Take a sneak peak into what it is like to prepare for an NCSY Summer. See our staff working hard at Staff Training Weekend this past May, and packing day. TJJ takes off from JFK airport and prepares to land in Israel!

What an amazing summer it has been! With over 1000 teenagers on NCSY Summer programs across North America, Europe and Israel, Yom NCSY brought us all together to celebrate our common bond – our love for the Jewish people and our love for NCSY!

Enjoy this bonus recap video of the big event!

BILT (Boys Israel Leadership Training) is for boys who want to challenge themselves and have an incredible adventure through the land of Israel. And no week proves more challenging than Gadna army training. But through it all, the boys learn the skills they need to not only grow individually, but also to unite and create an army of one.

NCSY’s Euro ICE takes teens on a summer journey across Europe to places of rich Jewish history and culture. This year, Euro ICE followed the footsteps of Spanish Jewry, traveling the same path that many before them had journeyed – from Spain to the Promised Land.

Each and every summer, we dedicate one of our weekly videos to saying thank you to all those who make our summer all that it is. Whether it’s the national staff who runs the programs, the advisor back home who encouraged a teen to journey, our parents who sent us, or the donor who sponsored us – we can always find someone to say those two magic words to.

 

The Anne Samson Jerusalem Journey (TJJ) is NCSY’s premier Israel experience for public school and unaffiliated teens. The four-week adventure takes TJJers across the land of Israel – from the North to the South and everywhere in between. Though in past years the TJJ adventure always began in Jerusalem, this year, many of our TJJers started their travels with a different kind of experience.

NCSY Summer 2015 kicks off as we welcome 1000+ NCSYers to a variety of summer programs across the globe. With the best staff, the best educators and the best programming this summer is bound to be the Best. Summer. Ever!

In May, 230 NCSY staff and advisors gathered in New Jersey for a full weekend of training, inspiration and fun. The NCSY Summer Staff Training Weekend is our annual event that prepares our staff to give your children the summer of their lives. Take a look behind-the-scenes at what it takes to get ready for the Best. Summer. Ever.

CLICK HERE to register for NCSY Summer 2015

If there was ever a summer to be thankful, this summer was it. From the amazing parents who lent their support from thousands of miles away, to the unbelievable staff whose dedication and commitment remains unrivaled, to the Israeli soldiers who gave their lives to protect the Jewish people and homeland. This week’s video – and the final one of NCSY Summer 2014 – is just one small way of saying “thank you.”

The Anne Samson TJJ Poland takes NCSY’s flagship summer program, TJJ – The Anne Samson Jerusalem Journey, to the next level for public school teens, spending a week in Poland, reliving and exploring the Holocaust before arriving in Israel. This once in a lifetime journey brings these NCSYers face to face with both the darkest and brightest moments in the history of the Jewish people. 

Every summer, NCSY sends hundreds of teens to Israel for the experience of a lifetime. For many of these teens, this is their first time in Israel. Check out some of these teens’ stories – as well as what a few of our programs have been up to in Israel – in our Video of the Week! *Please note some of the footage was taken before our trips were directed up North.

The time has finally come to register for the BEST. SUMMER. EVER. 2014.

Click here to register.

On July 29, 2013, NCSY brought together nearly 1,000 NCSYers in Israel for a night of inspiration and live entertainment. It was the highlight of the summer for so many – and this video should give you a taste why.

Don’t forget to tune in to this year’s Yom NCSY live stream on Monday, July 27, 2015 at 1:30pm EST at summer.ncsy.org/yomncsy

Mercedes Essebag stumbled on GIVE USA while googling summer programs for Jewish girls. She was hoping to discover something more meaningful than the routine camp experience for high school girls.

“I’m not a camp person and I wanted to do more chesed,” said Mercedes, 14.

A member of the Moroccan Jewish community in Toronto and a student at Ulpanat Orot, Mercedes Essebag didn’t know much about NCSY but she liked the way GIVE USA sounded and signed up.

