New Jersey Jewish News
MetroWest Feature
Her heart belongs to data:
Short Hills teen surveys her peers
George Gallup, look out. Here comes Ariana Wolk. The 13-year-old Short Hills resident has just completed a survey on teens and tzedaka. 
As part of her bat mitzva preparation as a student at the Jewish Cultural School and Society, which meets in the JCC in West Orange, Wolk devised a series of questions designed to elicit not only how much people know about tzedaka, but to compare that knowledge among groups — say, her classmates at her Sunday-only religious school, her peers who go twice a week to other religious schools, and those who attend Jewish day schools.
If heads of organizations want to know whether teens really understand the meaning of tzedaka, perhaps they should check her results.
She undertook the project for her bat mitzva paper, required of all JCSS students. Her mother, Risa Breckman, a social worker, develops surveys as part of her work as director of social work in the Division of Geriatrics at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University. “Ariana’s a people person,” said her mother. “Surveys are a good way for her to understand what people are thinking.”
As for the topic, it was a natural for Ariana.
“I knew tzedaka is all about giving, and I am a giving person,” Ariana said. She dances often to entertain nursing home residents through the Dance Innovation Studio in Chatham, where she has been a student since the age of two. She has given money to help AIDS victims in Africa. She has worked with abused children, and the baskets used for centerpieces at her bat mitzva celebration will be filled with items to benefit them.
After researching the concept of tzedaka herself, she surveyed her peers to figure out just how well they understand it. The questionnaire’s 20 questions probe everything from where students learned about tzedaka to their understanding of its connection to justice (the word tzedaka is based on the Hebrew root meaning “justice,” not charity), and even if they consider it an obligation (the weight of Jewish tradition certainly insists it is).
If a good survey lies in the methodology, Ariana is well on her way to achieving success. She color-coded the questions before giving out the surveys and then compiled the answers accordingly. The sample size was small — a total of 24 youngsters participated. Yet it was large enough to give Ariana a taste of the detailed work involved in analyzing the results, which she called “the hardest part.”
Among the findings: Young people learn about tzedaka in different venues — but what they learn is about the same. All the day school students who responded learn about tzedaka at school compared to 43 percent of afternoon religious school students. Just 43 percent in either setting knew tzedaka is connected to the concept of justice, while 57 percent of both groups consider tzedaka an obligation.
For Ariana, the whole process was worthwhile, although she was “upset” that so few of her peers connected tzedaka with justice. She hopes area schools will take notice. “I know there must be synagogues and temples all over New Jersey. I thought it would be good if schools would improve their teaching,” she said. “ It’s important for people to know about tzedaka.”
As for George Gallup, well, he can relax, at least for a while. A seventh-grader at Millburn Middle School, Ariana is not 100 percent sure what she wants to be when she grows up.
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