USY still shaping lives
PAULA AMANN
The Washington Jewish Week
Last December marked the 50th anniversary of United Synagogue Youth (USY), an arm of Conservative Judaism, which has close to 15,000 members nationwide.
The organization had its birth a half century ago in Minneapolis-St. Paul and spread across North America.
Its founder, Rabbi Kassel Abelson, was initially dedicated to involving young people in the activities of the three Conservative synagogues in the Twin Cities.
More groups were set up in other Midwestern cities and three years later, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (USCJ) passed a resolution setting up USY as a national organization.
Abelson says he is "delighted and happy" with USY's growth, especially "the way it has shaped the lives of people who have belonged to it and gone through the program."
USY's annual international five-day convention, held last December, celebrated the 50th anniversary of the organization. The conventions provide a link to the larger Jewish community for many of the high school-age participants, says the group's international director, Jules Gutin.
"For some kids, being in the same room with 1,200 others," may be their first experience of Jewish life beyond their hometowns in the United States and Canada, notes Gutin, who also serves as USCJ's director of youth activities.
Marilyn Wind, co-chairwoman of USCJ's national youth commission, joined USCJ Executive Vice President Rabbi Jerome Epstein in leading a session on Jewish law and the Conservative movement at the December convention. She was impressed that many of the 100 or so who attended stayed afterward to pepper Epstein with questions about Halacha.
What she saw at the convention makes this lay leader optimistic about the next generation of Conservative Jewry.
"The USYers in leadership positions ... are going to make incredible future leaders," says Wind, herself a manager for a federal agency. "They are serious about their Judaism. They are very thoughtful. Sometimes when talking to them, I'd forget they were only 17- or 18-years-old."
Robert Sunshine, a USY activist turned assistant director for budget analysis at the Congressional Budget Office, stresses the crucial role of Jewish youth groups in cultivating a sturdy religious identity.
"You can see them develop and blossom as they move from being pretty immature 11- to 12-year-olds to pretty impressive 17- to 18-year-olds, both as individuals and as Jews," Sunshine says.
Over the decades, USY can point to other alumni who went on to distinguished careers such as former Deputy Treasury Secretary Stuart Eizenstat, the point person for Holocaust restitution in the Clinton administration; Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.) and a host of Jewish communal leaders, including Epstein and Rabbi Jack Moline of Agudas Achim Congregation in Alexandria, Va.
"USY did two important things for me: It gave me a sense of ownership of my Jewish life ... and it introduced me to my wife," Moline says.
He and his then bride-to-be, Ann, both worked at a camp the future rabbi headed when he served as director of USY's Seaboard Region.
Making these kinds of personal connections through USY is not unique to Moline.
Alumnus Sunshine notes that his older son, Ari, met his wife, Jennifer, at the USY international convention in Toronto in 1995. Ari is currently studying to become a rabbi at the Jewish Theological Seminary.
"I think USY had something to do with that," says his proud father.
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