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A Sacred Bond
Why Girls Need This
Leadership for High School Girls
Getting Started
Parents Make It Happen
Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll
Thanks
Rosh Hodesh: It’s a Girl Thing! is a multi-year, monthly celebration of the ancient New Moon holiday for pre-teen and teenage girls (grades 6-12) that builds self-esteem, leadership skills, and Jewish identity.
Launched nationally in 2002, approximately 7,800 girls have participated in Rosh Hodesh groups operated by 282 Jewish institutions of all affiliations, across North America, including groups that are continuing to meet in the 2010-2011 program year.
Visit www.roshhodesh.org for more information.
A Sacred Bond,
Article written by Michelle Levine
Poem written by Natalie Tarasar
4th year Rosh Hodesh participants
Congregation Beth Evergreen, CO
As a young woman preparing for college, my Rosh Hodesh: It’s a Girl Thing! group has been one of the things that got (and still is getting) me through the trials of high school. I have been in Rosh Hodesh for four years at my synagogue, Congregation Beth Evergreen in Colorado. There are good times, which we celebrate together. And there are also bad times, and once a month we get to sit and talk it all out. For two and a half hours Rosh Hodesh is an opportunity to forget the feeling of being alone.
The individuals who make up Rosh Hodesh are each as different as it is possible to be. This uniqueness is the most important and essential part of our group. Our personalities range from artistic to scholastic to social and more, with lots of combinations of these qualities – yet we come together as a family. Even the girls who are in the same high school have had radically different experiences over the years. And yet, somehow, we have always been there for each other no matter what the circumstances.
The group is now for many of us the only active link we have to our Judaism. With sports and activities and homework, it becomes difficult to attend Temple on a regular basis. Even when I attend Temple, the services are not actively integrated into my life. In Rosh Hodesh we have learned to integrate Judaism into our dramatic teenage lives. Sometimes, it is hard to relate to the stories in the bible and apply them to modern-day high school, however, our incredible group leaders Marti and Colleen help us with this part of Rosh Hodesh. The stories we read in Rosh Hodesh help me get through things like gossip and body image and boys.
My personal favorite times in Rosh Hodesh are the times which aren’t planned: skipping through the meadow late at night, swooning over boys in Jewish movies, and plastering each others’ faces to make Purim masks are a few of the highlights. But it’s not just the silly things which mean a lot to me. Knowing that you have friends in Rosh Hodesh no matter what sort of drama goes on elsewhere is the best security blanket any girl could have in high school. Also, our group leaders (a rabbi’s wife and a non-practicing-catholic-but-practicing-non-Jew) are incredible. The confidentiality that they keep and their life experience is more valuable than any therapist could ever be. This group means a lot to me, and I would never give it up.
The poem below was written by one of my friends in the Rosh Hodesh group, and describes our bond perfectly. Her creativity is one of her best qualities, and is something that sets her apart from other young women.
When witches near, dark men appear, to shred my delicate heart, the place to go, attracts me so, to there I do depart. And once I arrive, to open both eyes, I find that I am lost. Not because the compass lies, or it’s the wrong place, but I look around and notice, that there is not one other face. I sit myself here, and shed a tear, while looking at the ground. For all seems gone, no moving on, no places more to go. But from the tear, a hand appears, and body beyond that. They reach towards, and pull my cords, that lead to somewhere far. And in that spot, I’ve found what’s not, at where I had started. A friend to hold, and truth be told, an open guide to lead me. She takes me where, I’d never dare, to travel all alone. And coming round, I see I’ve found, six other lonely souls. And in their eyes, I see there lies, a feeling identical to mine.
In circles there, we sit and share, the stories of our past. We sit and hold, hands not cold, to keep each other close. As time goes on, we move along, accepting each new story. And giving hope, so we can cope, with whatever ails us. Advice and thought, are shared abroad, that bring us closer still. And when the time, runs out we find, that we have been restored. And it’s good to know, that these girls go, but when the time is right, again we meet, to take a seat, once on a Jewish night.
Why Girls Need This
Rosh Hodesh: It’s a Girl Thing! draws on Jewish teachings and traditions to keep girls healthy and whole. Popular culture encourages risky behaviors:
- 30% of 9-year-old girls are afraid of being fat – just when they are entering puberty and are filling out
- almost 5% of all young women have eating disorders
- close to 20% of 9th-grade girls – and 51% of 12th grade girls – are sexually active
- 23% of 9th grade girls binge drink
- almost 25% of sexually active ninth-grade girls had used alcohol or drugs during their last sexual intercourse
Until the creation of Rosh Hodesh: It’s a Girl Thing!, no Jewish communal program has pro-actively addressed two well-documented trends:
- many girls drop out of organized Jewish experiences after bat-mitzvah
- girls’ self-esteem plummets as they enter adolescence.
