News articles and Moving Traditions announcements
This summer, in the #MeToo era, the Foundation for Jewish Camp is conducting a nationwide training program to prevent sexual harassment at Jewish overnight camps, which about 70,000 children attend each summer.
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For years, Moving Traditions, a national organization based in Jenkintown, has worked with Jewish summer camp leaders to change camp culture and address issues around gender, sexuality and power, including body image, bullying and awareness about not encouraging inappropriate sexuality at too young of an age. And in the wake of the #MeToo movement, demand for training has grown.
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Selected from among hundreds of finalists by experts in grant-making and Jewish communal life, the Guide called Moving Traditions “a leader in helping Jewish teens address [social and personal] challenges within safe, Jewish communal spaces, so that they can thrive—growing up confident and compassionate, and finding meaning and connection in Jewish life.”
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By Deborah Meyer and Jeremy Fingerman, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, May 10, 2018
…Summer camp is where many of us form our deepest and longest-lasting relationships. It is often rightly held up as a healthy oasis, an alternative to the social pressures of popular culture, including a much-needed break from life driven by screens.
And yet, we bring all of our cultural norms and expectations with us to camp. Normative discriminatory or biased attitudes toward gender, sex and power can lead to inappropriate behavior mirroring the outside world, from all levels – administration, counselors and campers….
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This spring, senior educators from Moving Traditions will be facilitating three trainings for professionals from the camps in the Foundation for Jewish Camp network.
We will ask some tough questions: What counts as harassment? What does “consent” mean – for staff or for teen campers? How might female-identified and male-identified staff view harassment or consent differently? What actions can camp leaders and staff take to decrease the amount of romantic or sexual pressure that adolescent campers experience at camp?
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The Foundation is investing in what it calls the Shmira Initiative; so far, it’s spent $100,000 on the program. The goal is to “change camp culture on all levels, implementing a shift in staff programming, training, policy and enforcement around issues of gender, sex and power.”
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Being a teenager can be tough. Just ask 13-year-old Hope. Fortunately, to cope with those feelings, Hope knows where to turn. Once a month, she heads to Adath Israel, which hosts a girls-only group called Rosh Hodesh.
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The Covenant Foundation announced $1.6 million in new grants today, investing in Jewish organizations and initiatives with sweeping potential for the field of Jewish Education.
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The groups provide a space for teens to talk and ask questions about identity and gender — all within a Jewish context. Much of the curriculum, for example, covers heroines from the Torah. The purpose of the organization is to adapt and “move” the tradition to make it more meaningful for the students.
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If we do not want the world our teens inherit and shape to look like the world of today, then we must seize this opportunity to delve deeply into how we understand the relationship between sexuality and power.
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