population — was withdrawing its invitation to Thomas to be commencement speaker.

The final blow was a one-two: The White House Correspondents Association met to consider her front-row center perch. And White House spokesman Robert Gibbs called the remarks “offensive and reprehensible.”

The die was cast: Midday Monday, Hearst announced her retirement.

“Helen Thomas announced Monday that she is retiring, effective immediately,” said a statement issued Monday by the corporation. “Her decision came after her controversial comments about Israel and the Palestinians were captured on videotape and widely disseminated on the Internet.”

It was a rapid fall for a woman who had become a liberal icon.

Thomas was a perennial, admired for becoming, during the Kennedy administration, one of the first women to cover the White House beat. She was granted the first question at news conferences, and finished each conference with a “Thank you Mr. President.” She earned the ultimate Washington status symbol: cameos in movies about politics.

Thomas, for decades a consummate insider who had watched her beloved UPI diminish into irrelevance, embraced her new status as an irascible outsider. In 2006 she published the book “Watchdogs of Democracy? The Waning Washington Press Corps and How It Has Failed the Public.”

Her posture as maverick was something of a feint: Washington has long nurtured an establishment journalist culture that cozies up to power, and Thomas since the 1960s was one of its denizens, hobnobbing with the Kennedys, the Johnsons, and their confidants.

Thomas, the child of Lebanese immigrants, was known to be a fierce critic of Israel and what she saw as the unwillingness of successive U.S. administrations to speak out against Jerusalem’s supposed misdeeds.

Her most recent encounter with Gibbs, after Israel’s raid on a Turkish-flagged aid ship, came after her remarks to Nesenoff but before he revealed them to the world.

She called Israel’s raid a “deliberate massacre” and said the White House’s expression of “regret” was “pitiful.”

Dan Mariaschin, the director of B’nai B’rith, said Thomas’ comments should have come as no surprise.

“There’s a Yiddish expression, ‘What’s on your lung is on your tongue,’” he said. “She has a long record of being purposefully hypercritical of Israel.”

Mariaschin acknowledged that the timing was against her. B’nai B’rith would have called for her dismissal even without the opprobrium visited on Israel after the flotilla raid, but it didn’t help, he said.

“The timing was such that, coming as it did right after the flotilla issue, I think perhaps it brought her comments into even starker focus,” he said.

Nesenoff, of Stony Brook, N.Y., said he had accompanied his son and his friend to share the joyful experience of the White House’s Jewish celebration.

Adam Nesenoff, 17, who in addition to running his own Website is his father’s Webmaster, had applied for a media credential after hearing that the event would have a youthful emphasis. The elder Nesenoff asked the White House if he could join his son, explaining that otherwise he would be stuck outside the whole day waiting to drive him home.

They wandered the grounds near the White House press room before the event. Rabbi Nesenoff said he pointed out Thomas to the teens because she was a press icon. He was vaguely aware she had views critical of Israel, but did not think she would be so outrageous.

“People can have their opinions, but this was ‘Get out of the whole land, cleanse the whole land of Jews,’” he said. “We’re there in our Shabbos best, we had driven down — we were taken back. If it was a skinhead in a parking lot — but here’s this sweet little old lady on the White House grounds. We were hurt.”

Nesenoff said he still hopes for a more expansive apology from Thomas.

“She has to do a little ‘tikkun olam,’” the rabbi said. “I hope to God she lives a very long time; she has business yet.”

JTA

Some 150 public-school teenagers from around the country will forgo ski trips and New Year’s parties during their winter vacations next week to study Torah with NCSY and spend New Year’s Eve at a shabbaton in Teaneck.

Tuesday marks the first day of the Yarchei Kallah, an annual study program geared toward NCSY teenagers from non-Orthodox backgrounds. Students will hear speakers from around the world, including scholar-in-residence Rabbi Menachem Nissel of Jerusalem, at the Hilton Hotel in Stamford, Conn., during the five-day program. In the past, NCSY leaders have made Shabbat in the hotel for the students, but this year they wanted to provide a different experience. On Friday, Dec. 31, the students will arrive in Teaneck for a Shabbaton at Cong. Keter Torah, where many of the students will have their first “authentic Shabbat experience,” according to organizers.

“This year, instead of creating our own atmosphere for Shabbat, we wanted to expose the kids to a Shabbat-observant community,” said Rabbi Yaakov Glasser, director of NCSY New Jersey.

Part of the experience will be challenging perceptions of what an Orthodox community is like. Teaneck is a prime example of a community that is full of “highly educated and sophisticated modern people who embrace a Torah way of life,” Glasser said.

“The Teaneck community really has the capacity over this weekend to completely shift the impressions and the experiences of these kids as they relate to Torah Judaism,” he said.

About 2,000 students participate in NCSY across New Jersey, but only 50 percent are from Orthodox backgrounds. Programs focus on concepts such as chesed and tzedakah, rather than heavy study that would require a day-school background.

“The non-religious kids meet Jewish teenagers who are from a religious background who are cool, who are normal, who are sophisticated,” Glasser said. “It demystifies for them what it means to be a religious Jew.”

