The parents of Cohort 19 also get a workshop of their own!

Contributed by Olga Basman and Ellen Finestone

We began our parent meeting by sharing our "oys and joys". Not surprisingly, there were many commonalities. This experience enabled parents to establish a stronger connection to one another, feel more like members of the Diller community, and to better appreciate the experience the teens are having as they too begin all of their meetings in the same way.

Our first 'big' activity was a preview of what our teens would be doing later in the day.   During the activity, called 'Our Island,' parents were tasked with creating our own creatures out of play-dough.  We had to define our creature's natures, needs and priorities and even talk about the language they use.  Then, we brought our creatures to an 'island' and together talked about the laws that governed our new space.  

We even simulated the refugee crisis by moving creatures into different islands; individual island communities would then share the impact they experienced of losing an established member and accommodating the arrivals of new ones. Because this segment of the Diller Teen Fellows program is all about Jewish Identity, this 'task' focused all of us on creating, defending, and negotiating identity – and bringing our identities into a bigger community.  It helped all of us think about pluralism, certainly something we see in the Jewish community here in the Bay Area – and in Israel.

Finally, we were split into five working committees, similar to the ones our teens are members on in Diller: Swag, SFUG, Ceremonies, Social Diller Life, and our committee – 'Keeping up with the Dillers.' This blog post is the product of our committee.  Our first ever blog post. 

 

If you are interested, you are welcome to write a post too.  Just contact Katherine KatherineT@sfjcf.org

 

Wishing all Diller teens and parents a happy new year.