It All Starts with a Mom

Since it was launched in 2017, TJJ for Moms has brought hundreds of women to Israel. Photo: Risa Goldberg

Ever since October 8, 9 PM is sacred in the Marcus house. That’s when Aimee Marcus, from Westchester, New York, is sure to be on Zoom with a dozen or so other women, depending on the night, listening to a Torah class or chatting with other participants.

“We talk about real life. The real life of TJJ Moms,” says Nechama Kamelhar, director of family engagement for Tri-State NCSY as well as director of TJJ for Moms and Dads, who hosts the Zoom.

TJJ for Moms and Dads was founded by NCSY in response to requests from parents of teens who had attended TJJ (The Anne Samson Jerusalem Journey). Run by NCSY’s Jewish Student Union (JSU), TJJ takes Jewish public high school students on an annual three-week trip to Israel. Before TJJ for Moms and Dads was created, teens would return home from the Israel trips with a newly awakened sense of Jewish identity to parents who could not relate.

“What better way to show the moms what their teens experienced than by taking them on a similar trip?” asks Kamelhar, who took more than eighty moms to Israel this past year. Since TJJ for Moms and Dads was launched in 2017, the program, which runs separate trips for moms and dads, has brought hundreds of participants to Israel.

Marcus had never been to Israel before she participated in TJJ for Moms in 2022 with fifty other women. “I loved every minute of being there and have really gotten involved in the organization since I came back,” she says. “I feel like it’s really changed me. It has made me appreciate my Judaism so much more.”

Kamelhar looks for applicants who have, among other qualities, “a desire for the trip to have some sort of Jewish impact on their families.”

“It’s not all or nothing. Some people are going to light Shabbos candles, some people are going to buy flowers for Shabbos, some people are going to put up a mezuzah. It’ll be different things for different people.”

Kamelhar feels that getting moms involved is essential. She’s seen, for example, how some moms come back from a trip and help start a JSU chapter in their child’s public school. “It starts with the moms,” she says.

At one point trip participants expressed a desire for ongoing programming. In response, Kamelhar began arranging challah bakes, lectures and holiday-themed events, such as a Rosh Hashanah Apple Crisp Bake Tour, throughout the New York area. Dozens of Jewish adults have participated in these events, some discovering their Judaism in their fifties and sixties, others reconnecting for the first time since childhood. Some of those who attend are not even TJJ participants; they just hear about the programming and want to join. “It’s become a local phenomenon,” says Kamelhar.

Kamelhar and the other madrichot, or volunteer leaders, on the trip also invite participants to their homes for Shabbat and yamim tovim, giving them a real taste of observant Jewish life. “Nechama’s home has an open door,” says one participant. “I can call her any time and say I’m coming. Her Shabbat table extends like Basya’s arm.”

To alleviate the boredom and loneliness the TJJ community was experiencing during Covid, Kamelhar turned to Zoom and began hosting morning davening sessions. “That’s how some members of our group learned how to daven,” says Kamelhar. “We started with Modeh Ani and Shema and we ended up with the entire davening.”

Then October 7 happened. “All of us were devastated,” recalls Marcus. “Because I had recently visited Israel and seen the people for myself, the tragedy felt like a death in the family,” she says.

Alan Levine, who joined the first TJJ trip for fathers in the summer of 2022, describes his reaction similarly. “It was ‘Oh my gosh, I was with those people.’”

Photo: Risa Goldberg

“No one knew what to do with themselves,” says Marcus. “We were feeling so alone and almost desperate. We couldn’t make sense of anything.”

Kamelhar had an idea: she hosted a Tehillim Zoom for TJJ Moms. After that first Zoom, which attracted close to 100 women, Kamelhar said, “We’re doing this every night at 9 PM.”

“The Zoom sessions helped us get through those first difficult weeks,” says Shari Glassman, an active TJJ Mom. “Knowing we have a community—the TJJ Moms community—that is bigger than ourselves has helped us get through this feeling of horror that we’re all feeling.” On the Zoom, each woman adopted a soldier to pray for.