Last month, the summer program took Mercedes and 40 other Jewish high school girls to different locales across the East Coast where they performed a variety of chesed activities. Participants planted trees in New Orleans to help the wildlife recover, helped out in soup kitchens across New York State, packaged food for the poor in Memphis and Nashville, TN, and performed in choirs and plays in old age homes across Atlanta.

“It was really amazing,” she said. “We traveled all over the East Coast making a difference and we learned great lessons from our advisors.”

The part that had the most impact for her was the Tisha B’Av program, where GIVE USA director Amy Tropp and her husband spoke about how Tisha B’Av was a commemoration of tragedies that affected both the Jewish world and the secular one.

“We strive to have GIVE USA participants understand that they’re Jewish citizens of a large world and it is their duty to help make that world a better place,” Amy said.

The other most inspiring part of the trip for Mercedes was the conversations she had with the residents of the old age homes the participants visited.

“You got to really connect to the people and they told you about themselves and what they learned during their lives,” Mercedes said. “Like always, believe in yourself and go after your dream and be a friend.”

Her plans for next summer?

GIVE Israel of course.

On July 31, 2013, a young woman and man were married under the sunset overlooking the beautiful mountains of Beit Shemesh. It was a special day by any measure. But what made this wedding truly remarkable was that the whole wedding was entirely put together by the 97 teenage girls on NCSY Michlelet.

NCSY JOLT (Jewish Overseas Leadership Training) is the premiere leadership summer program for high school students. After studying their heritage in Poland for a week, NCSY JOLT traveled to Denmark and spent two incredible weeks running a Jewish camp for unaffiliated German youth.

It’s a Thursday morning in July and NCSY’s TJJ (The Jerusalem Journey) Bus 5 is in Moshav Keshet in the Golan Heights. In addition to the regular minyan, there are small workshops for those interested in learning more about tefillah.

“We had a whole bus experience to teach what it means to daven in a minyan in a shul and what it means to read from the Torah,” says Rabbi Arieh Friedner, Cleveland NCSY director and TJJ Bus 5 director.

It being Thursday morning there is Torah reading at shacharit. Friedner asked if anyone had not received an aliyah before.

Michael Burdjalov, 16, from Cleveland, raised his hand. “This was the first time I finally felt Jewish,” he says.

“You’ve never had an aliyah before? Never in your life? You never had a bar mitzvah?”

Michael responded to all three questions in the negative.

“So how about now,” Friedner asked. “No better time and place than when you’re in Israel.”

Michael was really into it. The staff taught him what to say and he made his first-ever bracha for his first-ever aliyah. His bar mitzvah in the truest sense of the word.

He recalls that everyone was really excited. They sang and threw candy at the new bar mitzvah boy. Well, bar mitzvah teenager.

“It was totally spontaneous and organically turned into a big event for him,” Friedner says.

“Later in the day all the guys in the group went to the mikve in Safed,” Michael says. “And for the remainder of the trip I went to shacharit every day. I definitely feel a lot more Jewish. A lot more connected.”

“I explained that this is a family event and part of the NCSY education philosophy is that it should be celebrated with his parents and family,” Friedner says. “This is a link in the chain of tradition.”

“When I get home I’m sure I’ll celebrate with my family and our friends,” Michael says. “I’m also going to join the Israeli Culture Club at my school [Orange High School in Moreland Hills, Cleveland, OH]. “I want to be much more connected to Judaism.”

Friedner spoke with Michael about spontaneity, about getting something special out of Israel and about being excited to grow and to learn more.

“I really am having the best summer of my life,” Michael says. “And I can’t wait to get home and go to Arieh’s house for Shabbat. This is so much more than just a fun summer experience. It’s the beginning of a relationship. A great beginning.”

The boys on NCSY’s premiere leadership trip for public school students – TJJ Ambassadors – spent two intense days learning, playing sports and bonding with NCSY Kollel. Despite coming from completely different backgrounds, everyone learned that there is much more that unites us than divides us.

