Educators say relevance is key to turning teens on

Looking for a way to fire up a teenager's Jewish soul? How about letting them design a tikkun olam project from start to finish, putting them to work as a mentor or shipping them off to the desert.

Those are just a few ideas offered by some recently honored Bay Area Jewish educators who work regularly with adolescents -- and who share the view that teens are hungry for spiritual meaning and direction.

"It's pretty overwhelming, this world to them," says Todd Braman, director of youth, teen and camp services at the Peninsula JCC in Belmont. "They all believe there's not a whole lot that a teenager can do."

To combat that sense of powerlessness, Braman created Teens for a Change. The program gave four students this past year the opportunity to create a community service project, which began with a simple passage from the Torah. Braman, 33, is one of four local educators who recently received a $10,000 Diller education award for exhibiting an "extraordinary and enduring impact" on local youth.

The other winners were Linda Levine, teacher and family educator at Congregation Shir Hadash in Los Gatos; Vivian Joseph, Judaic studies teacher at Brandeis Hillel Day School in San Francisco; and Tamar Bittelman, kindergarten teacher at Oakland Hebrew Day School.

Levine said a quarter-century ago, "I got inspired by a program very similar" to the leadership program for teenage teachers' assistants that she now runs at Shir Hadash. Recalling her childhood program in Cincinnati, she said, "It just lit a fire in me when I was 16 to become a Jewish educator."

Hoping to set spiritual blazes of her own, the 40-year-old San Jose resident has developed a six-week training program for teens who help in Hebrew school classes at Shir Hadash. "It teaches them what they can do and how to ask the teachers for what they need," she said of the evening course, which includes lessons on child development and problem solving. "It's quite self-esteem building for the teenagers.

"Some of the kids say it's when they feel the best about being at the temple because they have a role and are doing something that matters," she said. "I think it's really a key part of building Jewish identity."

Though she currently works with younger children in Oakland, Bittelman emphasizes the need to integrate Jewish learning into students' everyday lives. "It's not separate," she said. "It's not something that happens once or twice a year."

At the Peninsula JCC, Braman tries to empower his teens with meaningful work that is rooted in Jewish tenets.

"I noticed that a lot of the summer programs in JCCs and summer camps, ours included, really want to bring tikkun olam into the summer program, but don't know how to do it," said Braman.

One-day activities like cleaning up a beach or serving food at a homeless shelter were well intended, but he said they didn't leave a lasting impression on young volunteers about the key Jewish value of repairing the world. "It didn't really sink in with anyone; it wasn't that meaningful," he said.

Braman's approach was to start with quotes from Jewish texts about such values as protecting a tree or helping a stranger.

Rather than being viewed as dull schoolwork, the quotes became springboards for lively and prolonged debates. "Teens like to talk," he said. "They like to challenge each other."

Four teenage interns were then given a chance to create a service project over the next several months. "They learned how to call an organization, ask questions, how to recruit other teens to do a service project," said Braman.

The interns wound up organizing an activity-packed sleepover in February for 20 younger children. They then donated their $300 in earnings to the Make-a-Wish Foundation.

"The act of being responsible for taking care of your community was very much relevant to their lives," said Braman, who plans to expand the program this fall to 12 students.

Noting that the effort started with a passage from the Torah, he said, "I don't really care, to be honest, if they remember the quote or I don't care if they remember where it came from. What I care about is they had a positive experience" helping others, and that the tools were acquired "from a Jewish source."

Relevance also is an important theme for Joseph, the Jewish studies teacher at Brandeis Hillel. "We wanted kids to recognize that Judaism has a lot to offer in their own life. Judaism is not only about dry things and rituals and only that."

In her classes, Joseph also encourages students to initiate and implement programs. This Passover, for instance, her sixth graders created a maze for younger classmates in the school gym that included interactive stations about slavery, the 10 plagues and Moses and the burning bush.

Next spring, Braman is planning to take his students on a real exodus. They're heading to the desert in Joshua Tree National Park, where "we'll have a Passover, camping-style."

"There are a lot of fun things that have Judaism as its core that would attract teens," he said.

The Diller awards, which were presented at the annual meeting of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation, also included a $2,500 grant to each educator's institution.