Orthodox students and families who participate will benefit as well, Glasser said, by seeing the reactions of teenagers for whom religious observance is not routine. Orthodox teenagers can sometimes become complacent about their religious observance, he said, and when the non-Orthodox students see that religion and modernity can co-exist, the Orthodox students are reinvigorated by the enthusiasm around them.

“When we walk into Keter Torah on Friday night for kabbalat Shabbat and there is singing and dancing and enthusiastic embrace of the Shabbat experience, that is going to be an experience created by nonreligious students for religious people,” he said. “When they see that enthusiasm and that passion and that commitment, that is something that is going to make a mark on their own religious experience.”

Rabbi Shalom Baum, religious leader of Keter Torah, looks forward to welcoming the students and giving them a taste of the Orthodox community. He will lead a discussion on Friday night about WikiLeaks and Jewish views on privacy.

“We sometimes take our rituals and our everyday lives for granted,” Baum said. “Hopefully, the participants of the NCSY program will meet teenagers who are very engaged with society and the realities of contemporary life, but also with fidelity to Torah values.”

The Shabbaton is not about pushing Orthodoxy, Baum emphasized, but creating social opportunities for the students beyond their normal circles. It is also an opportunity for his congregants to meet people from the broader Jewish community, he said. The rabbi sees the program as part of his synagogue’s mission of outreach.

“I don’t see it as a missionizing attempt,” Baum said. “It shouldn’t be an attempt to ‘show them the way.’ The basic approach is the inherent value of socializing with as broad a population of Jews as possible.”

In addition to Baum, Friday night will include a “Jew Year’s Eve” oneg.

“We’re going to create a New Year’s for a group of kids used to celebrating with parties, and we’re going to do it from a Jewish experience,” Glasser said.

Is it too expensive to be an Orthodox Jew today? What are the keys to a happy marriage? And what about the day-school tuition crisis?

The Orthodox Union will address these and other issues when it convenes its biannual convention next weekend in Bergen County to discuss the future role of Orthodoxy, and the Orthodox Union, in the Jewish community.

“The goal of the convention is to deal with some of the major issues facing our community,” said convention chair Emanuel Adler, a Teaneck resident, “while at the same time utilizing the resources of the Orthodox Union and demonstrating to our constituency that the union deals with various issues and has the resources to do so.”

David Olivestone Photos Courtesy OU

Following a Shabbat at the Woodcliff Lake Hilton for synagogue presidents and delegates, the biannual convention will begin the evening of Saturday, Jan. 15, at Cong. Keter Torah in Teaneck, with a discussion on the cost of Jewish living moderated by “JM in the AM” radio host Nachum Segal. That Shabbat marks the yahrtzeit of Rabbi Steven Dworken, former vice president of the Rabbinical Council of America, and his family has dedicated the Saturday evening program in his memory.

“The cost of Jewish living doesn’t just involve the tuition bill,” said David Olivestone, a Teaneck resident who is the OU’s senior communications officer. “It’s the cost of a house [near a synagogue], cost of summer camp, food because of yom tov and Shabbat…. You have to be wealthy to be observant. It’s the most talked about topic on everybody’s mind.”

The conference will continue on Sunday at the Woodcliff Lake Hilton, with more than 25 seminars in three separate tracks: Torah life, community life, and synagogue life. Seminars include topics such as making prayer more meaningful, Israel’s conversion controversy, dating, and fund-raising.

“It’s a chance to convene the greater Orthodox community to address the issues that we all wrestle with and to hear from those who’ve accomplished facts on the ground in the different areas that concern us all,” said Rabbi Steven Weil, a Teaneck resident who is the OU’s executive vice president.

Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Weinreb, the OU’s executive vice president emeritus, will lead a plenary session on the Mesorah, the chain of Jewish tradition and its role in the modern Jewish community. A second plenary, moderated by Weil, will discuss the Orthodox role in the wider Jewish community. The panel will include Jewish Federations of North America CEO Jerry Silverman.

“We’re trying to open up a topic for everyone,” Olivestone said.

The convention is an opportunity for OU leaders to vote on resolutions that will guide the organization through the next two years, including electing the OU’s board, he said. Saturday night’s program and Sunday’s sessions are open to the public, while voting will take place Sunday during separate closed meetings.

Many people think of the OU as only a kashrut organization, Adler said. He pointed to such programs as NCSY, Yachad, and other services that the OU constituency and the wider community may not be aware of.

Adler, who also chaired the convention in 1994, ‘96, and ‘98, does not expect solutions to all of the issues facing the Jewish community to emerge from it, but said the conference would be considered a success if it sparks discussions and raises awareness of the Jewish community’s challenges and the role the OU plays in meeting them.

Rabbi Steven Weil

The past three conferences have been held in Israel, when the OU decided to boost an Israeli economy and tourism industry battered by the Palestinian intifada. With Israeli tourism reaching record numbers this year, the leadership decided to bring the convention back to the United States and chose Bergen County because of its centrality to the metropolitan area, where a large portion of the U.S. Orthodox Jewish population lives.

