The Allied Jewish Federation of Colorado is offering a limited number of stipends to be awarded on a competitive basis for teens and young adults participating in peer group trips to Israel in 2012. The funds are targeted to assist those who cannot participate without financial support from the community. The stipends will be awarded to those applicants who demonstrate an ability and willingness to become ambassadors for Israel in Colorado upon their return. The Committee’s award decisions will be largely based on the applicant’s essay.

Who is eligible?

• Jewish teens and young adults between the ages of 16 and 30 who are Colorado residents.
• Scholarship recipients MUST agree to participate in Federation, a synagogue, school or communal organization program in which they will describe how their experience in Israel impacted their life.
• Ambassadors will provide the committee, within 12 months after their return to the U.S., with a brief summary of said communal activity or program.

Which Israel programs may receive subsidies?

• Participants must select an Israel program that is recognized by the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI), the Government of Israel, or MASA Israel Journey.
• The program must be an organized educational experience in Israel focusing on strengthening one’s Jewish identity & connection to Israel. It must have a Zionist component, involving travel around Israel & learning about the modern State of Israel.
• Short-term travel programs must be operated by a national/international organization (no private tours or missions).
• Program must begin in 2012.

Due Dates:

• Applications must be received by close of business (4:30pm) on Friday, March 2, 2012
• Decisions will be announced by Friday, March 30, 2012

Download application here: 2012 Teen and Young Adult Israel Community Ambassadors Scholarship

Submit application to: Debi Crawley, Allied Jewish Federation of Colorado, 300 South Dahlia, Suite 300, Denver, CO 80246
Email: dcrawley@ajfcolorado.org or fax: 303.322.8328

Questions?
Please do not hesitate to call Michal Uziyahu, Community Shlichah,
at 303-316-6472 or email muziyahu@ajfcolorado.org

8th graders taking Confronting Anti-Semitism talked about their first Jewish memories and comments their friends have made about their being Jewish. Our eight 11th graders participating in this summer’s Israel Study Tour (IST) began their first real class together by getting their journals and discussing their ideas about the most important events in Israel’s history. Additional classes this trimester include World Religions, Star in Your Own Purim Shpiel, Express Your Jewish Identity Through Art and We are the 1% – Jewish Global Citizenship.

In addition to our regular classes, we have a special Tu B’Shevat program coming up, Tu B’Shevat Cafe Night at Hebrew High! On Wednesday, February 8th, from 7:30 pm to 8:30 pm, Boulder Hebrew High will be holding a special hour long class dedicated to the New Year of the Trees. Unlike your typical Tu B’shevat Seder with dried fruits, Hebrew High will be exploring many aspects of the holiday through fun and games. Topics will include the laws of tithing, arguments between Hillel and Shammai, the texts from the Torah, why Tu B’Shevat is still such an important holiday, and more! This program is open to all students in 8th through 10th grade, not just those registered in Hebrew High.

Also on Wednesday, February 8th, from 7:30 pm to 8:30 pm, in conjunction with JTeen and Collegiate Crossings, we are offering a FREE seminar: Planning for College: What To Do and When To Do It. A presentation for 11th and 12th grade students and parents by Sara Zessar, high school counselor and college planner for Collegiate Crossings. Topics will include: factors to consider in your college search; how colleges make decisions about applicants; scholarships and financial aid and much more.

Come to either program to check us out for FREE. It’s never too late to join Hebrew High Boulder. New students are starting all the time. For more information about any of these programs or to check us out please contact Shauna Sadow, Hebrew High Boulder Principal at ssadow@caje-co.org or 303-819-8237 or visit our website www.caje-co.org/hhb.

Young Judea:  Young Judea, recently spun off from Hadassah, run really solid programs in Israel.

Israeli Scouts (haTzofim):  The Scouts’ (Tzofim) trips also have a great reputation and have an added advantage of having 30% of participants being Israeli teens.

The evening program is scheduled on February 15th at 6:30 pm at Bnai Havurah, 6445 East Ohio Ave, Denver 80224 303-388-4441.

Please RSVP by January30 to indicate interest in attending and get any last minute information. Contact me with questions via e-mail: IsraelSummer2012@yahoo.com.

b’Shalom-

Shmuel Deitel

Rabbi Goldfeder

Rabbi Seidenberg

Friends – I had a call today from Rabbi David Seidenberg, author of the new book, “Crossing the Threshold: God’s Image in the More-than-Human World.” He saw my previous post about losing our distinctions, and he corrected me about my grave misunderstanding of his book. I stand gravely corrected – I actually have no idea what he means by “G-d’s image in the more-than-human world.” And I didn’t read his book, because it is not available yet. So, in essence, I judged a book by its cover; or at least its title. Misjudged, that is.

So Rabbi Seidenberg called me and graciously offered to dialogue with me, in public, on the subject of Torah and Evolution. And so it shall be, b’ezrat Hashem, 7:15 pm Monday January 9th at Aish Kodesh 1805 Balsam Ave. Light refreshments and some heavy conversation.

