It’s a Sunday afternoon in late September and the usually silent, deserted offices of JEWISHcolorado are filled with laughter and non-stop chatter. Forty teens, Jewish and non-Jewish, have joined the JEWISHcolorado Teen Engagement staff and JEWISHcolorado’s five Shinshinim for the fourth annual Jewish Student Connection (JSC) Leadership Conference.
The teens represent clubs operating under the JSC umbrella at 17 Denver-Boulder metro area high schools.
The first order of the day—stand up and change your seat so you are sitting with someone you don’t know. That simple act begins the learning and leadership development.
“The JSC clubs run independently, but there is a whole community behind them,” says Jillian Feiger, Director of Teen and Israel Engagement at JEWISHcolorado. “Each club is both similar and different, and this is an opportunity for their leaders to meet leaders from other high schools and find out what they are doing.”
What all the JSC students at the Conference have in common is a willingness to be a Jewish leader within their high school.
David Vinokurov is a senior at Grandview High School and President of the Jewish Student Society.
“I feel proud, really proud, to be Jewish,” he says. “As President, I can inspire and educate people, have an impact, and make a difference.”
Alex Miller is a junior at Boulder High School where they serve on the leadership team of the Jewish Culture Club.
“With everything going on in the world, it’s important to create a safe space,” Miller says. “The Jewish Culture Club has been a place where I could go once a week and talk about something I care about. It’s nice to feel you are not wearing a mask—that I can be my authentic self.”
By the end of the conference, Vinokurov and Miller discover they have more than their leadership instincts in common.
“Students realize that what they experience at their high schools is not isolated—especially when it comes to incidents of antisemitism,” Feiger says. “Finding out that they are not alone is a bonding moment, and we provide the adults in the room to help guide them through it.”
A growing program
In recent years, the number of high schools with JSC clubs has increased significantly—from single digits to 10, then 11, and now 17. The student leaders have also seen a significant increase in participation within the clubs.
When Vinokurov first joined Grandview’s Jewish Student Society—drawn by the desire to learn more about Judaism—there might be 10 kids at the meeting. Now, he says, the meetings draw anywhere from 15 to 25 students and, he says with a laugh, “there is almost not enough room in the classroom.”
When Miller started going to Boulder’s Jewish Culture Club meetings their freshman year, the group might see 15-20 students. Now, that number has increased to 30 students.
“We have created a larger community, and it’s a diverse group,” Miller says. “A lot of us are Jewish, a lot are not Jewish, and some are “Jew-ish” and don’t regularly practice, so we are teaching people about a different culture or even their own culture.”
Both Vinokurov and Miller credit JEWISHcolorado’s JSC staff for help with programming, organization, and strategy.
“It’s an awesome program,” Miller says. “JSC supports the leaders as we plan for the year.”
“The Shinshinim who come to our meetings are amazing because they are kids just like us,” Vinokurov adds. “In this day and age, we really need someone to show us the happy side of Israel.”
Both Vinokurov and Miller also see JSC as a back-up when they need to deal with their school administration, especially after acts of antisemitism or even thoughtless scheduling during high holidays. As an example, Miller described how one of their teachers scheduled a test on Rosh Hashanah and the next test on Yom Kippur, both days they would be out of school.
“A lot of teens in Colorado are dealing with the same issues around identity and antisemitism and how to practice Judaism when the school system is not designed for it,” Miller says. “We know that our Jewish Culture Club is part of a much larger-scale program, but you really feel it when you see all these other kids at the Conference.”
“The teen engagement staff from JSC gives us an extra source of confidence,” Vinokurov adds. “We know there is someone up the chain with lots of experience at other schools who is backing us.”
For Feiger, one of the main goals of the Leadership Conference is to make sure it’s a day of fun. There is lots of laughter as the students bounce around the space, sampling a variety of experiential activities. Feiger believes that the leadership skills students learn through JSC will translate beyond high school Jewish clubs into a variety of leadership roles in the future.
“The students were so excited and engaged to come and be together,” she says. “They just want to be with other teens in the Jewish world talking about what they are experiencing in the world today.”
By the end of the Conference, the takeaway for students is clear.
“It is really nice to see all these Jewish students from different schools,” Vinokurov says. “We know that we are not alone in what we do.”