Moving Traditions

Heard on Morning Edition, October 10, 2018

Moving Traditions founder and CEO Deborah Meyer says the goal is not to tell teens how they should behave, but to give them the space and guidance to arrive at the right answer with their peers.

“We help guys uncover the tenderness and the connection and the joy in themselves, as a human being, and develop for themselves a sense of ethics and values and responsibility,” Meyer says.

By Rabbi Daniel Brenner, eJewishPhilanthropy, October 30, 2018

In the wake of #metoo, many families are questioning the practice of hiring young women to fawn over thirteen-year-old boys, but Vegas-style b’nai mitzvah celebrations continue to grab the headlines and to give pre-teens grandiose ideas about the party. Meanwhile, a quiet revolution is taking place in how today’s families are approaching the rite of passage of b’nai mitzvah. Two years ago, I sat with podcast producer Michele Siegel (Slate, The New York Times, and WNYC) and podcast host Sara Ivry (Vox Tablet) discussing the idea of exploring the contemporary b’nai mitzvah experience, untangling the complexities of gender, culture, class, and Jewish identity as they present themselves in family celebrations across the United States, and exploring the rite of passage as a contemporary threshold where a child doesn’t become an adult, but a teen.

January 15, 2019

Many activist and feminist Jews are wondering whether to participate in the 2019 women’s marches this weekend in light of concerns about antisemitism. It is a complicated conversation. We created and shared this discussion plan with our group leaders to help guide a conversation with the teens in their Moving Traditions groups, Rosh Hodesh, Shevet, and Tzelem.

This discussion provides a rich opportunity for teens to listen to each other and engage in civil discourse on issues about which people have very different thoughts and feeling. It presents teens with a great way to think about activism and our various and overlapping identities —  often referred to as” intersectionality” —  including our concerns about gender, race, sexuality, and antisemitism.