What BBYO chapter and region did you belong to?
I was a member of Zielonka AZA in El Paso, Texas.
What was your involvement in BBYO as a teen, and how did those experiences shape you as an adult?
I was sure that after the day I became a Bar Mitzvah, I would never show up again to a Jewish “anything” ever in my life. When I was 16, a friend of mine told me that there was a benefactor who paid for us to go on a BBYO regional convention, and that I should go. I walked into the room of 400 or 500 people, and they were all having fun. And I didn’t know that Jews can have fun—this was something I thought not from my family but from organized Jewish institutions. I thought, wow, if I ever decided to "be Jewish" again, I am going to make sure that fun is a part of my experience.
I ended up becoming the Aleph Godol of my chapter, went to a bunch of regional conventions, took people with me, and started recruiting people. I felt it was important to explain to young people, and I was young, that it was fun. BBYO shaped my Jewish involvement in a tremendous way.
What are some of the top learnings you took away from your time in BBYO that you still use today?
Becoming an Aleph Godol, a president of the chapter, you find that you have to herd a lot of cats! I always talk about leadership to adults in boards today and they sometimes get frustrated. I say, “Frustration is being a teenager, a president of a youth group!”
You have to go to your peers and run some sort of system. You have to get them involved; you have to engage with them. You sometimes have to not be the most popular voice in the room. All that is leadership. If you’re the head of an organization or board and you don’t feel like whatever you’re doing is going to go great—believe me, no one is going to follow you. Leadership is about getting people to join. I learned that from my BBYO experience.
What were some of the highlights of your time in BBYO? What are some of your favorite memories?
If I looked at my friends that are scattered across the United States, there’s always a BBYO connection. I think that’s kind of neat. Even if I run into people I don’t even know and they were in BBYO, we have an instant connection.
In BBYO, when I was Aleph Godol, we recruited a full bus to go to convention. That was a highlight to see that El Paso, Texas could bring 40 teenagers to a convention. It showed that there were people that wanted to participate and wanted to go. El Paso was noticed at conventions!
What advice would you give your teenage self? What might you tell teens today?
Being a part of a Jewish organization is tremendously important. When you’re a teenager, there are a lot of pieces you’re trying to put together for your college engagement. I think it’s drilled into kids at a very early age—how do you get into the Ivy Leagues? But if you want to survive in the Ivy Leagues—even if you think BBYO doesn’t look as good on your CV resume as some other things do, I guarantee your life during your college years will be better because of it if you’ve engaged in something like this.
I think my advice to young people, all young people, is always that there’s good and there’s evil. Evil grows because good sits on the bench. Evil recruits people because we haven’t filled the room with good. If you believe in a better tomorrow, get involved in Jewish organizational life as a teenager and you can fill the world full of good and lead it.
What are you proud of that you are currently working on today?
We’re working on a project called the World Zionist Village in Be’er Sheva. This project is not about the buildings. It’s about changing the conversation. With young people, we no longer should be thinking that Jewish conversation or Israel conversation is about right or left, religious or not religious. It should be about what I believe most young people care about: shared values and common destiny. It’s going to be a place where someone from Barcelona, or Birmingham, Alabama can come together and go to a marshmallow roast and listen to a speaker a few feet from Abraham’s well where our conversation first began. We’ll learn about each other and start a conversation between our Jewish people and learn from one another—which I believe young people are looking for.