Three BT students honored for outstanding leadership

Excerpted from the Baltimore Jewish Times Cover Story - June 1, 2007

Buried Treasure

Maayan Jaffe and Rochelle Eisenberg
JUNE 01, 2007

They are no more than 18 years old, still students at institutions throughout Greater Baltimore. Yet they will be standing in the limelight this weekend, as the 12 honorees of Jews for Judaism's annual banquet.

Selected for their dedicated service to the community — its sick, its poor, its elderly and disabled –– these youth, said banquet co-chair Andrew Wohlberg, 'have a lot they could do with their time ... yet they take time to contribute in a meaningful way."

This is the organization's sixth annual banquet, but it is the first time it chose not to honor a big macher, but rather the delicate young futures of Jewish Baltimore.

'We do so much programming for youth," said Ruth Guggenheim, director of development and public relations for Jews for Judaism, 'and we realized there are so many young adults that give back to the community but never get recognized. If we acknowledge them today, if they are recognized as young Jews, they are bound to stay connected to the Jewish community in the future."

The students were nominated by Jews for Judaism's partner agencies, including the Maryland Teen Initiative, the Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore, day schools and religious schools, and selected by a committee of around 15. They come from public and private schools, from synagogues Orthodox through Reform, and they each have their own niche.

One girl raises awareness about diabetes, another raises funds for the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America. They're not 'one-time kids," as Ms. Guggenheim put it, 'these kids go above and beyond their school's community service requirement."

The banquet, said Ms. Guggenheim, will be as free spirited and passionate as the youth themselves. An 11 a.m. 'champagne/sparkling grape juice reception" will kick off the 2 1/2-hour light dairy meal. The speeches will be by the children, few-minute answers to a thoughtful question they were given a few weeks in advance. The highlight will be a short skit by JTTV Live, Jews for Judaism's interactive teen theater group.

'The goal is to keep it concise, friendly and very informal," she said.

Jews for Judaism raises awareness about missionaries targeting Jews for conversion, while providing educational resource materials and counseling to help keep Jews Jewish.

Jews for Judaism, explained Mr. Wohlberg, who is working with Marlene Resnick, is a unique and small organization, doing most of its work out of the public eye, so people don't always know of the successes it's had. He compared the organization of 'just truly committed people" to the youth honorees, 'a rare group of people," and said, 'why not give them each the opportunity to have a little spotlight shined on them?"

'Jews for Judaism and the young leaders," he said, 'these two things together are very inspiring."

International Advocate

Name:Josh Eidelman

Parents' Names: Gary and Jill Eidelman

School: Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School

Synagogue: Beth Tfiloh and Beth Israel

Hero: 'Theodor Herzl ... I live by his saying: ‘If you will it, it really is possible.'"

When Israeli artist Arik Einstein wrote his famous anthem 'You and Me," bringing tears and emotion to the hearts of Israelis and then Jews around the world, Josh Eidelman was listening. On a recent Wednesday, Josh waxed emotional at the Starbucks in Woodholme, sharing his dreams to make a difference in the world — one person at a time.

'Every difference makes a difference," he said, 'Even to make one child happier is an amazing thing."

Josh is a junior at Beth Tfiloh and a top volunteer throughout the community, a leader of the 2005-2006 Commitment to Service Initiative through Jewish Volunteer Connection. He has brought arts and crafts to children with terminal illnesses, visited blind youth at the Maryland School for the Blind, where his mother and role model works, and raised funds for cancer patients. He is selfless, said Beth Tfiloh high school principal David Portnoy, always focused on others.

But Josh takes his work an extra mile, or miles really. Dedicated to helping Jews not just locally, but also across the world, Josh is the teen chair of a summer mission to Odessa, part of a program called Lev El Lev, which he named.

'I am really excited. ... It is going to be inspirational and uplifting," he said, talking about his plans to offer Shabbat services for unaffiliated Jews in the former Soviet Union, to visit the isolated, elderly and sick. 'We're going to almost a Third World country. .... I'm ready for a life-changing experience."

In addition, he's using a $5,000 JVC grant to travel to Argentina in the fall on a fact-finding mission for his newest program, Jewish American World Awareness Relief and Education, or J-AWARE. He plans to take pictures, get the scoop on what the Jews' lives are like down there, and come back ready to motivate the Baltimore community to help.

'It's about international Jewish advocacy, really teaching teens we are the next generation who has to deal with the world's problems, we need to take a stand, learn about Jewish oppression abroad, so we can fix it," he explained. 'Kol Yisrael aravim zeh lazeh, all of Israel is responsible for one another."

