Our Voices

This past March, for the first time in seven years, PTS offered our teen trip to Los Angeles. Rosa and I led a group of 8th and 9th graders around the city, exploring LA Jewish culture and joining local social justice efforts to serve the greater community.

Every day offered a blend of teen bonding and service learning. For Shabbat, we joined up with teens at Beth Shir Shalom in Santa Monica. In addition to having the quintessential LA Shabbat dinner, a taco bar, we also completed a joint service project. Together, our group made Shabbat kits for local hospitals. Each kit has electric candles, a blessing card, and a heartfelt, handwritten note. The kits will be bundled with grape juice and a challah roll, then distributed to patients who are too sick to celebrate Shabbat at home, providing them a moment of light and Jewish joy during a difficult time.

On Sunday, we connected with Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills. Together with their Mitzvah Corps volunteers, we packed meals for the Hollywood Food Coalition. The Coalition distributes food across Los Angeles to unhoused people and families affected by the LA wildfires. Thanks to generous ingredient donations from congregants, hard work, and some assembly line-style efficiency, we were able to pack over 150 sandwich box lunches!

That morning, our teens also had the chance to schmooze over donuts with Temple Emanuel’s madrichimot. They talked about all the important things in life, like if it’s true that LA people run into celebrities all the time (yes, but you have to know which mall to shop at), or which California city has the best weather (everyone voted Los Angeles). While none of our teens said the Bay had good weather, I’ll take a cold, gusty rainstorm in Burlingame over 110-degree LA summer weather any day.

Later on, we joined Temple Emanuel’s PASSPORT class, a teen course focused on Judaism throughout the civil rights movement, different forms of civil protest, and incorporating Jewish values in social justice efforts. We learned strategies to have productive arguments, then split off into small groups to research Jewish values and texts related to current social justice issues chosen by the students. The groups covered a wide range of topics, from immigration laws, to Holocaust education, to LGBTQ rights.

Our final stop in LA–not including a brief visit to Factor’s Deli for cookies and a kosher dill pickle–was the Museum of Tolerance. After bearing witness to the WWII Jewish experience in their Holocaust exhibit, our group had the chance to address modern injustices. We put our individual social justice ideologies to the test in their Social Lab, an interactive exhibit where we were tasked with thinking through how to improve current societal challenges like healthcare access or reducing homelessness rates in the city. We watched short clips of people with different stances on the topic, then voted on our top three methods to address the issue. There was no right or wrong solution; each outcome gave us the pros and cons of our methods. This was a great chance to practice healthy debate and think critically about the ripple effects of public policy changes.

For all the great moments that can be had inside the classroom, there's nothing quite like the experiential learning and team bonding that takes place on synagogue trips. Whether it’s connecting with classmates over silly group debates at the breakfast table, tangibly expressing Jewish values and making an impact through volunteer work, or hearing different life stories and traditions from other Jewish teens, these moments stick with our teens and encourage them to continue seeking out meaningful Jewish experiences, even after they graduate. ♦