“This time we felt a lot more people are traveling to Israel on their own and we wanted to bring [the convention] within reach of everybody,” Olivestone said.

Weil also pointed to the Hilton and its ability to accommodate the hundreds of expected attendees and observe Shabbat restrictions as a drawing point for Bergen County. While none of the organizers offered exact estimates, they said they expect several hundred to attend Sunday’s sessions.

The conference is typically held in even years on Thanksgiving weekend. Organizers decided that bringing the conference back to the United States on that weekend would present too many logistical problems, however, and moved it to Martin Luther King Jr. weekend. The next conference is planned for late 2012 or early 2013, although no location has been chosen.

For more information on the OU conference, including a list of speakers and topics, visit www.ou.org/convention.

Joseph (Yossi) Stechler of Teaneck, the newly appointed chairman of the Orthodox Union’s National Youth Commission, envisions the movement’s NCSY as a massive life preserver for “Jewish teens floating away from the Jewish people without knowing anything about the beauty of Jewish tradition.”

At the helm of the international youth movement, founded in 1954, he hopes to shore up these floundering youth, with whom he can identify.

The public school-educated son of Polish Holocaust survivors, Stechler recalls feeling “very impacted by the fact that my father and mother would cry for forgiveness on Yom Kippur despite the horrific experiences in their childhoods” and determined to learn more about Judaism.

After Yeshiva University and a brief law career on Wall Street, Stechler built a successful investment firm and raised four children with his wife, Gail. “I decided, as a form of thanks to God for helping us to build a beautiful Jewish family, that I needed to help other Jewish kids who knew little about their heritage to make educated choices,” he says.

Joseph Stechler, chairman of NCSY, standing, with Teaneck High School student Aaron Karp and Rael Blumenthal, an NCSY adviser.

He joined the leadership of NCSY about 25 years ago, when it consisted mainly of Orthodox synagogue-based youth groups, and advocated creating “cool” educational programs for Jewish public high school students.

“Over the years, I’ve been astounded by the extraordinary success NCSY has had in letting teens experience a taste of the warmth of Judaism and instilling in them a love of Israel,” he says. “Thirty-five thousand kids went through NCSY programs, and many have become observant, many have made aliyah, and virtually everyone has had a positive experience and built a stronger attachment to the Jewish people.”

The organization has chapters in 28 states, and in Israel, Canada, Germany, and Chile. In northern New Jersey, it has chapters in Hackensack, Fair Lawn, Teaneck, Passaic, and Paramus.

Stechler aims to expand NCSY’s informal education programs, one-on-one learning, Shabbatons, and Israel summer and university programs to reach additional unaffiliated Jewish teens, as well as day school and yeshiva students who have a knowledge base but lack a strong emotional commitment to Jewish observance.

“We need to touch the heart of every Jewish teen,” he says. “Everyone has to decide on his or her own future and level of observance, but we can give them the education and experiences to make the best decisions.”

That effort will require money as well as dedication. “During World War II, it was almost impossible to buy Jewish lives — even if one was willing to pay those trying to kill them — but now it’s easy,” he says. “For a $1,000 scholarship, for example, we can get an additional teen into an extraordinary Israel summer experience.”

One of his favorites is the four-week NCSY Jerusalem Journey for Jewish public high school students. He and his wife greet each one with home-baked chocolate-chip cookies at their second home in Zichron Yaacov, on the Mediterranean shore.

“One young man on that program asked me why we were providing scholarships to them. I said, ‘I’m in the investment field and you’re the best investment I can make,’” recalls Stechler.

He also hopes to use NCSY’s huge alumni base to build Jewish activity centers at major college campuses, working in tandem with the OU’s Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus, Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, and other groups. “I want to get more Jewish college kids involved with Shabbat meals, study programs, lectures, and trips to Israel,” he says.

NCSY has become one of the leading and fastest-growing providers of Birthright trips, giving thousands of college students an intense learning experience over 10 free days in Israel.

Stechler is not hesitant to address the 2000 scandal that rocked NCSY when Fair Lawn resident Baruch Lanner, then NCSY’s director of regions, was accused (and eventually convicted on several counts) of sexual and physical abuse by former NCSYers and students at a Deal yeshiva where he had been principal. NCSY subsequently formulated guidelines to assure “an environment in which NCSYers, NCSY volunteers, and NCSY professionals can grow and learn ... free from unwelcome attention and any other form of physical, psychological, or emotional abuse.”

Stechler says that when the accusations first surfaced, he and his wife immediately urged the OU to fire Lanner. Today, all NCSY leaders have Stechler’s emergency contact information in case of issues regarding inappropriate behavior.

“The safety of all the children is my first responsibility and that is the policy of the OU,” he says. “I believe NCSY learned a painful lesson and has grown dramatically since that time with a very important emphasis on the safety and growth of the kids entrusted to us.”

The Stechlers — who have also taken leadership roles in Jewish educational and outreach organizations including Yeshiva College, the Rosenbaum Yeshiva of North Jersey, The Moriah School, Nishmat, and Ohr Torah — have four grown children, two of whom teach at Jewish day schools.

Captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit is the focus of two Jewish youth events with New Jersey connections in a single week.

On April 7, some 250 students on the Young Judaea Year Course in Israel were to stage a “Freeze-Out” in Jerusalem’s Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall to publicize Shalit’s plight and advocate for the International Red Cross to visit the young man, who was seized by Hamas in Gaza in June 2006, two months before his 20th birthday.

And NCSY, the international youth movement of the Orthodox Union, is sponsoring “Learn for Gilad” on Sunday, April 10. More than 200 teens across North America will study Jewish texts exploring freedom, dedicating their learning in Gilad’s merit with the hope that this Passover he might be able to celebrate his freedom back home with his family in Israel.

Preparing for the “Freeze-Out” for Gilad Shalit are, from left, Yossi Akrish (Haifa), Jon Karp (East Brunswick), Joel Srebrenick (South Orange), and Ayal Pierce (Demarest). courtesy of ayal pierce

Among those spearheading the Young Judaea effort was Demarest 18-year-old Ayal Pierce.

“My friends and I felt we needed to do something meaningful with our free time, and wanted to raise awareness about Gilad’s situation among Jews in America, who don’t know much about it,” said Pierce.

They decided on a “freeze-out,” where 250 of the 320 Year Course students were to don “Free Gilad Shalit” T-shirts, gather with placards at the downtown Jerusalem spot, and freeze in place for five minutes — symbolizing the nearly five years that Shalit has been in captivity.

Pierce noted that as of April 7, Shalit would have been imprisoned for 1,745 days without any basic human rights. This adds up to about 250 weeks, the same as the number of expected participants.

He and two co-coordinators from Scotland and South Orange arranged the event through their leadership to be educational. “As a non-partisan international youth movement, we cannot advocate,” he explained, “and because the Year Course gives a year of college credit, the courses [missed during the event] had to be rescheduled.”

They arranged for bus transportation to the pedestrian mall for Year Course students in Bat Yam and Arad as well as Jerusalem, said Pierce.

As president of New Jersey Young Judaea last year, when he was a senior at Northern Valley High School in Demarest, Pierce took part in a rally against nuclear Iran in Manhattan and raised money for victims of rocket attacks in Sderot.

“One of the pillars of Young Judaea is social action,” said the son of Robin and Fred Pierce. Another of his projects was Change for Change, which raised about $1,000 for child refugees in Israel and was replicated by Young Judaea chapters in other parts of the country. He hopes the idea of the Freeze-In will similarly spread throughout the youth movement’s chapters.

“Our aim is to put more pressure on Hamas and, at the very least, for them to allow the International Red Cross to check on Gilad’s health and well-being,” he said.

Rabbi Steven Burg, NCSY International Director, said the NCSY study project seeks to “remind our community and the world that we will continue to advocate, pray, and learn on his behalf. As our Jewish brother and as a Jewish hero, Gilad Shalit is always on our minds and in our hearts.”

Participating students will be paired based upon skill level and interests submitted on the online registration form (there is a link at http://www.ncsy.org), and will be e-mailed source materials compiled by NCSY member Shaul Yaakov Morrison of Bergenfield with the assistance of New Jersey NCSY Regional Director Rabbi Yaakov Glasser and NCSY Associate Director of Education Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin.

The concept for the project arose during NCSY’s last National Yarchei Kallah, a week-long winter vacation event for public high school students. NCSY International Teen President Amanda Esraelian of Roslyn, N.Y., and NCSY teen leader Phil Katz of Upper Saddle River were brainstorming ideas with Glasser to unify NCSYers across the nation with a singular goal to make a difference for the Jewish people.

“As we discussed many different possibilities, our thoughts began to drift to the plight of Gilad Shalit,” said Glasser. “Since he was not much older than our NCSYers when he was abducted, our teens all felt overwhelming compassion for him, but were unsure of how to contribute toward his ultimate release.”

Glasser said the idea of a day of learning in association with Passover is hoped to “galvanize all of the NCSY regions in a unified project ... and be an expression of personal and religious growth on the part of teens across North America to stand in support with Gilad and his family.”

A team from Ma’ayanot High School spent five days helping flood victims in Minnesota. Top row, from left, Miriam Apter, Julie Schwartz, Ilana Weinberger, Emily Blumenfeld, Chani Dubin, Racheli Weil, Daniella Steinreich, Daniella Meyer, Eileen Schwartz, and Chani Colton. Bottom, from left, Rebecca Lipschitz, Natali Moyal, Gali Sadek, Molly Brodsky, and local residents. courtesy ma’ayanot

Seeing physical devastation up close is painful — but helping the victims of disaster rebuild their lives is rewarding, say 12 Ma’ayanot students who recently returned from Minnestota.

The girls, 10th- and 11th-graders at the Teaneck high school, spent five days helping flood victims in Oronoco Park. The city, severely damaged in October by overflow from the Zumbro, a tributary of the Mississippi River, has yet to recover.