Josh is planning to study international business, he said, to use the connections he makes to advocate for Jews abroad.

Said Mr. Portnoy: 'This is a young person who should give us great hope for the future."

Obedient Scout

Name: Marshall Jay

Parents' Names: Charles and Sheila Jay

School: Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School

Synagogue: Beth Tfiloh

Hero: 'My great-grandmother ... She came over here [100 years ago] with some clothes and a knife ... and she started a family, a whole life."'I'm jubilant, like I have that disposition," said Beth Tfiloh sophomore Marshall Jay on an early April morning. 'If there's a bad situation, the first thing I do is try to look at how this helped me or what good can come of it. ... I am just really happy all the time."

Cheerful, caring and compassionate: three adjectives used to describe Marshall, who has been a dedicated Boy Scout since the age of 7, and an avid volunteer for equally as long.

'He is always the first to volunteer for any activity that will help his community," said Beth Tfiloh high school principal David Portnoy. 'He has boundless energy and concern for his fellow human being."

'He just seems to be where he needs to be," said Lt. Col. Mel Shichtman, vice chairman of the Baltimore Area Council Jewish Committee on Scouting.

For Marshall, doing and being good are just a part of life. Scout law requires a person be trustworthy, loyal, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, clean, brave and reverent, he said, which really sums up the kind of person he wants to be.

Marshall said scouting has taught him to appreciate what he has, not to take his posh Pikesville life for granted.

'When you ... spend a weekend in a tent, eating cold food, cooking on a propane stove, you can really see how simple life can be," he said.

Marshall was appointed to a select group of Eagle Scouts in 2005, the youngest ever to receive the honor in his Owings Mills Jewish Community Center troop; only 2 percent of scouts, according to Mr. Shichtman, ever make it this far. As part of becoming an Eagle Scout, Marshall planned and executed a community service project collecting hundreds of books, magazines and stuffed animals for Sinai Hospital. He volunteers regularly at Levindale Hebrew Geriatric Center and places American flags on the graves of fallen soldiers every July 4.

Making top grades, Marshall finds time for United Synagogue Youth and National Council of Synagogue Youth programs, and co-runs the teen prayer service at Beth Tfiloh, though in his modesty only admits to 'helping out."

'Marshall is one of those people who are very quiet, ' said Mr. Shichtman, 'like a duck, you see the stillness on the surface, but he is paddling like hell underneath."

Tzedakah, Righteousness and Goodness

Name: Gila Heller

Parent's Name: Hannah Heller

School: Beth Tfifloh Dahan Community Day School

Synagogue: Chevrei Tzedek

Hero: 'My mother, because she's gone through so much in life. My father died [when Gila was 12] and it was difficult. She works four to five jobs so my brother and I can go to private school, and live in our house and have things. We're really close."


For 17-year-old Gila Heller, volunteering is not simply something she does because it looks good on her college application. It is something she does because, as she puts it, 'people benefit more than you realize."

With tears in her voice, she can recall how something so simple as teaching a young girl, Shoshana, the Shema can make a powerful impact. She tells the story of what happened when Shoshana's grandfather took his young preschool-age granddaughter to synagogue. While there, when Shoshana placed her hand over her eyes to say the Shema, her grandfather began to cry. To Gila that said everything about how what she was doing can mean so very much.

Gila volunteers regularly at junior congregation Chevrei Tzedek, a conservative synagogue in Baltimore. Each Saturday morning, she teaches 2-, 3- and 4-year-olds the prayers, incorporating hand motions, dances and storytelling. She relishes the fact that she has this responsibility of providing a positive experience to youngsters.

In addition, Gila is actively involved with JTTVLive, a Jews for Judaism youth program. Participating in the interactive teen theater group that teaches values through skits, she has performed with other teens at area Hebrew schools for the past three years. Themes of those skits include intermarriage and missionaries who try to convert Jews to Christianity and one of those skits — bullying — she helped write. That one was performed at the JCC's 'Sugar and Spice" program last year.

Speaking of writing, Gila, who hopes someday to be a writer of some sort, is the first to voice her opinion when she feels it is warranted. She is well known among Beth Tfiloh faculty to write letters to area publications,

Said David Portnoy, head of Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community Day School, 'Gila is also committed to tzedakah, to righteousness, to goodness and is very deserving of this recognition."

Added Gila: 'A lot of tikkum olam is feeling I'm a part of something larger."