IW 153M TISHRI/CHESHV 7H AWA Aleph Zadik Aleph (AZA) B'nai B'rith Youth Organization (BBYO) B'nai B'rith Girls (BBG) The B'nai B'rith Beber Camp B'nai B'rith Teen Connection B'nai B'rith Perlman Camp On The Inside International Convention 1990: 450 World Youth Leaders Elect New Officers, Set Programs For Leaders' Lines Pages 2-3 Summer Programs/I.C...4-6 Coming Year in Motion Regional Roll 7 Some 450 members of the Happenings 8-9 B'nai B'rith Youth Organization 12 (BBYO), representing over 30,000 ISF Statistics BBYOers worldwide, convened for the 1990 BBYO International Con- vention (I.C.) where they elected Special I.C. '90/Awards new international AZA and BBG executive boards, voted on busi- Insert ness matters, presented awards, Following Page 6 and launched the 1990-1991 pro- grams. The convention, held August 16-22 at the B'nai B'rith Perlman AIDS Hits Home for Camp in Starlight, PA, marked the BBYOers at ILTC and 67th international convention for Kallah Aleph Zadik Aleph and the 46th international meeting of the B'nai Page 5 B'rith Girls (BBG). Coordinated by Lori Shapiro and Eric Muller, 1989-1990 Inter- Outgoing Grand Aleph Godol Daniel Moskovitz passed the Noar LeNoar Launches national S'gan and S'ganit, the torch to the newly elected 1990-1991 G.A.G. Doug Levy at the Program to Ease theme of the joint convention was initiation ceremony held the final night of convention. "A Rendezvous with Destiny. Immigrant Absorption Into the Future." "The teens in cation. and action. cal entertainment was followed by Tensions in Israel BBYO today are the world leaders The opening program for the a tree planting ceremony where Page 11 of tomorrow, and the goal for the Project E.A.R.T.H. thrust featured I.C. participants received Project year is to focus on ensuring a poet-musician Glen Waldeck. E.A.R.T.H. program books and good future for this generation Waldeck entertained the conven- their own sugar maple seeds to and each one thereafter," explains tioneers with rap songs about plant. Summer Programs convention director Jeff Hoffman ecology and saving the environ- "As more youth make the con- Scrapbook: The BBYO has selected Project ment. BBYOers got in on the act, nection between the environment Summer in Review EARTH (Everyone has A Respon- clapping hands, snapping fingers, now and the future of our earth, sibility To our Home) as its 1990- stomping feet, and singing the they will begin to recognize that Page 12 1991 international program thrust. meaningful lyrics while Waldeck they are a critical part of the life The convention marked the kick- played his guitar - sometimes support systems of our planet. To off of this program which focuses strumming the strings, sometimes See LC. 1990, Page 9 on environmental awareness, edu- beating it like a drum. The musi- BBYO Reaches Out To Soviet Brethren This summer, BBYO did just that. In August, the B'nai B'rith Camps in Soviet Union Teach Teens About Judaism Youth Organization held two Kallot (Judaic education camps) for Jewish teenagers in the Soviet In the late 1920's and early the Jewish population in this it possible for Soviet Jews to live Union. The first of the two 1930's the Soviet government set region reached its peak near the their lives as they choose, to camps took place July 28-August out to establish a "Jewish middle of the century, exceeding practice Judaism with all its his- 1 at an overnight night camp in Autonomous Region" at the east- 30,000. Some Jews chose to move tory, customs, and traditions. Birobidzhan. Leningrad was the ern most reaches of the the Rus- there, some were relocated with- However, Birobidzhan has had site of the second Kallah, taking sian Republic. The concept of out the freedom of choice. very limited contact with other place at a synagogue, August 5-9. creating this settlement is noted Soviet policies leading to the Jewish communities in the USSR The project was initiated last in Jewish history journals as suppression of Jewish life and and has been closed to visitation fall when Marlene Zakai, BBYO having evolved from Stalin's theo- activities in the USSR, accompa- by foreigners for many years. International Director of Leader- ry that the "Jewish problem" nied by Stalinistic purges of Jews The small number of Jews who ship Programs, and other B'nai could be solved by banishing in leadership positions, put an remain have little or no concept B'rith International representa- Jews to an area secluded from the end to the once thriving Jewish of what Judaism is. tives visited the Soviet Union and western part of the USSR, where culture in Birobidzhan. As a In this exciting era of change, found the need for Soviet Jewish major Soviet population centers result of these anti-Semitic poli- the Soviet glastnost policy has teens to learn more about their exist. cies, the current Jewish popula- also made it possible for the B'nai religion. "Russian Jews are just Birobidzhan, located approxi- tion in Birobidzhan is less than B'rith Youth Organization to beginning to discover their Jew- mately 5,000 miles from Moscow, 8,000. truly touch the far corners of the ish identities," says Dr. Sid was the site selected for the Jew- Today, glastnost, the new world, to reach out to our Soviet See Soviet Camps, Page 10 ish settlement. It's estimated that "openness" in the USSR, has made brethren.