“I was surprised when we got there because the flood happened in October and there are still so many people left on their own to finish [salvaging] their own houses. It’s sad,” said Daniella Steinreich, a sophomore who participated in the cleanup. “The other organizations have all gone home.”

“You learn to appreciate your house and everything you have,” said junior Daniella Meyer, who spoke with people there who had lost all their belongings. “And to appreciate where you live,” added Emily Blumenfeld, another junior, who said she’s happy not to live in a flood zone.

Ariella Steinreich, Ma’ayanot’s community service coordinator, said the girls participated in the mission under the auspices of NCSY, the international youth movement of the Orthodox Union. For the past two years, New Jersey NCSY has taken all-boys’ and coed groups to sites of natural disasters, such as New Orleans and Galveston, Texas, or they have done urban renewal work in places such as Buffalo.

“But this is the first NCSY all-girls team sent to assist in relief work,” said Steinreich.

“Each student was selected based upon her own merits,” said Rabbi Ethan Katz, New Jersey NCSY associate regional director, before the girls left for Minnesota. “This is not a class field trip,” he added, noting that the girls would be given meaningful work, “often demanding, and open to schedule changes due to what is deemed most beneficial for the communities in need. It is a disaster relief mission — a chesed mission.”

For this trip, the Orthodox group worked with Nechama: The Jewish Response to Disaster, a Minnesota-based organization that provides and coordinates volunteer assistance to communities in need.

Accompanying the students were Katz, NCSY chapter advisor Miriam Apter, Ma’ayanot Talmud teacher Rabbi Zev Prince, and school athletic director Eileen Schwartz.

While in Minnesota, the girls not only helped repair homes but also participated in the Susan G. Komen for the Cure 5K Walk held on May 8 in Bloomington. On Shabbat, they visited with peers from the local Jewish community.

Sophomore Molly Brodsky said she was most moved by the group’s experience at Mary’s Place, a shelter that houses both adults and children.

“The children ran to us and asked to play games,” she said. “One kid was crying and asked if we could stay for one more game. They weren’t used to seeing teenagers from the outside world.”

Racheli Weil, also a sophomore, was struck by the turnout at the breast cancer walk.

“There were about 50,000 people,” she said. “It was amazing.”

“It meant a lot [to be] representing Jewish women,” Molly added. “There were church organizations there but our group was different, and people noticed. They saw Jewish girls marching and that we really do care.”

“A lot of them hadn’t met Jews before,” said Daniella Steinreich. “It’s important that we got to make a first impression as Jews and show how much we like to help other people.”

Molly said she was impressed by the local Jewish community.

“They’re the nicest people I ever met in my entire life,” she said. “We ate Shabbat dinner and they asked about our lives and said that what we’re doing is great. Everyone said hello. It’s such a close-knit community and so caring.”

“It was beautiful,” said sophomore Ilana Weinberger of the time spent in Minnesota. “We helped other people, but we also helped ourselves as individuals.”

“How many times do you get to go to the middle of nowhere and help people rebuild their lives?” echoed Weil.

“They’ve been home less than 24 hours and their friends are looking up to them as peer role models,” said the school’s community service coordinator on Monday. “They went above and beyond.”

Steinreich said she was grateful for the support Ma’ayanot had given to the project and to NCSY “for giving us this opportunity.”

Ma’ayanot girls are obligated to engage in eight community service projects each year, said Steinreich, explaining that she compiles an annual listing of service opportunities in the students’ hometowns.

“But there’s so much enthusiasm,” she said. “Some girls do between 10 and 20 projects, some between 20 and 35, and some are hitting 50. It’s really nice how the girls really embrace it and look forward to it.”

While the Minnesota trip has been in the works for about two years, Ma’ayanot girls have had many other opportunities to be of service to the community.

“We have a weekly homework club called Pay It Forward,” said Steinreich, noting that some 60 of her students help tutor children from the local elementary school. “We’re so happy to have a program like this, that gives back to the community. We look forward to extending the borders of community service.”

“One of the things the school teaches is that being a good community member is important to the future of Judaism,” she said. “We’re really proud that we’re training future leaders.”

Ateenager from Teaneck is trying to inspire the next wave of Zionists. Josh Steinreich, 17, has created a program that would motivate people to stand up for Israel.

Josh, who recently finished his junior year at the Marsha Stern Talmudical Academy, Yeshiva University High School for Boys, first got the idea at last year’s Yom NCSY, a day filled with lectures on the importance of Israel held at Kibbutz Ma’aleh Hachamisha. Josh attended a speech by a reservist in the Israel Defense Forces. The speaker said, “If you want to stand up with Israel, stand now,” said Josh. “Everyone stood up, of course, but I decided to create an official program.”

This is the logo of Josh Steinreich’s group of Israel Advocacy. (Designed by Raquel Plaut)

The program, created in conjunction with NCSY, is called Israel Advocacy.

Under the user name NCSYILF, Josh posts videos on Youtube that focus on different parts of Israeli culture. For example, the program has made videos on topics such as Israeli Independence and Memorial Day, Holocaust Memorial Day, and Gilad Shalit.

