by Robert Wiener
NJJN Staff Writer

September 4, 2008

After Tammy Resnikoff’s son became a bar mitzva at Temple B’nai Or in Morristown last year, she feared that, like many other 13-year-olds, he might lose interest in Judaism and organized Jewish life.

“I’ve always believed that to want to feel Jewish, to marry Jewish, to have a Jewish family, you need to have been involved in something beside Hebrew school and your bar mitzva,” she said.

Among the activities she wanted her son to take part in are “a Jewish camp experience or a Jewish youth group experience — something that is going to connect you beside just getting bar mitzva’d.”

Her synagogue did offer a program for teens, but Resnikoff was concerned her son — and some of his friends, for that matter — might not feel comfortable in the large youth group.

“I thought it would be nice if there could be a smaller group setting, where the relationships could be more intimate and kids with similar interests could be paired together,” she said. “Somebody could be associated with these kids to help bring out their leadership skills and make sure that friendships are formed and the Jewish aspect is there,” things that “might not happen in large youth group settings,” she said.

Those aims inspired Resnikoff to form a group last fall called Teen Chavurah, with four boys and four girls from different middle schools. What the young participants all had in common was that after they became bar or bat mitzva, continuing in established supplementary activities in the Jewish community seemed problematic to their parents.

“The kids could be shy. They could be the targets of bullying. They could have had a bad experience with another group and been a little gun-shy,” said Resnikoff. “Maybe they just moved here and felt unsure about being able to make friends.

“But in the Chavurah they are always with the same group of friends.”

The Jewish Family Service of MetroWest’s Margo Adelsberg, who is in charge of the program, characterized the Teen Chavurah members this way: “They may be awkward kids, or kids who don’t know how to break into a group and say, ‘I want to be a part of this.’ They may have a hard time starting friendships and maintaining them,” said the licensed clinical social worker.

Adelsberg became involved after Resnikoff pitched her idea to local rabbis, religious-school directors, and JFS executive director Reuben Rotman.

His agency assisted in the Chavurah’s formation and its bimonthly get-togethers at the Lautenberg Family JCC, Aidekman Family Campus, in Whippany.

“It is a fun youth group,” said Rotman. “Margo did some very unusual programming so that the group did not feel like a social skills group.”

Maintaining friendships

Among their other activities in their first year, they had a pizza party, met with visiting Israelis, performed a community service project at an animal shelter, and traveled to New York together to see the Broadway musical Hairspray.

Even after school ended in June, the Chavurah teens arranged get-togethers during their summer vacation.

“The kids are maintaining friendships with one another beyond the group setting, and the parents have formed a nice group themselves,” Rotman said.

Robert Lichtman, executive director of Jewish Identity and Identity Initiatives at MetroWest’s Partnership for Jewish Learning and Life, helped the Chavurah incorporate Jewish content into its gatherings.

“If there was an event around Purim time, we injected Purim. If it was Israel Independence Day, we injected Israel in a way that was relevant. We ran the Chavurah as an experiment, and we were thrilled we got eight kids,” said Lichtman.

He helped the group obtain funding through pooling resources from the Partnership, JCC MetroWest, and the Jewish Community Foundation of MetroWest, through its Iris Teen Tzedakah Program.

Both Jewish Family Service of MetroWest and the Partnership for Jewish Learning and Life are beneficiary agencies of UJC MetroWest NJ.

The Iris program’s membership comprises 36 teenagers, each of whom donates $200 of his or her own money to join. Together, they form an allocations committee that considers grant applications.

“We teach them about the agencies. We teach them about responsibilities and strategies about giving. We put the proposals in front of them,” said Lichtman.

One such proposal came from the JFS asking the Teen Tzedakah members to fund the Teen Chavurah. The budding philanthropists agreed. Then the Paula and Jerry Gottesman Foundation supplemented the allocation request with additional funds “that will enable this program to grow,” Lichtman said.

As for Resnikoff’s son? “He enjoys it,” she said. “He has made a few friends and he wants to do it again this year.”

The program will expand this year from one group to two, and will get under way “some time in October,” said Adelsburg.

Activities on the agenda range from a Broadway show, to more social action activities, to a Shabbat dinner.

After seeing her son thrive in Teen Chavurah, said Resnikoff, growth is what she has in mind for the future. “I would love to see a bunch of Chavurahs that would actually get together as a big group now and then,” she said.

Resnikoff, who teaches aerobics and Israeli dance at the JCC in Whippany, said she has “a good gut feeling about people,” and believes many will find these small peer groups attractive.

“I would love it if this became a national thing,” she said. “That would be very cool.”

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