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Message: <br /><br /> If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/35067/full/35067/facebook-helps-jewish-programs-face-the-teen-nation/ <br /><br /> <b>Facebook helps Jewish programs face the teen nation</b> <br /> Friday, May 30, 2008 | by stacey palevsky <br /><br /><p>Here's how the Diller Teen Fellowship worked 10 years ago, before Facebook:<br /><br /> Israeli and American teens sent emails and letters back and forth to each other, but when the two groups finally met in person, everyone needed several days to become fully comfortable.<br /><br /> Here's how the cultural exchange program works nowadays, in the Facebook era:<br /><br /> "When the plane lands in San Francisco, everybody knows everybody. It's amazing," said Liat Meir, the Israeli coordinator of the S.F.-based Diller Teen Fellowship, which unites Bay Area and Israeli teens.<br /><br /> "They know each other's names, faces, even their hobbies. We're always saying we have to write a 'thank you' to Facebook."<br /><br /> For the uninitiated, Facebook is a popular social networking site that allows users — both individuals and organizations — to create a profile and add content like videos and photos, while their Facebook "friends" can view their profile and add comments.<br /><br /> The site not only has changed the way teens communicate with one another — whether next door or halfway around the world — but it also is changing the way Jewish educators communicate with the teens.<br /><br /> For example, when Erica Hymen, San Francisco director of the Diller Teen Fellowship, was being interviewed for this article, an instant message appeared on her computer screen.<br /><br /> "A little message just popped up on my Facebook page from one of the Israeli teens," Hymen said. "She just wanted to say 'Hi.'"<br /><br /> Hymen, who works at the Bureau of Jewish Education in San Francisco, recently taught a class about Facebook for formal and informal Jewish educators. A dozen people from various Northern California organizations attended.<br /><br /> Facebook "is where the teens are," said Toba Strauss, youth services director at the Jewish Community Federation of the Greater East Bay. She co-taught the class with Hymen.<br /><br /> "If our goal is to relate to them on their level, we need to use it," Strauss added. <br /><br /> The class on May 16 explored how to create a Facebook profile and a Facebook group — and how to monitor both.<br /><br /> Facebook has a lingo all its own, and some educators are finding they have "a pretty steep learning curve," said Diane Birnbaum, director of Berkeley Midrasha for the past 27 years.<br /><br /> "When I first started here there wasn't even a Xerox machine or a computer," she said. "People didn't even have answering machines ... Technology has definitely made my job easier."<br /><br /> Some key terms were taught at the Facebook class: friend, profile, news feed and wall.<br /><br /> Being "friends" with someone means being virtually linked.<br /><br /> When you are friends with another Facebook user, you have access to that person's profile, which includes a variety of information (favorite movies, music, books, activities), photographs and a "news feed" that tracks whatever thoughts and actions your friend chooses to log.<br /><br /> Each person also has a "wall," a virtual bulletin board where friends can write jokes, notes and greetings.<br /><br /> All of the information sharing raises some important questions, Strauss said. <br /><br /> For instance, should a teacher request to be friends with a particular student, thereby possibly making other students feel left out if they didn't receive such an offer? How much information does a teacher make public on his or her Facebook page? What does a teacher do if he or she sees photographs that aren't appropriate? And if an organization creates a page, who will monitor it — teens or the educator?<br /><br /> Still, most educators are excited by how Facebook provides a new platform with which to engage teens.<br /><br /> Hymen uses it to get in touch with the 40 Diller fellows in the Bay Area and Israel — and to put those teens in touch with one another.<br /><br /> Devra Aarons, director of Contra Costa Midrasha in Walnut Creek, posts her weekly newsletters on Facebook (a teen intern monitors the page).<br /><br /> "We noticed that a lot of teens weren't opening our weekly emails," Aarons said. "So we asked around and the teens said, 'Put it on Facebook and we'll check it there.' And we're finding they really do."<br /><br /> Julie Emden, director of the S.F.-based Jewish Teen Alliance, uses its Facebook profile to post events for teens. For example, more than 200 teens — all friends with "JTA S.F." — have been notified of a June 13 Shabbat and dance party at the JCC's Club 18 in San Francisco.<br /><br /> And if any of JTA's "friends" accept the invitation, all of their friends will also be notified.<br /><br /> "Facebook generates a bigger buzz than a mass email," Hymen said. "I don't know why there's such a difference. But Facebook gets the teens more excited. It just works."</p>

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