According to Dr. Catherine Steiner-Adair of the Harvard Eating Disorders Center:
"Adolescent girls today must travel in a teen culture that makes risky and dangerous values and behaviors – at ever earlier ages – seem normal.
"Rosh Hodesh: It’s a Girl Thing! offers girls an alternative culture that will help them counter the media and popular culture's unhealthy messages. This program offers girls at the edge of young adult life a vision of what is holy in them and their world, and the skills in order to stay whole."
Leadership for High School Girls
Moving Traditions developed three new years of curriculum material – the Rosh Hodesh: It’s a Girl Thing! Leadership Curriculum – to meet the developmental needs and interests of high school girls. This program will empower high school girls to further discover their voices and personal power, while staying healthy and Jewish.
The girls practice skills that empower them to lead their own groups – and function at a high level in all spheres of their lives. We envision that these girls will grow to be empowered adult professionals and lay leaders.
A cross-denominational group of girls meeting for their fifth year through Nishmah in St. Louis wrote the following poem at their gathering last month:
We Are Leaders
We are leaders.
We are not defined by others.
We get our power from each other.
People view us as strong, unique, Jewish women.
Our friends think we are unstoppable.
Our parents think we are up to something.
People want us to be something we're not.
Nobody knows that we are scared sometimes.
We want to be true to ourselves.
We are leaders.
Getting Started
Moving Traditions will help you bring Rosh Hodesh: It’s a Girl Thing! to girls in your community, whether you are a parent, staff person, or a potential group leader.
Contact the
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office and we’ll help you:
- work with the decision-makers to bring the program to your synagogue, day school, JCC
- hire the right group leader
- get your group leader trained
- recruit girls
- operate a high quality and enjoyable group for girls
Parents Make it Happen
Bringing Rosh Hodesh: It’s a Girl Thing! to your community
 When Margie Patlak heard about Moving Tradition’s Rosh Hodesh: It’s a Girl Thing! program several years ago, she decided to start a group for her daughter, Eva Chudnow, and her friends. Margie wanted to help the girls build strong Jewish female identities in the face of challenging messages from the media and society.
“Teenage girls are easily buffeted about by peer pressure and other social forces that take away their inner strengths, harm their self-esteem, and lead them into dangerous territory,” says Margie, a medical and health writer.
“I was concerned about Eva wanting to conform to something she wouldn’t feel comfortable with otherwise. I felt as if Rosh Hodesh: It’s a Girl Thing! offered a good centering point and a way of grounding.”
Although Margie and her husband, Frank Chudnow (now a Moving Traditions Board member), belong to Kol Ami near their home in suburban Philadelphia, the potential group of girls in the synagogue was too small to form a Rosh Hodesh group at the time. But they knew their daughter had close Jewish friends from school and camp who would make up a good group.
After attending a presentation by Moving Traditions about Rosh Hodesh: It’s a Girl Thing! and finding out that a regional arm of the local Jewish Federation was interested in sponsoring a group, Margie and another parent talked with their daughters and put together a list of girls they thought might be interested.
Getting started
“When we initially started calling parents of potential members, most people weren’t familiar with the program, but once we explained it they thought it sounded like a great idea,” recalls Margie.
“We invited about 20 girls and their parents to an introductory gathering, ran a sample meeting with the girls, and explained to the parents what the girls would get out of it. So many people were interested that we ended up forming two groups.”
A leader for each group was hired by the Federation and trained by Moving Traditions, and in the fall the girls started their meetings.
Fast-forward to 2008, as the half-dozen girls remaining in Eva’s group have just completed their 4th year of Rosh Hodesh: It’s a Girl Thing! and are planning to launch their 5th year. The teenager praises the program and her group’s participants for making it something to look forward to every month.
“We have a really good group leader who starts a topic for us to talk about, and if we go off track she helps get us centered,” says Eva, now 15 and a rising high school sophomore. “You get to learn about famous Jewish women who made a stand, and it gives you lots of ideas for yourself and how you can change the world. Plus you get to bond with other girls and do cool arts and crafts. It’s fun.”
Measuring the benefits
So what does Margie think her daughter has gotten out of Rosh Hodesh: It’s a Girl Thing! over the years? Although she concedes that Eva occasionally responds to direct questions about her experiences with one-word answers in typical teenage fashion, she says she does see the program’s impact in ways even her daughter might not recognize.
“From time to time Eva will point out media images and the way some of them portray women, or she’ll share with me things on the internet that make fun of those images,” says Margie. “She’s also doing the leadership training curriculum now and has talked about that a bit. She definitely appears to take on more of a leadership role than some of her peers and seems to be really grounded.”
Eva articulates other benefits of participating in her Rosh Hodesh: It’s a Girl Thing! group – one of more than 240 that were operated in 2007-2008 in conjunction with congregations, day schools, and other institutions of all denominations throughout North America.
