This is a speech I gave last week at the B'nai B'rith Youth Organization's International Convention at a session on globalization.
How did this situation come to be?
From a shy freshman new member to President of Eastern Region: Virginia Council, my four years in BBYO were full of friends, conventions, summer programs, singing, leadership development, and memories. Through it all, I became a confident leader who could speak to a large group and strived to capitalize on opportunities in the present to create a strong Jewish future. And if that wasn’t enough, just by organically developing a network and traveling abroad in BBYO, I discovered my passion to be part of a global Jewish world and to help it become increasingly connected.
During my years at the University of Virginia, I sought out a Jewish community through Hillel. I became an active leader and found out that my Hillel offered alternative spring breaks through JDC Entwine. For those of you who don't know, JDC Entwine is the young leadership development part of the American Jewish joint distribution committee, and connects young Jews to global Jewish communities. My first JDC Entwine experience was a college service trip to Israel. I was so overwhelmed by this experience that I then led a trip of my peers to Ukraine the following year. I went a step further and spent eight weeks in Argentina as a multi-week JSC fellow the following summer. This experience was so moving and I came back with many ideas, so I was honored to be invited to JDC Entwine's 20 member national steering committee as the first college representative to help develop Entwine's strategic goals, something I'm really proud of. These experiences put me in a unique position to learn about the challenges and successes of many Jewish diaspora communities and opened my eyes to the role I wanted to have in helping to shape and continue to strengthen our global Jewish community.
Now you can understand why I have the best job. I am a JDC-BBYO Jewish Service Corp Fellow, which means that I work with two amazing organizations and get to connect Jewish teens in Buenos Aires, Argentina with teens in the US and around the world through BBYO programming. I was surprised to learn how eager the teens I work with were to connect with their peers around the world and learn about the differences and similarities they share. My favorite moments of this experience include the Argentine teens lighting Shabbat candles with teens in Boston through video conference for BBYO's Global Shabbat and my teen Tami's sheer excitement when she realized she would get to meet her Macedonian pen pal Bojan here at IC. Moments like these make me believe that I am a part of something greater than myself. I feel proud and grateful that I have an active part in building and strengthening our global Jewish community. Hopefully I am helping to create relationships and friendships that will last into the future like mine with Achi-Or.
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