Josh created the Gilad Shalit video for a special program ran by NCSY that organized teen learning in the captured soldiers’ honor all over North America. The sponsors plan to produce videos on aliyah, soldiers from foreign countries in the Israeli army, and Tisha B’Av.

“We want to raise awareness about various aspects of Israel to people who wouldn’t have regularly heard about them,” said Josh, who will attend Yeshiva Har Etzion in Israel at the end of the summer. “And people who do know about these topics will learn a little more.”

In addition to making videos, Josh would like to raise money to support two Israeli NCSY programs: Makom Balev, a program similar to NCSY in that it connects Jewish teenagers to their roots and aims to inspire them; and Mashiv Haruach, which, according to its website, aims “to re-inspire Israeli soldiers, to bring back the honor and the passion of the [IDF]” through historical and biblical exposure.

Corrine Malachi, a senior at The Shulamith School for Girls in Brooklyn, is planning to take over after Josh leaves for Israel. “I think it’s very important for everyone to be aware of what is going on in Israel nowadays and how now is the time to speak up, more than ever,” she told The Jewish Standard. “I can’t help but feel grateful to be able to come to this point in my NCSY career where I can step up and show my love for Israel by being able to lead NCSY’s Israel advocacy program.”

Corrine plans to extend NCSY Israel Advocacy’s reach. “I know quite a bit of people from my past few years in NCSY so I will tell them all about Israel Advocacy and hope that they will pass on the message to their friends and on and on.”

Elie Silow-Carroll is flanked by fellow TJJA participants Yeva Dymova and Brett Krutiansky.

Elie Silow-Carroll just finished battle training in Israel — not for a military confrontation, but for a potential war of words.

The Teaneck High School senior was the only local participant in The Jerusalem Journey Ambassadors, a leadership prep program for Jewish public school teen leaders from across North America sponsored by NCSY, the international youth movement of the Orthodox Union. Now in its second year, TJJA is designed to identify future college campus leaders and help them hone their Israel advocacy skills.

From July 7 to 11, the ambassadors — 15 boys and 20 girls — met with prominent figures and visited key sites in Israel to gain a firsthand understanding of current and ongoing struggles in the country.

“Israel’s most important battles are currently being fought in the battlefield of public opinion, and today we are outmanned and out-armed,” said Rabbi Aryeh Lightstone, regional director of New York NCSY and creator of the program. “We need to educate teens who will be influential on influential campuses.”

But it was not all work and no play, said Elie. “It’s been a great balance between learning and fun,” he said. “We did a lot of touring, learning history everywhere we went.”

From Eilat at Israel’s southern tip to the Golan Heights in the north, the teens hiked, built rafts, rappelled, went water tubing and did other outdoor activities interspersed with meetings and lectures. “We met with a woman whose son was killed in a terrorist attack,” Elie said. “We spent a day with Neil Lazarus [a British-born Israeli public relations consultant], who taught us how to advocate for Israel via the web; we each made websites in about 10 minutes.”

One field trip took them to Sderot, the southern development town that for nearly a decade has borne the brunt of thousands of missiles launched from Gaza. Guided by Noam Bedein, director of the Sderot Media Center, the young ambassadors were encouraged to use social networking tools for defending Israel.

They saw a large collection of Kassam, Katyusha, and Grad missiles displayed at the Sderot police station; toured a protected playground redesigned to be “Kassam-free”; and took part in a simulated “Code Red” alert during which they were given 15 seconds to seek refuge in a bomb shelter.

After stopping to observe a lookout above the Gaza border crossings where Israeli humanitarian aid is trucked daily into Gaza, the teens visited the Sderot Yeshivat Hesder, where post-high-school Israeli men alternate their military service with Torah studies. Rabbi Dovid Fendel, the head of the modern Orthodox yeshiva, showed them a menorah made of Kassam rocket pieces and declared the town to be “a symbol of hope.”

The group then settled into a hostel in nearby Yerucham, where the teenagers organized and ran a three-day summer camp for 45 children from Sderot, culminating in day-long carnival. Elie said eight years of learning Hebrew at Solomon Schechter Day School of Bergen County left him able to converse with the campers fairly well.

“While most teenage groups don’t even entertain the thought of visiting Sderot, our NCSYers witnessed how moved Sderot residents were because of our decision to come here,” said TJJA Director Rabbi Ben Zion Goldfischer, who made aliyah from Teaneck in 1999. “Our participants have more insight into the conflict and into the psychology of Sderot children.”

Elie gained more than an education on the conflict, however. “I didn’t know anyone coming in,” he said, “and now I’ve met people from all over North America,” including Oregon, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Toronto, and Nova Scotia, among other places. In addition, he said, “The advisers really influenced me. At any time, you could talk to them about anything at all, Jewish or secular. I learned so much from them and from the [formal] lectures.”

