By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO – In his position at the Lawrence Family JCC as the teen program manager, Sebastian Mayer, 22, occasionally receives phone calls from parents who worry about their teenagers’ diminishing interest in Jewish life and ask if there are any programs that might keep the teens connected.
Mayer responds that the JCC has become the local home of the BBYO movement and is actively seeking to reinvigorate in San Diego County the 100-year-old organization that began life as the B’nai B’rith Youth Organization but which is now an independent entity, using only its initials for identification purposes.
The mention of BBYO prompts a wave of nostalgia among many parents and grandparents. “So many times, I talk to a parent, and they say they reconnected to Judaism through BBYO, or they met their spouse, or made a best friend who later was at their wedding,” Mayer said. “The relationships that are born in BBYO are something that is really special.”
From conversations that I have had with my peers – who are in their 70s and up – I could understand what Mayer was talking about. My wife, Nancy, while a high school student started up a BBG (formerly B’nai B’rith Girls) chapter in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles. Wendy, who had just moved to the area, became a member of the chapter and Nancy’s best friend. Wendy’s father had pulled away from Judaism and at first was opposed to Wendy even becoming involved in BBG. However, she persisted, and her parents not only relented, they decided to go with the flow and join a synagogue, which her father later served as an officer. For Wendy’s family, BBYO was a portal back into the Jewish world.
I asked some friends in a group self-styled as the Bagel Boys if any of them had been members of AZA (Aleph Zadik Aleph), which was the BBYO organization for boys. Ken who is now in his mid-80s smiled and said that was the way he met girls. David, who is past retirement age, remembered with pleasure some of the activities in which his chapter had been engaged.
Today, with the encouragement of the JCC’s teen program manager, there are three small, but thriving BBYO chapters in San Diego. One that is coeducational is based at Congregation Beth Israel and is simultaneously affiliated with NFTY, formerly known as the North American Federation of Temple Youth. By affiliating with BBYO, teens at Beth Israel acquired the opportunity to be involved in an international organization that lists 725 communities in 60 countries on its roster. Last February, BBYO held an international convention in Dallas, Texas, that attracted more than 3,200 teens and 1,000 adults representing 44 countries. Speakers included the nation’s Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff and Israel’s former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, as well as entertainers, sports figures, and Debora Lipstadt, the U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism.
Responding to antisemitism is in BBYO’s DNA. Aleph Zadik Aleph was founded in 1924 by 14 Jewish high school boys in Omaha, Nebraska, who has been rejected by the high school fraternity Alpha Zeta Alpha because they were Jewish. In response, the boys created a fraternity with the same initials using Hebrew letters rather than Greek ones. Omaha thus became the home of AZA Mother Chapter #1, and when its advisor, Nathan Mnookin, moved to Kansas City, Missouri, he helped to create AZA #2.
Within a year, the growing AZA movement affiliated with the B’nai B’rith as the youth wing of the larger organization. In 1927, Jewish high school girls in San Francisco founded what would become the first chapter of B’nai B’rith Girls (BBG) with programming modeled after AZA’s. In 1944, BBG formally affiliated with B’nai B’rith, and the separate boys’ and girls’ organizations together became known as BBYO.
At the Lawrence Family JCC, the Marc Chagall chapter of AZA and the Gal Chadash chapter of BBG have been meeting in the Samuel and Rebecca Astor Library on Monday evenings from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. Both chapters are open to any Jewish student in Grades 8 through 12. There is a onetime membership fee of $249, for which financial assistance is available so that teens “from all socio-economic backgrounds can participate,” according to information on the LFJCC website. “Additionally, scholarships will remain available for specific BBYO events as well as $3,000 vouchers for any Jewish teen who is interested in traveling to Israel on a BBYO Passport program.”
Mayer said the two chapters meeting at the JCC have approximately 20 members each, with every meeting bringing potential members who want to check out the organization.
Some of the activities in which local BBYO units have engaged include beach cleanups, and “going to a trampoline park, to Belmont Park, bowling … a Purim hamantaschen bake off [and] a global Shabbat where they had a Holocaust survivor speak to them,” Mayer said.
“We also have weekend programs throughout the year—retreats, Shabbatons if you will,” where teens who may not have had the opportunity to become b’nai mitzvah can experience reading from the Torah, Mayer said. There also is programming around Jewish holidays including Chanukah get-togethers. “We try to touch whatever bases we can, but the biggest thing is building friendships and building community because that is what keeps bringing the kids back.”
Although he is an advisor, Mayer emphasized that AZA and BBG activities are organized and directed by the teens themselves. Mayer anticipates that there will be a BBYO chapter started up soon in the Carmel Valley area, and said he is looking at other parts of the county where Jewish teens may want to set up and run new chapters.
“What we are really looking to do now is find those pockets that have been untapped in Jewish life and let them know the opportunities they have to form their own independent chapters, Mayer said. His role is “giving kids the tools to create the kind of programming they want to see, rather than just throwing something at them and hoping they will tag along.”
“That is something that is special about BBYO’s – they are teen driven, teen focused, and they give them the opportunity to be leaders, to step up and create the programs that they want to see, rather than just following along and signing up for whatever some group of adults decide.”
Bringing the girls of BBG and the boys of AZA together retains the same appeal it has had for a century now.
One recent activity was to go to the Hillel House at UC San Diego for a Shabbat “so they could get a glimpse of what Jewish life could look like in college,” Mayer said. He pointed out that as a trans-denominational Jewish organization, BBYO members are encouraged to look over various alternatives ranging from Hillel to Chabad to praying in their own way. “It is not like we have a predetermined path for every kid; everyone is different,” Mayer told me. “We want to give them all the ability to find their connection to Judaism and to each other. That way they can understand what it means to them and how they want to continue to maintain it through the rest of their adult lives.”
Mayer grew up at Congregation Beth Israel, attended the San Diego Jewish Academy, and later graduated from the private, liberal arts Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Named for Benjamin Franklin and John Marshall, the college resulted from the merger in 1853 of two separate colleges named respectively for Franklin, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and Marshall, an early U.S. Supreme Court justice. Franklin College reportedly was the first college in the United States to be coeducational. Among its students was the first known American Jewish college woman, Rebecca Gratz, upon whom Sir Walter Scott reportedly modeled the beautiful Jewish heroine, Rebecca, in his novel, Ivanhoe.
Only a year out of college himself, Mayer said the JCC’s executive director Betzy Lynch forged the partnership between LFJCC and BBYO and that Jason Lobenstein initially staffed the program before being hired at Congregation Beth El as its director of administration. Mayer, son of Andy Mayer and Jewish Federation President and CEO Heidi Gantwerk, started at the JCC less than a year ago as a community engagement specialist before being assigned to his current position.
For more information about BBYO, Mayer may be contacted via (858) 362-1328.
*
Donald H. Harrison is editor emeritus of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com