BBYO - Hebraica Google Hangouts Committee

Hi I’m Gime Kalesnik, a member of BBYO Argentina. I am part of the Google Hangouts committee with Yael Gutman and Tomas Brander. We are in charge of all the Hangouts during the year with BBYO members in the United States and the partnership with Liberty Region (one of BBYO’s regions located in Eastern PA, Northern DE, and Southern NY). In the committee we choose the subjects for each Hangout, when they will occur, and the people that we are going to talk to.

This week, we had our first Hangout of the year with teenagers from Liberty Region. Before we had the video call, I separated the teens in Argentina in three groups and gave them some answers to questions that I had asked to the Liberty Region teens. These questions were about Argentina, what they knew about our country and our community. For example:

•  In your opinion, what is university in Argentina like? I think there is a lot of traveling, but probably not as many years as the United States. I would say it is much cheaper but certainly not free. –David Rosen
•       Most of the people in our country, do they live in the countryside or the city? When I think of Argentina, I think of the countryside, but I imagine many people live in the city.  For those who live in the city, I think you take the bus or walk to school.  For those who live in the countryside, I think you walk or bike. – Jason Levin
•       Do you think that it is safe to be a Jewish teen in Argentina? I hope I don’t get this one wrong, but I imagine that while you can express your Judaism in Argentina, anti-Semitism is still common, making it slightly unsafe. –Saul Kester

After we read all the answers to the questions, we were ready to start the Hangouts. In my group, we talked about Hebraica and BBYO in Argentina. They were really surprised about how the community works here because it is really different compared to what they are used to. We also gave them the real answers to the questions they had answered:

•       In Argentina, we have the University of Buenos Aires that is one of the best in our country and also completely free. People that live in the city don´t have to travel to go there, just use a subway or a bus. We live with our parents when we are in University until we are older and we get a job.
•       In our country we have both, city and countryside. All of the people in BBYO live in the capital city. It is a huge beautiful city, really noisy and with lots of traffic. We go to school on a bus or use the subway. 
•       In Buenos Aires, we are 244000 Jews. It is a large community and we have lots of synagogues, Jewish schools, social clubs, etc. It is not like we can´t say that we are Jewish teens and we have to hide it. But for us, anti-Semitism is always present; it doesn’t depend on the place where you live.

In conclusion, we were able to see what they thought about our country, the differences and similarities between our communities, and had a great time getting to know each other!

We have been working hard on organizing the BBYO project here in Argentina. The Google Hangouts committee is one of six new committees we have to organize our projects and activities. Thank you Gime for sharing!