The Pilot Or Shalom Teen Programs this Spring will be an opportunity for 8th-12th grade members of our community to come together monthly for learning, relational connection, and social action that grapple with the challenges and opportunities of being Jewish youth in this moment. Crafted in partnership with teen participants, over the course of three sessions we will delve into Jewishness in this historical moment for our nation and our Earth, how we might take action for social justice as Jews, and future directions for the Or Shalom Teen Program. 

Each session will include making havdallah together, and some combination of text study, discussing what responsibilities we have as Jews to show up for justice today, preparing plans (and starting to carry out) advocacy efforts surrounding issues of concern to the Or Shalom and San Francisco communities, planning the future of this program, and plenty of time to hang out with friends over pizza (and a Passover-friendly dinner on 4/19) and snacks. We hope you will join us for as many of these dates as you can!

We are offering this pilot program at no charge, but ask you to make a donation of your choosing toward the pizza pool.

About the Teen Workshop Instructor:

Madeline Canfield (she/her) is a community organizer, educator, facilitator, and writer in both climate and Jewish movement spaces. She works as an organizer in Jewish climate movement building, where she mentors high school and college students to write environmental and organizing curricula and develop campaigns that apply Jewish epistemological frameworks to contemporary challenges of the climate crisis. She designs and implements workshops that explore the intersections of existentialism, climate emotional resilience, ancestral memory, Jewish environmental epistemology, public narrative, and theories of liberation. At Or Shalom, she is proud to teach the bimonthly B’ Mitzvah Class, in which students delve into the rhythms of Jewish calendrical time as they extrapolate learnings from Jewish classical texts, history, and ritual to develop their own sense of commitment to identity at this pivotal moment in their lives. In the spring, she will also lead a series of teen workshops around the relationship between Jewish text, practice, and contemporary politics in community-based work for collective liberation. She has a bachelor’s in English and Judaic Studies from Brown University. 

Outside of education, she developed extensive organizing experience across the youth climate and other justice movements. She serves on the U.N. Environmental Programme Faith for Earth Youth Council and the board of The Shalom Center. She recently earned a bachelor’s in English and Judaic Studies from Brown University and is excited to be a resident of San Francisco as of this past summer!