I’m excited. Dialogue is the purest form of Torah, in my view, and I look forward to discussing and learning. Hope to see you there.

The 5772 B’nei Mitzvah class at Bonai Shalom wrestled with these and other questions, presenting their thoughts and ideas about Parshat Vayishlach to the congregation last Shabbat. Designed as an exercise to help the students experience writing a Dvar Torah, the resulting effort was quite insightful.

The students began by quickly recapitulating the events of the parsha that they focused on: Yaakov splits his camp. Alone, he confronts a mysterious creature of the night who wrestles with him and eventually blesses him and changes Yaakov’s name to Yisreol. Yaakov and Eisav meet and then separate peacefully.

The students then explained how they worked: reading the parsha, working in chavrutah (pairs) to answer questions based only on their own opinions, discussing those opinions as a group, and then revisiting selected questions to see how the meforshim (commentators)- both ancient and modern- answered the same questions. The students then revisited their original answers to see how studying commentary altered their original answers.

Who was the angel? Nathan and Eviatar cited Rashi who argued that Yaakov was fighting “Eisav’s angel” and that by forcing the angel to bless him, Yaakov could also force his brother to forgive him. Chaya cited the Sfat Emet who felt that Yaakov was struggling with his conscience. Corinne argued that Yaakov was struggling with himself. She cited the Rambam’s opinion, that G-d goes into the minds of ordinary humans and uses them to do G-d’s bidding, to act as angels. Rambam and Corinne agree that this explains dreams that have messages in them.

Corinne, Claire and Max originally thought that Yaakov being described as whole (“shalem”) after this encounter meant that he had become a better person. They discovered that Rashi thought this meant that Jacob had shed his original identity. Max felt that Rashi was only partially correct in that Yaakov changed some aspects of himself but Claire and Corinne argued that Rashi was correct and that Yaakov was transformed after struggling with himself.

Gaylen pointed out that in past confrontations Yaakov had run away or lied and that this time he confronted the angel and told the truth. In both cases the outcome was the same: Yaakov got what he wanted.

Sam asked us all to imagine that your sibling is coming to kill you and your family with 400 men. After a moment of silence, he cited Rabbi Yochanan who teaches us that we can learn how to deal with the powerful by studying this parsha. Yaakov sent a delegation to represent himself, displayed humility, showed practicality, prayed, and sent gifts to reduce hostility. Sam counseled us to use this advice when dealing with teachers, parents and employers.

Gaylen and Aliza ended with a poem they wrote:

Angels are people
Different images for every person
Whole new culture of beings
Unknown to the world
Common to the heavens
Beautiful wondrous things
The hope of our world.

BTY Board Member Maya Matatall

The weekend of November 11, Boulder Temple Youth (BTY) hosted the North AmericanFederation of Temple Youth (NFYT) Western sub-regional Fall Chavurah for Missouri Valley. This event invites Jewish teens from half of the Missouri Valley Region, which is made up of teens from Colorado, Missouri, Iowa, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas and Illinois to spend the weekend engaging in learning, tikkun olam (repairing the world), and socializing, lots of socializing!

Working with BTY Advisor, Simi Adler, Rabbi Joshua Rose and the regional board, the BTY board spent months planning all aspects of the weekend. From welcoming activities to religious learning, tfillah (prayer), dance planning and special activities, the chavurah was designed to meet other Jewish teens while learning about community issues while having fun. It is about the friends you make and the experience you have!

Boulder hasn’t hosted a NFTY chavurah since 2007 so we wanted to make sure that everyone remembered this event. 120 teens from the region (including 20 from the Boulder area) converged on Congregation Har HaShem for an action packed weekend titled, “All for One, and One for All.”

For some people it was their first NFTY event and for others it was one of their last.  Natalie Seitzman, the Missouri Valley President who came all the way from Peoria, Illinois to attend the event, had this to say:

My first and only Western Fall was an eye opening experience. I was amazed with how comfortable everyone was with each other and how calm but excited even the brand new participants were.”

One of our Regional Songleaders, Healy Slackman of St. Louis, looks forward to the community built during these chaverot.

It was amazing to have another weekend together as a community,” says Slackman. “I love how so many teens from so many places all come together a couple times a year and can build such a dynamic community. Even though everyone comes from different cities and have different traditions, the common factor of NFTY really connects us all, and because of NFTY we share so many things that we wouldn’t otherwise share- like songs, customs, and just the overall amazing feeling you get at an event.”

Regional Songleader Healy Slackman leading Shabbat Services

People who aren’t involved in NFTY other than events were just as excited as the people who work with NFTY everyday. Hannah Budwig, of Omaha, said, “My favorite part was spending time with my best friends who I hadn’t seen since May. NFTY in general is my favorite thing in the world. All my friends have noticed the immense amount of Jewish t-shirts I wear, all from NFTY. Each Chavurah teaches me something new that impacts how I think and Fall taught me what kind of thinker I am.”

