North Jersey Herald News
From left, Nicole Edi, 13, and Shelly Cherkassky, 12, both of Fair Lawn, huddle to come up with an answer during a game of Jewish Family Feud on Sunday.

Fair Lawn, NJ — Twelve is the age in the Jewish religion when a girl reaches bat mitzvah — assuming the responsibility to follow Jewish law and culture on her own.

But it also a crucial age in which religious participation among the young often drops off dramatically once the routine of Hebrew school has come to an end.

Program aimed at keeping teens active in the Jewish community

North Jersey Herald News
From left, Nicole Edi, 13, and Shelly Cherkassky, 12, both of Fair Lawn, huddle to come up with an answer during a game of Jewish Family Feud on Sunday.

Fair Lawn, NJ — Twelve is the age in the Jewish religion when a girl reaches bat mitzvah — assuming the responsibility to follow Jewish law and culture on her own.

But it also a crucial age in which religious participation among the young often drops off dramatically once the routine of Hebrew school has come to an end.

Keeping young people involved and active in their Jewish faith is something that Rabbi Mendel Zaltzman and his wife, Elke, are undertaking with a new series called Project Six, six straight weeks of community-oriented activities, mostly aimed at young people, at the Bris Avrohom synagogue of Fair Lawn.

“This age is a particular age when their bar and bat mitzvah is done,” Rabbi Zaltzman said. “Once it’s done, in many cases, their connection is over, and that’s the gap we’re trying to fill so they don’t lose touch.”

The dynamic young couple, who give their ages as “under 30,” are youth directors at the local Chabad Lubavitch temple. His father, Rabbi Berel Zaltzman, founded the Fair Lawn center in the 1990s to cater to a growing population of mostly Russian Jews in the area.

Keeping teenage girls engaged and excited about their faith was the theme of a Project Six event on Sunday. Nine girls ages 12 to 14 showed up to learn about the upcoming Jewish holiday of Tu B’Shvat also known as the New Year for Trees. Instead of a religious lecture on the origins of the holiday, the rabbi and his wife helped the girls make fruit smoothies, celebrating the naturally sweet gifts of trees.

The girls picked their own combinations of fruit from a table full of mangos, bananas and an array of berries, and watched as the rabbi whipped them in a blender with ice cream or milk.

Nicole Edi, 13, of Fair Lawn, whispered to her friend, Miriam Stanislavsky, also 13, as the two compared cell phone screen savers. When asked why she had come to the event, she answered in typical teen-speak: “I asked her if she’ll come, and I said I’ll come if she comes, and she said she’d come if I come,” Edi said, stopping for a breath. “So we both came.”

The girls sat sipping their smoothies and eyeing one another around a large table, nervous and quiet at first. But Elke Zaltzman soon broke the ice with a spirited round of Jewish Family Feud. Modeled after the popular television game show, it had the girls laughing with delight as they came up with answers to Jewish related categories like “favorite Hanukkah gifts” and “Jewish girls’ names.”

A soundtrack of New Age Hasidic music played softly in the background, and the friendly, relaxed antics of Rabbi Zaltzman and his wife quickly put the girls at ease.

Rabbi Zaltzman said the new tactics for teaching about religious traditions were getting a great response so far in his congregation. “Even if they lose touch, you’ve planted a seed,” said Zaltzman. “You never know when it will spark.”

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