Jewish Teen Day of Discovery 2007 –A Resounding Success!

On Sunday, January 28th, over 150 students attended Jewish Teen Day of Discovery 2007.  It was a phenomenal day!

Planned with teen input, Jewish Teen Day of Discovery 2007 was an exciting day of Jewish study and shmoozing. During the first session, teens enthusiastically participated in eight different educational workshops lead by a variety of local educators. This year’s topics included Israeli teen life, Jewish life on college campuses, Jewish humor and the media, dealing with the stresses of teen life, women in the Bible and what Judaism has to say about abortion and contraception, love and marriage and alcohol. (For more details, see our on line program book.) 

Then, they socialized over a kosher lunch, followed by a special presentation by Rabbi Tovia Singer of Outreach Judaism and four lighter, interactive activities—Israeli dancing and self-defense, Jewish cooking, and a special break-out session with Rabbi Singer. Rabbi Singer’s presentation, which focused on tactics used by missionary groups to convert young Jews and dancing and self-defense featured an interactive role-playing session in which the teens actually believed that they were speaking with a real Jews for Jesus missionary, had a tremendous emotional impact on the audience. It was amazing to see the teens debating with the “missionary.”

Teen response to the event has been overwhelmingly positive. A walk around the building on Sunday morning revealed all our classrooms filled with laughter and learning. During meal and social times, there were smiles all around as the teens enjoyed the day and each other’s company. 

View Kipp Friedman’s photos of this event. 

Read Chana Ellman and Julie D.’s article about Jewish Teen Day of Discovery  in JVIBE Magazine.