NFTY-MV Youth Programs Manager Beth Lipschutz was extremely grateful for the support and help from the Har HaShem and Boulder Community.

NFTY-MV felt incredibly welcome into the Har HaShem and Boulder community the moment we walked into the synagogue and throughout the weekend. We appreciate all of the hard work done by the teens, staff, clergy and many volunteers to make this weekend a success. Thanks for providing a safe space for MV participants to learn, grow and come together as Jewish teens.”

Throughout the weekend, we participated in programs that helped us figure out how our unique personalities came together as a community as well as how our personalities can make an impact on issues that affect the teen community.

A teen from Omaha, Nebraska participating in the Redefining Beautiful Project

We discussed issues such as bullying, discrimination, body image and more. We even got the opportunity to participate in the Redefining Beautiful Project, a hands on project which aims to remove negative body image, celebrate confidence and inner beauty among teens. For more information check out The Redefining Beautiful Project on Facebook.

In addition to addressing community issues, we were also able to address issues facing the Jewish Community. We were fortunate to have four NFTY National Staff visit us during the weekend including NFTY Interim Director Subie Banaszynski and NFTY Associate Director Melissa Frey. On Friday night, Subie Banaszynski talked to us about the Union for Reform Judaism’s (URJ) Campaign for Youth Engagement and gave us the opportunity to voice our opinions on challenges facing Jewish Teens today (for more information on the URJ and the Campaign for Youth Engagement, please visit their website).

Interim NFTY Director Subie Banaszynski

There were also plenty of social activities as well. Other things we did were mixers to get to know each other and a giant social where local DJ Tom West raised the roof.

Each year we have three regional events. Winter Chavurah, a four-day event held in St. Louis, Missouri, is coming up January 13-16, 2011 and is open to all teens in the Missouri Valley region (the deadline to register is December 29th and air fare is rising so don’t delay if you are interested!). Visit the NFTY website and email Simi Adler at youth@harhashem.org to register for this awesome event!

In addition to our Regional Events we also have a wide array of local events as well. Our next local event is our BTY Hannukah Party on December 21st from 5:00 pm – 9:00 pm at Har HaShem.

For info on upcoming events please check the BTY Facebook page, or email Simi Adler at youth@harhashem.org.

Be sure to ‘like’ Har HaShem’s Facebook page for more photos from the weekend.

Do you think you have the best latkes of the bunch? Think you can win a blind taste test with your recipe? Then the J-Teen Latke Brunch this Sunday is for you!

The J-Teen department at the Boulder JCC is having a latke tasting competition this Sunday, December 4th from 11:30 am – 2:00 pm. Find your favorite latke recipe, cook up a batch and enter our blind taste test competition to find out who can make the best Hanukkah classic! Prizes will include iTunes gift cards, J-Teen event coupons, and more!

Don’t know how to make latkes? That’s okay too! We’ll be making our very our J-Teen latkes at the JCC, and everyone (even if you didn’t bring any) gets to participate as judges in the blind taste competition.

So join us for a brunch filled with food, prizes and tons of fun! The cost is $5 per person or $6 for two if you bring a friend. Registration is currently open online. Be sure to register before Sunday!

For questions, please contact Phil Rubinstein, J-Teen Director, at 303-998-1900 ext 114 or by email at Jteen@boulderjcc.org. We can’t wait to see you there!

The JCC Maccabi Games are an international sports competition for teens, held annual in new locations every year. Last year’s games were held in Israel, and Boulder sent 5 teens as part of the Denver delegation to the games. For the first time ever, this year, Boulder will have it’s very own delegation!

The J-Teen department of the Boulder Jewish Community Center will be hosting a 10-person delegation at the Games, which will take place August 5th-10th, 2012 in Houston. The games are for teens that will be between the ages of 13-16 by July 31st, 2012.

Every year, the Maccabi Games includes many different sports, which vary based on location. For the Houston games this year, the sports that are available to compete in are:

• Baseball
• Basketball
• Bowling
• Dance
• Soccer
• Softball
• Swimming
• Table Tennis
• Volleyball

Any student who competes in an individual sport will compete in his/her own bracket (potentially against other Boulder delegation members), but due to our small allotment for Boulder teens, anyone competing in a team sport will be placed on a “mixed delegation” team. This will allow for an even more amazing experience as teens not only get to compete against, but also get to compete with teens from around the country and the world.

The total cost (including transportation and accommodations) for this year’s games will be $1550 or $1300 with the early-bird registration. To qualify for the early bird discount you must submit a $250 deposit no later than January 31st, 2012.

So if you, your child, or someone you know would like to be an international competitor at the 2012 Maccabi Games in Houston, please don’t hesitate to contact Phil Rubinstein, the BJCC J-Teen Director, at jteen@boulderjcc.org or by phone at 303-998-1900 ext 114. Spots are limited and registration is open, so reserve your spot now!