For the third year, GFC has partnered with the Religious Action Center (RAC) to gather teens from across Texas and Oklahoma to offer them the opportunity to travel with their Jewish peers to Washington, D.C. for a weekend of learning, sight-seeing and advocacy. Highlights from the trip include incredible speakers, a variety of programs from topics of homelessness and hunger to campaign finance reform to Israel to voting rights, confronting the challenges of climate change, and more. We visit the National Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, tour the National Mall and spend time in Smithsonian museums, spend an evening out in Georgetown. One of the highlights is joining in our Havdallah service on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial.
“My second year attending the L’taken social justice seminar was, for me, just as incredible as the first. As a person who is an avid advocate for reform in all aspects of society, this seminar is one that is personally right up my alley and never fails to send me home so excited about the future. When I attended L’taken last year, I went home with a realization that I wanted nothing less than to work in Washington, D.C. on Capitol Hill to help bring about real change, and that dream is one that was further cemented this year. I lobbied for the second year in a row for criminal justice reform, an issue that I was not even aware of until my first L’taken last year, but has become an issue that I am not a passionate advocate for. All in all, L’taken has opened me up to a world of possibilities, from what I want to do with my future, to how I can work to make the world a better place, to meeting new people from across the country to discuss issues that we as Jews fight every day to fix. L’taken was an amazing experience, and I sincerely hope that I will be able to attend next year as well.”- Reflection from Rachael Marglous (11th grader from Houston Congregation for Reform Judaism)
All the seminar’s programming, speakers, and sight-seeing prepares teens to write speeches on issues they care about to deliver to their Congressional representatives on Monday morning. Our teen actively engaged in the programming and were well-prepared to ground their legislative asks in historical context, facts, Jewish values, and personal stories. GFC teens spoke about refugee resettlement, torture, and criminal justice reform. We were so proud of our teens for the preparedness, professionalism and eloquence as they presented their word to Congress on Monday morning. We were moved that one of our participants wanted to speak about GFC’s own work in refugee resettlement on Capitol Hill.
“A few years ago, I started going to a camp called Greene Family Camp in Bruceville, Texas. I was excited to go because I’ve always wanted to go to camp. I had such an amazing time learning there and just having a great time. I knew camp ended at the end of the summer, or so I thought. I was so surprised to find out that the camp I had been going to was a camp that housed and helped people who were displaced by hurricanes, such as Hurricane Rita and Hurricane Ike. Not only did GFC help American citizens that needed help, because their homes were destroyed, but GFC also hosted refugees from Central America that needed a place to stay and feel safe. Knowing that the camp I had been going to for the past few years had been housing refugees and children who were in dire need of help made me tremendously proud. During a NFTY program we had at GFC in September, I found out that camp was its max capacity and has housed more than 1,000 refugees. The camp director shared with us that the young refugees were able to participate in activities at camp and so that they were occupied and having fun in a time that was difficult for them. I believe that what GFC did was an amazing thing because our Jewish values teach us that we must help others in need because we too have been in dire need of help. Someone who is fleeing from their homes to survive should not be turned away without the help if we can provide it.” Excerpt from speech presented to Senators John Cornyn, Ted Cruz and Congressman Michael McCaul, written by David Fedder (11th grader from Congregation Beth Shalom in Bryan, TX)