teens

Like Mother, Like Daughter

Michal Dicker shares her compelling story of growing into her Orthodox feminist identity. She originally submitted this essay to gain ...

Operation Understanding

Every summer, the ISJL office is privileged to be one of the stops on the journey of teens participating in ...

The Middle School Prayer

Middle school is hard. Bodies betray young people as they lurch uncertainly towards adulthood. Emotions rear up and overtake sensibility ...

The Power of Community

Earlier this week, Rabbi Shira Stutman wrote a short essay in Slate about her realization that when she was in middle ...

A Crash Course in Being a Professional Ally to LGBTQ Youth

“I have friends I can be Jewish with, and friends I can be queer with, but I’ve never had a ...

Senior Year: APs, College Prep, and Coming Out in My Orthodox High School

 When I tell my friends who are not Orthodox that I’m out of the closet and attending a Modern Orthodox ...