Alhough many of the participants had never been to Israel before, Elie lived in Jerusalem when he was a toddler and visited again during this eighth-grade year at Schechter. He said his parents, Andrew and Sharon, were fully supportive of his decision to apply to TJJA after he learned about it at a meeting of his high school’s Israel Club. “We thought it was a great opportunity for me to go to Israel and a perfect way to spend the summer.” Elie’s father edits the weekly newspaper New Jersey Jewish News, which is published by United Jewish Communities (UJC) of MetroWest, N.J.

Elie said he has never faced anti-Israel rhetoric at Teaneck High, but he has the impression most of his peers “just don’t know what’s going on in Israel, and the world media always portray Israel in a negative way.”

Newly armed with concrete facts, he therefore does not expect to change minds — only to educate them. “You’re not going to convince somebody [otherwise] who’s against Israel, but if I’m able to take the information I’ve learned here and share it, that’s the main battle.”

Volunteers from throughout the Jewish community worked with Nechama at a Lodi home on Sept. 11. They are shown here piling debris from the demolition of a flooded basement.

Ironic? Yes. Funny? No.

“Someone on the street had a powerboat in the driveway named Irene,” said Ridgewood resident Bette Birnbaum, who recently helped devastated families dig out after the hurricane.

Birnbaum, a member of Mahwah’s Reform synagogue Beth Haverim-Shir Shalom and a longtime instructor in the JFNNJ-sponsored Florence Melton Adult Mini-School, said the experience was both moving and eye-opening.

“The smell was deathly,” she said of the flooded homes. “Families were in great distress. It felt like it was the first time I had done something so helpful to someone.”

Working with her rabbi, Joel Mosbacher, and dozens of volunteers from the National Council of Synagogue Youth, Yeshiva University, and other organizations, Birnbaum joined an effort spearheaded by Nechama: The Jewish Response to Disaster, based in Minnesota.

Professionals from the organization arrived here on Labor Day and will remain through Rosh Hashanah. So far, they have worked in such hard-hit communities as River Edge, Saddle Brook, and Lodi.

“Their truck says, ‘A Jewish Response to Disaster,’” said Birnbaum, noting that the son of one woman they helped said he used to have “a chip on his shoulder regarding Jews. But now he loves them.”

Jim Stein, executive director of the organization, said fostering such changes of heart is one of the group’s goals.

“Frequently, we’re the only Jews some of these people have ever met,” he said, adding that much of his work has been in the American heartland.

On the other hand, some of his volunteers — like the NCSY members who have joined his projects more than a half-dozen times, in places from Birmingham to Texas — haven’t been exposed to non-Jews, either.

“It helps break stereotypes down,” he said.

Calling Nechama’s work “hard but rewarding” and “very messy,” Stein said the organization, founded in 1996, handles the initial clean-up after a flood.

‘Mucking out’

“We do the mucking out,” he said. “Our slogan is ‘Get dirty doing good.’ We tell our volunteers, ‘Imagine that this is your own basement.’ We also try to have them interview a disaster victim.”

Clean-up efforts are supervised by a trained professional, Dan Hoeft, the group’s operations manager. “We remove possessions, clear walls, clean, and sanitize,” said Hoeft, adding that when Nechama leaves, rebuilding can begin.

According to Stein, when a disaster occurs, Nechama sends an e-mail blast to people to have worked with the group previously, as well as to various groups, such as OU and Jewish federations, that may want to provide volunteers.

“They then call our contact person here in Minnesota and find out where we’ll be,” he said. “FEMA calls them ‘unaffiliated’ volunteers. They’re not affiliated with a particular group but they want to be helpful.”

“We have over 300 volunteers signed up to work with us between Sept. 5 and Sept. 28,” added Nechama administrator Amy Cytron.

Stein explained that after disasters, organizations such as the Red Cross and United Way encourage people in distress to call the emergency number 211 and request help. Local organizations then match up the victims with those equipped to provide assistance.

In the case of Hurricane Irene, Lisa Orloff of the World Cares Center, based in New York, monitored the 211 calls and provided Nechama with a list of New Jersey victims.

“Every state has a VOAD [Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster],” said Hoeft. When people who need help dial into the 211 system, “We work with them to help prioritize — the elderly, handicapped, single parents. We need to start with those who need the most help.”

‘We’re bouncing around’

Most sites can be done in a day, he said, pointing out that Nechama — together with volunteers from NCSY, Yeshiva University, Beth Haverim-Shir Shalom, and NYU — have already tackled sites in Saddle Brook, River Edge, Lodi, and Paterson.

“We’re bouncing around,” he said. “We’re going to expand to Essex and Passaic because there’s no volunteer presence there.”

Sizing up the damage inflicted in northern New Jersey, Hoeft said, “A disaster is a disaster — whether eight feet or a few inches of water — if you can’t deal with it yourself. Some homes were slightly damaged. In some, the main level of the house was under five feet of water. It destroys clothes, food, dishes, lives. It didn’t seem [the storm] would do that much, but the aftermath really affected people.”

In notes she kept detailing Nechama’s efforts in two locations, Birnbaum wrote about the resilience of families affected by the storm.