“One thing I really like is that it has gotten me confident about myself as a girl in a way I don’t get from school or other places,” Eva says. “Usually you’re not connected with your Judaism after your bat mitzvah, but for me, it’s one of my biggest connections now. And it’s great that I get to see some of my camp friends every month since they don’t live that close to me.”
You can do it, too
Margie points out that the initial steps in getting a group together are not difficult and have their own rewards, with most parents expressing gratitude to those who help make it happen for their daughters.
“Once you get it off the ground, there isn’t much you have to do afterward,” she notes. “With the help of the group leader and the curriculum, the program uses Jewish teachings to encourages the girls’ inner strengths so they can emerge from their teen years self-confident, safe, and sound.”
Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll
Do Parents Influence Teen Behavior?
Adolescence is a challenging time of life, made more complicated by potentially dangerous messages from the media and popular culture, often delivered in a virtual world that is extremely difficult for parents to monitor.
Many parents struggle with how best to help their children navigate their pre-teen and teenage years.
The good news is that the benefits of a positive parent-teen relationship continue well into adulthood, with reported lower levels of risky behaviors and psychological distress, and higher levels of self-esteem, happiness, and life satisfaction.(1)
However, there are few Jewishly-informed resources for parents of teens.
To fill this vacuum, Moving Traditions’ is creating new Jewish resources to equip parents to empower their teens to stay healthy and Jewish – and to make effective life choices.
Parent Influence
Positive parent-teen relationships are key to healthy adolescent development. According to research:
• Teens who report feeling connected to parents and family are more likely than others to delay initiating sexual intercourse.(2)
• 50% of teens say they trust their parents most for reliable and complete information about birth control. Only 12% say they trust a friend for such information.(3)
• Approximately 70% of adolescents have discussed condom use with their mothers; discussing condoms before first intercourse can increase the likelihood of future use.(4)
• Positive relationships or connectedness between parents and adolescents is linked to avoidance or lower use of alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drugs.(5)
• Two-thirds of teens ages 13-17 said that “upsetting their parents’ respect” is one of the main reasons they refrain from smoking marijuana or using other drugs.(6)
In addition, research shows that a meaningful and lasting connection with Judaism is not only valuable for its own sake, but also that connection to religious community correlates with higher grades, lower levels of drinking and drug use, and other dimensions of healthy development.(7)
(1) Umberson, D. (1992). Relationships between adult children and their parents: Psychological consequences for both generations. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 54, 664-674.
(2) Hundleby, J.D., & Mercer, G.W. (1987). Family and friends as social environments and their relationship to young adolescents' use of alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 49, 151-164;
(3) Princeton Survey Research Associates for the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. The 1996 Kaiser Family Foundation Survey on Teens and Sex: What Teens Today Say They Need to Know, and Who They Listen To. Menlo Park, CA, June 1996
(4) Miller, K. Whitaker, D., Xu, X. Patterns of Condom Use Among Adolescents: The Impact of Mother-Adolescent Communication. American Journal of Public Health, Vol.88 (10), 1998
(5) Resnick, M.D., Bearman, P.S., et al. (1997). Protecting adolescents from harm: Findings from the National Longitudinal Study for Adolescent Health, Journal of the American Medical Association, 278(10): 823-832; also Hundelby (above). As cited in Moore, K.A., Guzman, L., Hair, E., Lippman, L. & Garrett, S. (2004). Parent-teen relationships and interactions: Far more positive than not. Child Trends Research Brief, Publication 2004-25.
(6) Partnership for a Drug-Free America. (2002) Partnership Attitude Tracking Study.
(7) Blum, R. and P. Rinehart (1997). Reducing the Risk: Connections That Make a Difference in the Lives of Youth. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota, Division of General Pediatrics, Adolescent Health.
Thanks
We gratefully acknowledge the commitment of individual and institutional funders who support our work:
The Hadassah Foundation has provided generous support for the creation and implementation of Rosh Hodesh: It’s a Girl Thing!
The project is made possible in part with funds granted by:
The Covenant Foundation
The Natan Fund
The Picower Foundation
Replication of Rosh Hodesh for girls in communities across North America is made possible by grants from:
Boston Jewish Community Women's Fund
Diane and Norman Bernstein Family Foundation
Dobkin Family Foundation
Goldberg/Nash Family Foundation
Richard and Rhoda Goldman Foundation
Walter & Elise Haas Fund
Jewish Women's Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago
Jewish Women's Foundation of New York
Lasko Foundations
Jack and Goldie Wolfe Miller Foundation
Rita Poretsky Foundation
Rose Community Foundation
Tikkun Olam Women's Foundation of Greater Washington
UJA-Federation of NY Commission on Jewish Identity and Renewal
Women of Vision Fund of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia
Rosh Hodesh: It’s a Girl Thing! was originally created and developed by Kolot: The Center for Jewish Women’s and Gender Studies at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (RRC). Moving Traditions gratefully acknowledges and appreciates RRC and Kolot giving the program to our organization in January 2005.
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