 

Don’t forget to read the inspiring story of the week here.

As Samantha Hyman got off the Nefesh B’Nefesh flight to Israel this past Tuesday, she reflected on what a long, strange trip it had been for her. This was the same willful girl who decided, after a bad experience in a religious day school, that at the age of six she wanted nothing more to do with being Jewish.

“My mom would pull me out of her car by my arms and I would cry, kick, scream and do anything to avoid going into the Hebrew school classroom,” Samantha, affectionately known as Sam by her NCSYers, explained.

From then on, as her family moved from California to Kansas and she switched from day school to public school she had nothing to do with religion until high school.

“When I told my mom that all of my friends would come to school and brag about cotillion, Bible retreats, and how awesome Jesus was, she knew I was in trouble but waited until my sophomore year of high school before she dragged me out of her car once again and forced me into the Jewish Community Center (JCC),” Sam explained.

This did little for her spiritual side, she said. “That was when I discovered the world of sex, drugs and rock and roll.”

In January of her junior year her friends from the pluralistic BBYO youth group peer pressured her to go to a joint BBYO/NCSY Shabbaton.

“That was the Shabbat that changed my life,” she said.

Describing herself as full of chutzpah, she heard that a man by the name of Todd was driving to a Matisyahu concert on Motzei Shabbat (Saturday night). This was Todd Cohn, then the city director of Kansas NCSY. On the car ride to the concert, he told her about an inexpensive trip to Israel.

“The next thing I knew I caved to peer pressure again and signed up for The Jerusalem Journey (TJJ).”

Sam spent the summer of her senior year in Israel on the program, which took place during the beginning of the Second Lebanon War.

“Needless to say I had one of the most unbelievable summers of my life,” she said. “No other tour guide can compare to Rabbi Barry Goldfischer. He has this magical way of making the land of Israel come alive. I never knew what he was talking about when I was 17 but I knew it was important because of his passion and enthusiasm.”

After TJJ, she began her senior year by failing Spanish deliberately in order to force her parents to sign a class withdrawal slip to allow her to spend her Fridays with Todd and his wife Naomi learning Torah. Unsure of what to do after high school, she decided to spend the year at the seminary where Rabbi Goldfischer teaches, Machon Mayan. That year she realized that her home was in Israel. She worked out a deal with her parents to finish college in the US before making aliyah and attended Stern College for Women in New York City. She returned to NCSY as an advisor for the Southern region, now under the leadership of Todd Cohn. From then on, NCSY became a focal point in Sam’s busy life.

“Sam has the biggest heart of all the people I know,” said Rabbi Ben Gonsher, director of institutional advancement for Southern NCSY. “Whether on an NCSY Shabbaton or not, she is always thinking about her NCSYers. It wasn’t infrequent that I’d get a frantic email from Sam, asking what she can do to help make transliterated song books for NCSYers who can’t read Hebrew, when she can fly to Miami to help in the office, or where else she can dig to find scholarship monies to send her teens on summer programs. She has always been an advocate for the teens. Although we’ve looked, we simply have not been able to find Southern NCSY’s next super star ‘Sam Hyman’ advisor.”

Rabbi Gonsher said she even delayed her aliyah in order to watch her NCSYers graduate.

“NCSY was the instrument in getting her to where she was,” explained Todd Cohn. “NCSY enabled her to take all this potential she had and fully develop it into the wonderful person we now know.”

As Sam’s flight arrived and she prepared for her new life in Israel, she was greeted by her NCSYers who were spending the summer on NCSY GIVE (Girls Israel Volunteer Experience).

“There’s nothing more amazing than seeing your NCSY advisor’s dream come true,” said NCSYer Orly Ohayon.

Orly was one of the several NCSYers waiting for Sam. They held a poster which read, appropriately, “Welcome Home.”