NCSY Outreach Made Possible by Yeshiva

Since its founding in the late 1950's, the National Council for Synagogue Youth (NCSY) has been intimately connected to Yeshiva University. Many Yeshiva students work as advisors for NCSY, while several of the college's graduates hold administrative positions within the national network. In addition, NCSY has begun to work more closely with Yeshiva's Mechinah program to help recruit students from across North America to Yeshiva's undergraduate schools.

"In the 1960's and 70's, most of the NCSY regional directors were YU students running regional programming from their dorm rooms," explained Rabbi Steven Burg, national director of NCSY and a YU alumnus. "In the 1980's regional directors were moved to the actual regions they worked in, but the connection to YU stayed."

Rabbi Burg explained that NCSY is trying to mirror one of the goals that President Richard M. Joel had while serving as President and International Director of Hillel. "We're trying to get more people, especially YU rabbinical students, to view NCSY as a career path. Education and the rabbinate shouldn't be their only option to help the Jewish community."

"It's hard to imagine what NCSY would look like without Yeshiva University," commented Central East Region Director of NCSY Rabbi Tzali Freedman. "Hands down the greatest asset that NCSY has is its advisors. The quality of our advisors is the edge that NCSY has over every youth organization in the world. For the past 50 years, from coast to coast, the single largest source of college advisors has been YU."

Recently, NCSY has appointed two new regional directors - both of whom are Yeshiva graduates. Rabbi Aryeh Lightstone was appointed as Regional Director of Long Island, and Rabbi Yaakov Glasser was named Regional Director of New Jersey.

"It used to be that working for NCSY was seen as a fall-back career option," explained Rabbi Lightstone. Today it's viewed as a legitimate career." Rabbi Lightstone worked in business for several years before joining NCSY.

Yeshiva's Mechinah program recently hired Rabbi Ari Solomont, a former NCSY regional director, as its head recruiter. Rabbi Burg explained that NCSY has been working closely with the Mechinah program to help recruit students from NCSY's network of 166 public school clubs across North America. "Mechina has been a dream come true for us," Rabbi Burg noted. "It gives our alumni, who may not have had the benefit of a Jewish education, the chance to attend one of the premier yeshivot in North America."

Monthly NCSY programs, including its new Friday Night Lights program, are run primarily by Yeshiva students, both men and women. Rabbi Burg expressed that "like the 1970's, Yeshiva students are coming out of their dorm rooms and getting involved again."

Adi Isaacs (YC '08) is a captain in the Friday Night Lights program for the communities in North Bellmore and Roseland. As a captain he's responsible for recruiting a team of about eight leaders who will make a commitment to work in one of the communities assigned. "Many of our advisors make a connection with the people of the community and go back to the same community each month." He noted that between 80 and 90 percent of the advisors in his region are students at Yeshiva or Stern.

At these monthly shabbatons, NCSY targets specific communities and arranges special Friday night davening, followed by dinner and dancing as well as discussion sessions on various topics led by student advisors. The dinner and dancing infuse excitement and liveliness into an otherwise uneventful Shabbat. NCSY officials explained that the sessions are tailored to the interests of the specific group and often range from philosophical issues to more practical discussions of religious practice. Any appropriate topic is fair game and the leaders take their cue from the participants. The sessions are meant to motivate the participants to increase their religious observance and to stimulate them to study more and become knowledgeable about their religion. There is obviously a thirst for such experiences.

Rabbi Lightstone, who oversees the program in Long Island, noted that communities that usually draw a dozen or so people to synagogue on a typical shabbat often attract over a hundred people when NCSY comes to town.

Rabbi Burg stressed that the student advisors who work at these events do not see their role as rule enforcers. They play a more pivotal role: They lead sessions and interact with the participants on different levels. They are considered the key to the success of the whole weekend experience. "Instead on just watching the hallways, they (the student advisors) are actually inspiring the Jewish future."

Rabbi Freedman pointed out that Yeshiva is the number one school of choice for post high school education for NCSY alumni. "This means that the lessons learned in NCSY, the primacy of Torah study, will be reinforced in their college years."

Mr. Isaacs told The Commentator that he hopes to stay involved in NCSY for many years to come. "I've found the experience of NCSY so rewarding, I would like to stay affiliated in the future."