Our Joint Venture with the Israel Ministry of Diaspora Affairs

USY Israel Leadership Fellowship

Now, more than ever, our teens need a deep and comprehensive education and understanding of Israel, and our Jewish community needs teenagers prepared to exercise Israel leadership on their campuses and beyond. Through the Israel Teen Leadership Fellowship, we will develop hundreds of teen leaders who are well-informed about Israel and Zionism, who can engage in meaningful dialogue, and who can inspire other students to learn more about Israel.

The Fellowship has three core components: Online Learning, Mentorship, and Capstone Project. After twenty weeks of learning with their peers across North America, each Fellow will have a mentor that will help them develop their capstone project. The project, which will be held at their local community or camp, will allow the Fellows to put their learning into action and exponentially engage more teens. Their projects will focus on their choice of Israel topic including but not limited to Israeli culture, music, visual arts, history, land, inventions, advocacy and more. Projects can range from an evening program at their JCC, to a weekend Shabbaton with teens from a regional area, to a series of programs at their school.

This project is a joint venture with the Israel Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and its ultimate goal is to raise up this new generation of Jewish leaders who will engage an ever-increasing number of their peers in meaningful Jewish life, deepening their connection to Judaism and Israel.

This project will be funded at 50% for 3 years by the Israeli Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, and USCJ is raising funds to match their funding. Your support can have double the impact with a gift at this time.

USY City Wide Middle School/Teen Engagement Directors

(This could be called City Director in some places or Middle School Engagement Director in others, or Teen Engagement Director in others.)

Middle school, particularly post b’nai-mitzvah, is when we see the greatest drop off in engagement in Jewish activities. Parents are no longer “required” to bring their kids to Hebrew school for b’nai mitzvah preparation, and competing interests, friend groups, and activities can push Jewish involvement out of the picture. As a result, USCJ is looking to hire four USY City Wide Engagement Directors in 2023 to engage Jewish middle schoolers, connected and not connected to synagogues, in three areas across the country: Denver, Seattle, and Los Angeles, with a fourth city tba soon, and with more cities anticipated the following year. The goal is to create safe, inclusive, and welcoming spaces for Jewish youth and allies, enabling them to develop connections to each other and the greater Jewish Community, cultivating lifelong engagement with Jewish life.

USY’s City Wide Engagement Directors (ED) give our movement an opportunity to reach middle schoolers before they become completely autonomous, while also reaching those kids whose parents are not that interested in or connected to Jewish life. The ED will work with synagogues, camps, and other partners to identify and engage Jewish youth in their middle schools and wherever else they may be gathering. They will connect the youth to each other as well as local Jewish communal institutions.

Engaging middle school youth will help build the pipeline of Jewish leaders while also creating a cohort of the engagement professionals. The Engagement Directors will gain professional development, learning from each other and experts on best practices, relational engagement, mental health challenges, and other evolving issues facing today’s youth.

This project will be funded at 50% for 3 years by the Israeli Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, and USCJ is raising funds to match their funding. Your support can have double the impact with a gift at this time.

Teen Israel Advocacy Track through Nativ College Leadership Program in Israel

With a growing anti-Israel and anti-Semitic atmosphere on campus, it is imperative that Jewish students are prepared to engage confidently in discussions about Israel. Our Nativ students, who spend nine months on gap year, immersed in Israeli culture and society, are uniquely poised to speak firsthand about Israel’s challenges and opportunities, and extra effort must be taken in educating and readying them for today’s campus climate.

Nativ participants who choose to apply for this new, intensive track will commit to additional coursework and experiences in order to learn from journalists, activists, and educators. They will gain advocacy and dialogue skills and more extensive knowledge about Israel’s history, achievements, struggles, and current challenges and opportunities. Participants will present their learnings to fellow Nativers and then bring their newly honed skills to their college campuses and beyond. They will be equipped not only to engage in discussions but also to create and present engaging programs.

Once participants depart from Israel, they will continue to meet monthly as a cohort and receive additional training and resources as they join their campus communities. Each participant will be required to lead one program per semester on their respective campuses. The program can be educational or cultural, increasing the knowledge and understanding of Israel and Zionism for fellow students. Students can also demonstrate their advocacy knowledge by organizing a writing campaign, a lobbying event, an exhibit, speaker or panel. Students are welcome to work with their Hillel, Jewish Student Union, dorm, fraternity/sorority, or general student association to present their program and recruit participants. Each participant will submit a report about their program each semester and present it to the cohort, deepening not only their own connection to Israel, but also that of their friends and fellow students, expanding their reach exponentially.

This project will be funded at 50% for 3 years by the Israeli Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, and USCJ is raising funds to match their funding. Your support can have double the impact with a gift at this time.