Lie Back, Think of England

So I’ve returned from all of my far-flung travels. I spent an inordinant amount of time in Golders Green in London, and had one of the best Shabbatot of my life in Oxford. Someone confessed his love to me, and someone else told me to go to rabbinical school and I pretty much didn’t sleep for more than a week. I got made fun of for being a Stupid American more than I’m really comfortable with.

One of the things that struck me most about my time in England is how different Jewish youth groups are in the UK than in the States. In high school, I was very active in USY, the Conservative youth group. This meant that I helped plan and staff events for other teenagers, but I was always supervised by adult staff members who basically ran the show. In the UK, programming is planned and carried out almost entirely by members and former members of the youth group. There are no “adults” per se. Seventeen-, eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds plan week-long camps for younger members of whatever group they’re involved in (Noam, Bnei Akiva, FZY etc.) from beginning to end. They staff all programming, and train other counselors, and do all of the preparation and cleanup work. As a result, I’ve never met so many youth group fanatics as you’re likely to find in the UK. I wish I could share Matthue’s optimism about the Jewish community in the UK, but for the most part I see it as a divided and cold atmosphere. But the youth groups really are a light at the end of the tunnel. There is so much that youth groups in the US could learn from this kind of initiative and innovation, and I really wish there was a more formal partnership between English and American counterparts of the same organizations. I’m not aware of such a partnership already in existence, but until something like that is created, check out the websites of the big Jewish youth groups in the UK. There’s Bnei Akiva, The Federation for Zionist Youth, Noam, and Netzer.