The Partnership for Jewish Life and Learning’s Michal Greenbaum, coordinator of Jewish Service Learning, and Shmuel Greene, director of teen initiatives, discuss their roles in attracting Jewish teenagers to the MetroWest community.
Photo by Robert Wiener
Sidebar
October 2, 2008
As it gears up for the year 5769, The Partnership for Jewish Life and Learning is increasing its outreach efforts to the 10,000 Jewish teenagers in the MetroWest community, with new initiatives and two new employees on board.
The latest new hire is Michal Greenbaum, the Partnership’s coordinator of Jewish Service Learning.
She will serve as a main contact for Jewish teens hoping to become involved in community service and will act as the primary informal educator and organizer for several programs that are already in place.
These include Mitzvot of MetroWest, J-Serve, and the Iris Teen Tzedakah Program (see sidebar).
Greenbaum will also be charged with helping develop SENIOR-ITIS (Senior Institute for Teens In-Service), a new program for high school seniors that combines community service and nonprofit leadership.
“I would like to see my position be the home for Jewish service learning in MetroWest,” said Greenbaum. “When students have to do something or want to do something involving community service, they will say to themselves, ‘This is where I need to go to find out about opportunities. This is where fun happens — but I will also get a Jewish education.’”
A graduate of Rutgers University’s Douglass College, Greenbaum previously worked as programming coordinator for Areyvut, a national organization based in Bergenfield that involves Jewish teens in charitable and social action programs. She comes from a family well versed in Jewish service: Her father, Rabbi Michael B. Greenbaum, is vice chancellor and chief operating officer of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.
Her supervisor is Rabbi Shmuel Greene, a Minneapolis native who is the Partnership’s newly appointed director of teen initiatives.
Both are tasked with increasing what Partnership executive director Robert Lichtman called “service learning initiatives.”
Seated at the round table in Lichtman’s office on the Aidekman campus in Whippany, Greenbaum described her role as “putting my touch on the current programs, then, down the road, creating and implementing new programs.”
The key, said Greene, is offering teens choice and variety.
“You find out how many interests there are out there and develop programs that touch upon those interests,” he said. “Then the opportunity arises that there are going to be programs that cater to those interests.”
Greene said his goal is “to have an array of opportunities for 3,000 Jewish teens, who are involved in something — whether it be Central Hebrew High School, whether it be Mitzvot of MetroWest — each person has the opportunity to learn about more opportunities.
Multiple choices
LIKE A MULTIPLE choice question, The Partnership for Jewish Learning and Life is offering teenagers a range of opportunities for “informal Jewish education.”
• J-Serve, a day of community service, is scheduled for April 26. “Last year we had 400 Jewish teenagers doing community service projects all at the same time,” said Partnership executive director Robert Lichtman. Projects ranged from landscaping work at the Aidekman campus in Whippany to rebuilding areas of New Orleans devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
• The Iris Teen Tzedekah program, a joint effort with JCC MetroWest and the Jewish Community Foundation of MetroWest, gives young people hands-on experience with charitable fund-raising and allocations.
• The Diller Teen Fellowship is run in collaboration with the Legow Family Israel Program Center. It links 20 local teenagers with 20 others in an exchange with their peers from the MetroWest Partnership 2000 community of Rishon Letzion.
• Mitzvot of MetroWest is a one-day exhibition where representatives from social service agencies recruit young volunteers searching for social action and mitzva projects.
• The Jewish Civics Initiative, run by the Washington-based organization Panim, offers leadership training for Jewish young people.
“We want to celebrate any teen who is involved in any kind of Jewish activities,” Lichtman said. “It is important that the kids be supported in these kinds of things.”
— ROBERT WIENER
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