The second annual No'ar Hadash Midwest Youth Kallah was a huge success!  More than 70 youth in sixth grade through high school joined together at Camp Henry Horner (the site of Camp JRF) for a weekend of fun, friends, laughter, discussion, snow, creativity, and exploration.  Focusing on "Believing," the theme for Summer 2004 at Camp JRF, teens from Shir Hadash, JRC, Beth Shalom, the Reconstructionist Havurah of Cleveland, Beth-El Zedeck, and Shaarei Shamayim discussed Reconstructionism, beliefs in God, the role values play in our lives, and what it means to live in two civilizations.  During the course of the weekend, participants engaged with Reconstructionist catchphrases and wrote modern teen interpretations of quotes by movement founder Mordecai Kaplan.  The original quotes, along with some of our teen commentary, can be found below.  This incredible event - the largest of our regional programs - reminds us not only of the excitement of our growing youth movement but also of the commitment our youth have to building and strengthening our movement.

Judaism is the evolving religious civilization of the Jewish people.

Judaism evolves so the past cannot unilaterally change the present.
All denominations of Judaism are different, but all are still Jewish people.
Jewish people are bonded by things other than Judaism.

The Jews who represent the most vital and promising element
in Jewry today are those to whom Judaism is a problem.

What this says is that the Jews who find faults in the Jewish religion
and try to better them are the most vital part in the Jewish religion as a whole.

Not timelessness but timeliness is the desideratum.

Mordecai Kaplan is saying in this statement that in our lifetime
we cannot spend our time looking for classic moments but
we must first live in the moment, stay organized, and living in the day!

God is the power that makes for salvation.

God is the reason for understanding.
God has an ultimate plan.
There is a reason for everything.
Badness ultimately can be good.

What the Crown is to England,
that Eretz Yisrael is to the Jewish People.

Israel is the center of Jewish life. 
When you stand for prayers, you always face Jerusalem. 
God promised Israel to Abraham because Jews didn't have a homeland. 
So, Israel is a home where any Jew can go to and be free.

The past has a vote, not a veto.

The past plays a part of the future.
The past determines the future and you can't avoid it.
You have to accept your past.
Once something happens, you can't avoid it.

We are living in two civilizations.

Jewish / Christian
Orthodox / Reform
People who believe in God / Those who don't
Religious world / Modern world
Political world / Religious world
Modernization of old world Jewish to now
Old religion / Modern world
Terrorists / Peacemakers
Life / Death
Youth belief and what you are told to believe.

In addition to writing commentary on Kaplan's catchphrases, participants also created new statements about Reconstructionism, as well as logos for the movement.  Above is one of these logos - a woman rabbi made out of an orange.  It is told that an orthodox man once said that a woman belongs on the bima as much as an orange belongs on a seder plate, and many liberal communities now include an orange on their seder plate in order to symbolize the central role women play in Jewish communal life.  The teens who designed this logo found the values inherent in this modern midrash central to the beliefs of the Reconstructionist movement.