Moving Traditions

Moving Traditions’ Teen Groups – Rosh Hodesh for teen girls, Shevet for teen boys, and Tzelem for LGBTQ+ teens – are transformative communities where youth explore who they are through Jewish and gender lenses, together with a trained mentor using a dynamic curriculum.

Through monthly meetings throughout the year, our Teen Groups create circles of support that embolden youth to thrive. Group discussions and activities are infused with Jewish values and wisdom made relevant today, guided by social-emotional learning and positive psychology – proven methods of learning that foster wellbeing. Teens discuss issues that impact their daily lives, such as stress, academic pressure, friendships, intimate relationships, and societal issues.

The Meyer-Gottesman Kol Koleinu Teen Feminist Fellowship is a distinctive opportunity for young Jewish feminists (10th through 12th grade) to learn how to effectively speak their minds and create the change they want to see in the world.

Offered in collaboration with NFTY and with support from USY, this year-long fellowship invites teens of all genders to learn how to apply a Jewish feminist lens to the world, ask powerful questions, deepen their knowledge about social change, and amplify their voices to share their beliefs and express a call to action. Finally, fellows hone their skills by creating a tangible social change project.

During the year, fellows will meet monthly through virtual meetings where participants learn from and teach one another in a supportive Jewish feminist community. We’ll also get together virtually and in-person (assuming the safety of travel) a few times throughout the year to meet our mentors, work on projects, and to celebrate our work.

Through CultureShift, Moving Traditions trains staff who work with Jewish youth at camp and elsewhere about how to navigate gender, healthy boundaries, and more. Over the last decade, Moving Tradition’s CultureShift initiative has helped dozens of summer camps, youth groups, and Israel trip providers – training staff members of all ages how to handle some of the most challenging aspects of gender, sexuality, and power dynamics when working with adolescents.

What sets Moving Traditions approach to these issues apart from others is that we delve into the underlying gender and social codes that influence behavior and we explore how Jewish values on personal spiritual growth (shleimut), inter-personal communication and healthy relationships (hesed), and social change (tzedek) can help all teens to thrive.

Kulam is a plug-and-play Hebrew High School curriculum that promotes shleimut (individual wellbeing), hesed (connection), and tzedek (just action) for Jewish high school students.

Kulam (meaning “Everyone,”) is a program that offers a series of approximately 1-hour, experiential, curricular sessions designed for Jewish educators to use in a regular Hebrew High setting. Each hour features dialogue prompts, games, Jewish texts, and other activities that focus on a specific area of social-emotional learning that resonates with teens and helps them learn to relate to and communicate with one another.

Our new Kulam program equips Jewish teens to engage in dynamic and authentic relationships in order to think reflectively, act courageously, and develop healthy and caring communities.

Kumi is a unique opportunity for Jewish teens (10th-12th graders) to help prepare them for bold leadership and activism on college campuses, in social justice spaces, and wherever else their passions take them. Participants of the program will be equipped to interrupt racism, antisemitism, and other manifestations of oppression. Together, they will contribute to the building of more inclusive communities and movements for justice as Jews.

Through their experience in Kumi, participants will be challenged to explore their connection to their own Jewish identity and build the skills to turn their values into action. Among the key issues discussed, teens will be given support to explore how they can talk and think about Israel, when so much of the current discourse is polarized and creates simplified binaries.

Kumi participants will engage in a two-part experience: a four-day, in-person learning-intensive retreat and a monthly virtual community of practice.