A new non-profit in St. Louis is taking over a long-runnign program that aims to increase awareness and understanding of Judaism, Jewish people and Jewish culture in schools.
Be the Narrative told KMOX that interest from Jewish organizations in other parts of the country has grown substantially in recent years, thought unfortunately coinciding with the rise in anti-Semitic incidents nationwide.
Be the Narrative CEO, Rabbi Andrew Terkel, joined KMOX to talk more about the outreach program. He described Be the Narrative as a teen peer-to-peer storytelling organization with a goal of creating enduring positive perceptions of Jewish people.
"But doing it through this really, really natural teen voice, right? Our new national organization is called Be the Narrative -- it's not just our name," he said. "It's what we do and empower teens to be the narrative be the storyteller of their Jewish story."
The organization brings together Jewish teens of all the major American denominations, and takes them out to high schools where there aren't many Jewish people in the area.
"They give a presentation, they talk about how they celebrate the holidays, or lifecycle events, what Judaism means to them, what Israel means to them, how they celebrate Shabbat, and then they take questions and have conversation back and forth with high school students across the country," Rabbi Terkel said.
In the St. Louis area last year, the organization held more than 100 classroom presentations. Rabbit Terkel added, "Each one is a chance for people to interact with someone that maybe they wouldn't get a chance to."
He said the idea is to combat stereotypes and microagressions, subtle jokes people may make about Judaism, and promote things about the culture that people might not always see on the news.
Hear more about Be the Narrative from Rabbi Andrew Terkel on Total Information AM:
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