She wrote of one woman in Lodi, “Despite suffering from some medical problems, Marilyn seems strong and resourceful. She feels ‘happy that we are safe.’ Marilyn also puts the disaster in perspective. She said, ‘It could have been a volcano. Our people come from Pompeii. They had Vesuvius.’”

The Volunteers

Hoeft told The Jewish Standard that he was “glad to be able to be out here and close to a large Jewish population. In so many areas, we don’t have a lot of Jewish volunteers. Here the groups are really coming out.”

He noted that NCSY volunteers are “unbelievably good workers. They get a learning experience they can’t get in a classroom. They get to see extreme poverty and understand the importance of helping out.”

Eye-opening experience

“Many of the kids have never been out of Teaneck and Fair Lawn,” said Cytron. “They haven’t gone to the rural places where Nechama is typically working. And they’re meeting people who have never met Jews. It’s an incredibly eye-opening experience.”

For some groups, like NCSY, working with Nechama is part of leadership training.

Nechama provides those volunteers with “an opportunity to help those who really need the help: single parents, people who are ill, people with no resources,” said Cytron. “It’s a wonderful meld of our mission and what [NCSY] is trying to teach them.”

Stein called NCSY an “amazing partner” and added that Nechama was proud to have received the youth organization’s first-ever partnership award, presented last month at a national staff convention in Stamford, Conn.

Rabbi Ethan Katz, associate director of New Jersey NCSY, the youth arm of the Orthodox Union, said he has been able to provide volunteer groups of about 15 people each day.

“Different people show up different days,” he said, noting that schools such as the Torah Academy of Bergen County are among those providing the workers.

Using e-mails, Facebook, and texting to mobilize volunteers 16 years and older, the Teaneck-based youth group invites interested students to call its office for their assignments.

In a statement soliciting volunteers, Katz wrote, “Confronted with wind and rain and the ensuing floods that have turned local streets into quagmires and backyards into swamps, New Jersey NCSY — which for four years has organized teens from NCSY groups and local yeshivas and public high schools to go on the road to bring disaster relief following hurricanes and tornadoes — finds itself with enough work in Bergen and Essex Counties to plan for almost a full month of cleanup activities at its home base.”

“The kids find it a life-changing experience,” said Katz. “They can make a difference in someone’s life [and see] the power of kids working together. They work side by side with homeowners and see their appreciation.”

Creating ‘real leadership’

He said that over the past few years, NCSY has been leading such volunteer efforts “for chesed and tikkun olam” — for helping people and repairing the world. “It’s not about bowling and ice-skating. It creates real leadership. They love doing this kind of stuff,” he said. “It’s what they’re looking for.”

Rabbi Joel Mosbacher said his stint in Saddle Brook on Labor Day reminded him of his first volunteer assignment with Nechama, helping to clean up New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

After viewing the damage in Saddle Brook, Mahwah, Wayne, and Paterson, the rabbi said, “Anyone who says that Irene was not a big deal or that the government overreacted hasn’t gotten out that much. It was devastating. The needs are intense.”

In one Saddle Brook home, said the rabbi, “we went in and took everything out of the basement. The homeowner was there and helped us separate keep from throwaway. It was very emotional for her. Then when everything was gone, we took down the walls and plasterboard to the studs, cleaning with bleach to prevent mold. This will allow the homeowner to put up new plasterboard and begin again.”

Mosbacher, who is urging members of his Reform synagogue to help with the clean-up — they have already brought supplies to affected areas — said he “hopes the Jewish community will step up in ways we haven’t quite done yet.”

Sees great need locally

While the community sent “18-wheelers [with supplies] to New Orleans, I don’t see that kind of mobilization in the community yet. It’s on a different scale, a different crisis, but there’s actually tremendous need in this area,” he said.

Mosbacher said he has remained in touch with Nechama since his work in New Orleans.

“I got an e-mail saying they were mobilizing in Bergen and it was clear that we were needed right away,” he said.

His synagogue is also trying to line up hosts for the two Nechama representatives who are here supervising the work.

“My congregation is hosting for a week,” he said. “I’ve reached out to other rabbis to get them to host, as well. When they were deployed to rural Alabama, they stayed in churches,” he noted. “It can’t be that when they come here they end up sleeping [only] in churches, as well.”

Joining Mosbacher in Saddle Brook was his 13-year-old son, Ari. “My son hadn’t done anything like that before,” he said. “It was an overwhelming experience. I’m very proud of him.”

Stacy Orden, coordinator of Bonim Builders — a project of the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey — said she has been serving as “point person” between Nechama and those who have called into federation for assistance. Bonim, staffed by volunteers, repairs houses for those in need.

“We’ve gotten requests from the Teaneck, Maywood, and Oakland areas,” said Orden. “If a synagogue needs assistance, they call federation and I connect them with Nechama. If an individual in a private residence needs flood remediation, then they dial 211 and Nechama or a similar organization will put that residence on the work schedule.”

Orden explained that before the 211 system was firmly established, Bonim did receive some calls and was able to help some families individually. Her group had sent out a message calling for volunteers before the Labor Day weekend and got about a dozen responses, she said. Four of the callers were assigned to provide hurricane relief.