Now, at Glassman’s Long Island home, “everyone knows that when it’s 9 PM, Mom’s on her Zoom,” she says. “One of my friends asked me: ‘What did we used to do at 9 PM?’”

In the beginning, Zoom sessions featured inspirational Jewish music and Tehillim recitation for the hostages and for Israel. After a while, the sessions, which are still ongoing, came to include lectures on Torah topics, often followed by impromptu Q&A sessions and even entertainment by big-name singers like Simcha Leiner. One session featured Sapir Cohen, a former hostage held by Hamas for fifty-five days.

“The Zoom sessions, which include learning about the weekly Torah portion, opened my eyes,” says Marcus, who belongs to a Reform temple. “They give me an understanding of what religion is about.”

Missing a Connection to Judaism

By JA Staff

In 2018, Shari Glassman from Long Island, New York, went on her first Israel trip with TJJ for Moms. Since then, her life hasn’t been the same. “Little by little by little, I started doing more and more [Jewish things], bringing Judaism into my home. Not pushing it on anybody, just doing it,” says Glassman, who has gone on a total of four TJJ trips to Israel. “Before I went on the first trip, I didn’t feel like I was missing anything. I felt that we had a Jewish home—we celebrated the holidays, my kids attended Hebrew school, my son was bar mitzvahed. But I was missing something. I was missing a connection to Judaism.”

Glassman now regularly bakes challahs and lights candles on Friday nights. “Who doesn’t love homemade challah?” she asks. When she returned from her first Israel trip and introduced the idea of making challah, her eleven-year-old and fifteen-year-old were eager to help. “They embraced everything.”

As time went on, it became clear that Judaism was becoming increasingly important in their lives. “A few years ago, my daughter, who is seventeen now, and I were cooking for Passover. She suddenly said to me, ‘We should become kosher.’ I said, ‘What?’ She repeated herself. And I said, ‘Let’s talk about this after Passover.’ After Passover she brought it up again—and again. I said to myself, ‘Okay, we have to do this because I’m not going to tell my kids, try to be more Jewish, but wait, that’s too Jewish.’”

“Neither my husband nor I grew up in a kosher home,” continues Glassman, “so I called Nechama Kamelhar, director of TJJ Moms and Dads. I said, ‘We’re not gutting the whole kitchen. We’re not.’ Nechama had only the nicest words of encouragement. Instead of saying, ‘if you’re going to be kosher you have to make sure you buy all new utensils, et cetera,’ she said, ‘take one step at a time.’ She gave me permission to go slow. It’s not all or nothing. Whatever we can do is what we do. It’s been three or four years since we decided to go kosher and it’s so much easier; it’s become second nature.”

The Tefillin Challenge

By JA Staff

How do you get guys excited about something? Put them up to a challenge. Which is what Rabbi Gideon Black, who led a TJJ for Dads trip, did, explains Alan Levine, who participated in the 2023 trip. “He presented the twenty-five men on the trip with a thirty-day challenge. ‘Put on tefillin each morning, take a picture and post it on the WhatsApp group. That’s it. Do it for thirty days and NCSY will purchase a pair of tefillin for you.’”

During the eight-day trip, co-led by Rabbi Yossi Schwartz, putting on tefillin was easy for Levine. Even after he returned home, he felt energized, and completed his thirty days. After thirty days, he said to himself, You know what? I’m going for sixty. Soon it was: I’m doing ninety. “I told this to all the guys,” says Levine. “There were a few guys who were still doing it. NCSY had purchased tefillin for all of them. Most of the guys kind of fizzled out after thirty or sixty days. I kept going. I continued on to 120 days. I told myself, This is a piece of cake. I just completed a full year and I’m still going strong.”

Ahuva Reich is a writer living in New York.