The events of the past year – from the pandemic to the movement for social justice – have brought unprecedented attention to the structural inequality and foundational injustice that plague our society. Jewish youth in particular want to create positive change in their communities, have their voices heard, and be a part of something bigger than themselves. The Pew report on Jewish Americans released this year shows that the overwhelming majority of Jews, especially Jewish youth, feel that leading a moral and ethical life is essential to their Jewish identity. The report also highlights a new awareness among Jewish youth of escalating antisemitism in the United States. By providing youth with hands-on philanthropy experiences, we can help them mobilize their Jewish values, maximize their community impact and come together as a community to fight for change.
Philanthropic engagement gives Jewish youth the opportunity to tackle the problems they see today, while building a new generation of Jewish community leaders and givers. The teenage years are an essential time for identity formation and a key moment to learn how to be responsible for our fellow human beings and to explore ways to express Jewish values. After all, Jewish values are social values, focused on trust, respect, responsibility, caring and community. Jewish youth today want to dig deeper into these values and related lessons they’ve learned to create positive change, both in their communities and globally. Philanthropy infused with strong Jewish learning and experiences enables them to see how they can make a difference, while also building connections with peers and with people from different walks of life. Leadership with empathy, learned through the experience of strategic giving, is the emotional skill needed to effect positive change today and into the future.
Anyone who cares about meaningful Jewish youth engagement has a stake in elevating these philanthropic opportunities. The vast majority of American Jews connect to their Judaism through culture, not religion – only 12% of Jewish Americans regularly attend religious services, but 74% share Jewish culture or holidays with non-Jewish friends. Jewish youth philanthropy provides an opportunity for Jewish teens to experience Judaism in action and explore their cultural identity through the giving process. Research shows that after participating in Jewish youth philanthropy programs, alumni have stronger Jewish identities, deeper connections to the Jewish community, and the skills, confidence, and inspiration to become leaders and change-makers in their own communities. These results hold true even years after program participation, as alumni elected to stay involved in the Jewish community and expressed interest in carrying their philanthropic goals into adulthood.
HONEYCOMB, FORMERLY the Jewish Teen Funders Network, has more than a decade of success creating these experiences. Now we see both an opportunity and a need to expand and deepen efforts. Our intensive trainings, resources, and consulting services help educators and community leaders run immersive Jewish philanthropy experiences and programs, and other meaningful grant-making activities for youth and families.
By focusing on educators and community leaders, we can better grow and support the field of Jewish youth philanthropy, and welcome more youth into Jewish life that is meaningful to them. As the Pew report shows, the American Jewish community is becoming more fractured, with the diversity of denominations, affiliations and ethnicities increasing. Youth philanthropy programs can provide a common ground for groups to connect, work together, and build consensus around important issues. And, with 75% of American Jews perceiving a rise in antisemitism over the past five years, now is the time to explore, together, how to address this growing issue for the greater community.
Whether these programs are run by federations, schools, synagogues, community centers, foundations, camps, or others, the common denominator is that all of these settings can offer philanthropy programs that strengthen youths’ Jewish identity, develop their leadership skills, build cohesive community, and inspire a rising generation of Jewish philanthropists and change-makers. Jewish youth philanthropy is building the foundation for our Jewish future.
In Ezekiel, consuming Torah knowledge is compared to eating honey. Honey recalls the hard work of bees, and suggests that hard work leads to sweet results. Just as bees are essential to creating the honeycomb, philanthropy is critical to the world today, and, especially, to the sustainability and survival of Jewish infrastructure and institutions.
In youth philanthropy programs, participants dive in and work, fulfilling all the roles of a funder board, from designing and screening grant applications, to distributing funds and reviewing grantee achievements. At the same time, they are exploring how Judaism feels relevant to their lives and their futures, learning to work productively with their peers on challenging topics and diverse issues, and making decisions that are consequential for their communities and the issues they care about. Just as bees – and their honeycombs – are essential to the ecosystem, philanthropy is critical to the future of the Jewish community.
At a time when Jewish youth are invested in exploring their cultural identities, philanthropy provides a platform to connect to Judaism while instigating change. By offering youth the opportunity to activate their dreams for the future, we give them an important sense of agency, a more nuanced understanding of Jewish identity, and a stronger connection to their communities. Moreover, they’re inspired to orient their actions – today and in the future – through Jewish values and with the Jewish community.
This is the future of Jewish teen engagement: exceptional experiences that enable youth to fund real change and have a lasting impact on their connection to a strengthened Jewish identity and leadership opportunities.
The writer is executive director of Honeycomb.