DRS-NCSY ‘Jump Club’ builds leadership skills in Kansas City

We got off the bus in Kansas City, Kansas; the sun was slowly setting on the day. Okay so maybe Kansas City isn’t like Mobile, Alabama (raise your hand if you didn’t get the Shlock Rock “Minyan Man” reference). There are definitely more than ten Jews and one wouldn’t have any trouble finding a Shabbat minyan, but the closeness and familiarity of the community makes Kansas City one of the truly special Jewish communities in the United States.

We are all members of the National Conference of Synagogue Youth (NCSY) NY JUMP Club that meets each Thursday at our school - the Davis Renov Stahler (DRS) HALB Yeshiva High School for Boys. Each week we discuss projects and opportunities to develop our leadership skills in the community. We put much of what we learned to good use on this trip to the Midwest that was organized and developed by the NCSY NY region.

Josh Gottesman, our advisor, is the associate director of NCSY’s JUMP leadership program. He has been to Kansas City numerous times and become close with many people there. Our own experiences there from February 17th-21st helped us understand why.

On the night we arrived in Kansas City, we ran a Latte and Learning program. That’s a Jewish Student Union (JSU) program where Jewish public school teenagers get together at Starbucks to discuss Torah and Jewish ideas. We met with more than a dozen public school kids from around the Kansas City area to talk about Purim. We felt very accomplished after reviewing the Purim story, discussing why we ‘boo’ Haman, and why we eat Hamentashen. Teaching fellow Jews about a holiday they know little about is an amazing feeling.

The good feelings continued the next morning as we went to daven Shacharit at The Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy, a K-12 community Jewish day school. After spending time with the students we met the members of the Kansas City Community Kollel. It was so interesting to hear their stories. These Kollel members chose to move to middle America in order to teach and learn with Jews in the Kansas City community. We have always heard about Torah being taught in ‘out of town’ communities; it was exhilarating to see it firsthand.

Our next stop was Blue Valley North, a public school whose student body is 15% Jewish, to run a JSU club. The Jewish Student Union is the umbrella organization overseeing hundreds of Jewish culture clubs run in public schools across America. We prepared material to teach, but we still didn’t know what to expect because we have actually never been to a public school before. When we arrived, we started meeting the students at the club who approached us, and distributed the kosher bagels and donuts we had brought along. We taught over 20 public school students our own age about Purim and groggers, and made our own noisemakers that everyone could take home. It was very inspiring to see young adults willing to stay after school to learn about their Jewish heritage.

On Friday we delivered some Purim joy by dancing and singing with residents at an assisted living home, Village Shalom. We met so many different people from so many different backgrounds - people who have lived in Kansas city for over 90 years, a couple who used to perform on Broadway, and even some people who grew up in Poland and lived through the war. Sundown was fast approaching and we were very eager to see what Shabbat would be like in such a warm community.

At Shul on Friday night it seemed like the entire community came over to us individually to say hello and welcome. Everyone was interested in learning about our lives and where we came from. They really made us feel at home, treating us as if we have been living in Kansas all of our life. Dinner was open to anyone who wanted to join us. We sat with several people observing their first Shabbat, and it made us truly appreciate that we keep Shabbat every week.

We set the table for 30 people but when it was time for Kiddush people kept on walking through the door. At first we just set more place settings, but eventually we needed to bring in more tables! After dinner, we joined a beautiful Shabbat tisch (table) with 45 public school teens. It was so exciting to sing and dance with students who were so enthusiastic about getting exposed to their Jewish roots.

Experiencing Shabbat in a community like Overland Park, Kansas is something every Jew should do. There were so many positive role models who we saw giving selflessly for the benefit of the community. We met Mort, a man who helps take care of the shul, and we saw how he stayed in shul all Shabbat so he wouldn’t miss Mincha, because the walk home and back is too far. On Shabbat afternoon, we sat in the back of the shul and spoke with the father of one of the JSU members. He told us how she is inspiring and teaching her family about Judaism, causing a true transformation in the entire family.

We went to Kansas with the intention of giving but returned home having received life lessons that will never be forgotten.

Ben Pianko of Lawrence and Ari Adler of West Hempstead are graduating seniors at Davis Renov Stahler Yeshiva High School; Aryeh Fischer of Brooklyn is a junior; Ian Hawk of West Hempstead is a freshman.