Taken straight from the headlines:<\/p>\n
Website Offers Virtual Seder<\/a><\/p>\n Dancing Bar Mitzvah Boy Donated his $36,000 gift money to Charity<\/a><\/p>\n Virtual Judaism: Finding Second Life in Online Community<\/a><\/p>\n Should Auschwitz be a Site for Selfies?<\/a><\/p>\n When you read these headlines are you confused? concerned? angered? Or are you\u00a0curious? hopeful? inspired? If you were one of those people who read these and came\u00a0away shaking your head in disdain, wondering where our young people\u2019s values have\u00a0gone, or imagining your deceased relatives rolling in their graves, then I have a headline\u00a0for you – Like it or Hate it \u2013 Generation Me is here to Stay!<\/p>\n Many have declared that today\u2019s generation of teenagers and young adults (somewhere\u00a0between Generation Y and Millenials) are the most narcissistic, self-indulgent and\u00a0selfish generation to ever walk the planet \u2013 hence the title Generation Me. Given this\u00a0description it\u2019s no wonder that our Jewish youth, who in most ways resemble their non-Jewish counterparts, are spending thousands of hours online pretending to be someone\u00a0else, dancing on YouTube, and yes, even taking photos of themselves smiling in front\u00a0of death camps.<\/p>\n But on the other hand there is ample evidence that shows that youth today, including,\u00a0an often overly represented Jewish population, are the most politically active, socially\u00a0conscious and positive action-oriented the world has ever seen. Those children of the\u00a0sixties who want to claim this title often say that you can\u2019t compare an online petition to\u00a0a protest rally \u2013 and they may be right. But the point here is not to claim one generation\u2019s\u00a0superiority over another, but to remind ourselves that today\u2019s youth are capable of being\u00a0both narcissists and altruists \u2013 and often at the same time.<\/p>\n It is essential for us not to dismiss their humanitarianism as a by-product of their access\u00a0to technology. Yes it is the case that Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat open\u00a0up access to literally millions of people quicker and faster than any technology we have\u00a0seen before. But it is also a mistake to posit that the desire of our teens to make the\u00a0world a better place is because of this technology. Quite simply if they chose to spend\u00a0their time doing other things they could, and they would, and they do.\u00a0For our Jewish teens there is an additional element that plays into what may have first\u00a0appear to feed into our initial dichotomous understanding of the narcissistic self and\u00a0the collectively minded individual. Jewish teens by and large feel very much integrated\u00a0into the western societies in which they live. In most ways they look like, behave like,\u00a0and have the same values as their non-Jewish counterparts. Simultaneously these Jewish\u00a0youth are also proud members of the Jewish tribe. Jewish teens often feel a strong sense\u00a0of belonging to their fellow Jews, much as other teens in America have their own affinity\u00a0groups \u2013 whether it be by religion, ethnicity, race, gender or sexual\u2013orientation. Newer\u00a0conceptions of identity understand that these teens can have multiple identities, hybrids\u00a0of these identities and fluidly move between these identities. A Jewish teen can be as\u00a0American as they want to be and as Jewish as they want to be, at the same time or at\u00a0different\u00a0times, depending on the context that they find themselves in.<\/p>\n And the really good news for the Jewish people is that Jewish teens want those Jewish\u00a0moments in their lives. Right now, especially in the western world, it\u2019s cool to be Jewish.\u00a0And who could argue that with such positive and openly Jewish role models out there\u00a0for them to aspire to \u2013 including Sacha Baron Cohen, Sara Silverman, Seth Rogen, Idina\u00a0Menzel, Jon Stewart, Mayim Bialik, and Drake.<\/p>\n To be a Jewish teen today is to be able to determine for oneself when being Jewish is\u00a0most important and salient \u2013 and often this is done in the context of community, both\u00a0local and global. To understand Jewish education today is to understand when to raise\u00a0the Jewish self of our learners and also when to harness their other selves \u2013 to ensure\u00a0that we are indeed educating human beings and not just certain parts of the whole.<\/p>\n So you\u2019re a Jewish educator or communal professional and you want to know how to\u00a0make sense of all of this the next time you encounter a Jewish teen:<\/p>\n Hint #1<\/span>: When a teen approaches you all excited and wants to talk to you about their\u00a0baseball game, their fragile mental state, or their love interests, don\u2019t dismiss these\u00a0issues because we don\u2019t talk about them in \u201cJewish space and time.\u201d These are exactly\u00a0the issues that we should be talking about with our teens, because that is what is most\u00a0important to them.<\/p>\n Hint #2<\/span>: If you want Jewish teens to come to activities that you think are important, be\u00a0attentive to what\u2019s important to them. We should respect our teens enough to go to\u00a0their recitals and sign petitions that they feel passionately about, because respect is a\u00a0two-way street.<\/p>\n Hint #3<\/span>: the next time you feel the urge to ask them about their Jewish identity of Jewish\u00a0journey \u2013 pause. Ask them about their whole selves and who they are as a full human\u00a0being. I\u2019m sure after a few probes the Jewish stuff will come out but make it clear that\u00a0that\u2019s not the only part of them that you are really interested in.\u00a0I don\u2019t want to pretend to know any of the youth involved in the above headlines. But\u00a0I also don\u2019t want to judge them harshly. Instead I want to avail myself to the possibility\u00a0that in their own way each was in some way connecting to the Jewish people. The young\u00a0person who finds spiritual meaning with fellow Jews at an online Passover seder, the\u00a0boy who becomes an internet sensation and donates his Bar Mitzvah gifts to the Israelis\u00a0who found themselves in Sderot\u2019s bomb shelters, the youth who find connection and\u00a0kinship among fellow Jewish avatars in a virtual world, and yes, even the youth who\u00a0find that showing a photograph of themselves at Auschwitz was significant enough to\u00a0share with their Facebook friends as a mark of defiance and celebration over evil. As\u00a0uncomfortable as it might make us feel, these are the some of the many faces of Jewish\u00a0peoplehood today and in the years to come \u2013 and that is a good thing!<\/p>\n Dr. David Bryfman is the Chief innovation Officer at The Jewish Education Project.<\/a> He has worked\u00a0in formal and informal Jewish education in Australia, Israel and North America and recently\u00a0edited the\u00a0book, \u201cExperience and Jewish Education.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n