Yeshiva University students meet with JSU South Florida

YU Students listening to Josh Broide and Steve Schauder

This afternoon undergraduate students from Yeshiva University came to Boca Raton on a special trip to see why South Florida and specifically the area of South Palm Beach is becoming known for it success with Jewish outreach. These students are on their winter break and are visiting Jewish communities on an East coast tour. Today, they got to hear why this community in particular is truly unique. The fact that this is the most densely saturated Jewish community in the United States, coupled with the important relationships that have been developed across the community make the Jewish engagement opportunities almost endless. They heard how JSU South Florida (http://www.jsu.org/) continues to inovate and how BRS created the Boca Raton Jewish Experience (http://www.myjewishexperience.org/). Unfortunately the only thing that we don't have on our side is time. Each day that goes by, there are more and more Jews that we are missing and losing to the winds of assimilation. I am so happy that the students got to hear from Steven Schauder, the Director of Education for South Palm Beach. He expressed how important it is to work with all segments of the community and that there are many issues that he struggles with in trying to satisfy the opinions of both the Orthodox, Reform and Conservative, when it comes to programing. The point is that sometimes we are so quick to criticize an organization, because we automatically assume that the no "Halachik" thought went into the equation, when they planned program. I cant speak for other Federations, but one of the reasons why I always work with our Federation is because they are always concerned and regularly debate the issues.
I hope that this was an eye opening experience for the students and that they can bring back some of the lessons that they learned from this experience to their communities as they become community leaders.
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