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Humans of Heller High: What nine teens learned on an immersive program in Israel
This article was produced as part of JTA’s Teen Journalism Fellowship, a program that works with teens across the world to report on issues that impact their lives.
(JTA) — After nearly two years of hybrid learning at school, some students couldn’t wait to get back in the classroom full-time. For some teens that meant flying thousands of miles to attend the immersive program at Heller High School in Israel in the Fall of 2022.
This fall, 18 students left home to experience life as students in Israel. Living together, taking classes as a group, and going on field trips with each other, students have to learn how to experience life on their own away from home in addition to a general studies class load that includes Jewish history and Hebrew.
Heller was created to give “Reform youth an opportunity to strengthen through learning and experience, their connection to Judaism, the Jewish people, and the Jewish state,” said David Solomon, associate principal. The curriculum focuses on field trips and immersion learning. Heller High takes place in Israel. The fall semester lasts from August through December and the spring semester lasts from January through May. Students that are Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors can attend Heller and can stay from a semester up to a year.
In this photo gallery, students talk about their experiences and struggles with the program along with how they are coping with the changes around them.
Changing it up
Flora Pelton, left, 15, 10th grade, from Falls Church, Virginia. (Courtesy of Flora Pelton)
“Before this semester, everything in my life was very familiar; I had lived in the same house, gone to the same schools, and been a member of the same congregation my whole life. Israel was a way for me to get new experiences outside of a small-town American lifestyle. I have become friends with so many new people from different places around the world. I enjoy being able to go to school but still go on so many trips and adventures. I learned how to be independent, take care of myself, and get to know people I have never met before. We were all kind of thrown into this experience and so we had to learn how to do all of these things on our own. It has opened my mind to knowing that I will have to do things like this in the future. It has moved me because I know that I can do so much more than I thought I could. Being in Israel will change who I am now because I have learned to be more aware of others. We have to be with each other at all times and so respecting and learning others’ needs is super important. For example, if my roommate wants to go to bed, I have to be quiet or find somewhere else. I have enjoyed swimming in Sachne [a nature spot in the lower Galilee] the most. It was during a full day field trip and we got to swim as it is the last time we can swim until summer. We all jumped in and were terrified of the fish in the water. The experiences have brought me closer to everyone around me.” — Flora Pelton
Connected
Eitan Hefer, 15, 10th grade, in Hudsonville, Michigan. (Courtesy of Eitan Heffer)
“I love being able to have fun with Jews my age. I am able to surround myself with people that have similar interests and ideas as me. I feel more connected and comfortable with these people than with most of my friends at home because you are with the people here all day, everyday. I will be a lot more mature and be able to focus and do my homework without being asked [when I return home]. I will also be able to advocate for myself a lot more. I have a lot more fun here versus school at home because I can have more one-on-one with my roommates. Being in Heller High has taught me to manage my time and know when I need to focus on myself versus the people around me. This experience has changed my outlook on life because it has taught me to make the most of each moment. ” — Eitan Hefer
New View
Lena Schapiro, 16, 11th grade, from Rancho Cucamonga, California. (Zoe Klevens)
“I heard about Heller High from a friend. My parents thought it would be a great opportunity, and we didn’t know anyone that had studied abroad as a high school student. I decided to do it because, at home, I wasn’t feeling very Jewish. My school has no Jews. I was looking for a connection to other Jews and my Jewish identity in Israel. I expected to observe Judaism more often here and it is true compared to my life at home. An experience I’ll remember most was we went into the caves at Bar Kochva and sang the Shema and extended every word. It was so spiritual, and it felt so good at that moment. It felt like I was ascending with the echoing voices. We were all in harmony both out loud, but also in our souls. This experience has given me a whole new mindset about the world. I feel more responsibility through community service, engaging with Israelis that I have never met, and being away from home. Now that I have been able to surround myself with other Jews, I can feel confident in my Jewish identity when returning home. It opened my eyes, like when we learned to clean out plates with dirt. It opened my mind up to the fact that you can clean something dirty with something even dirtier. It was something I would never have believed worked, but although it seems absurd, it was so effective. It’s taking something you’d never believed and turned it into something so easy. I can apply this to my Jewish life at home by trying new things that might seem weird to others.” — Lena Schapiro
Reminded of home
Adina Golbus, 17, 11th grade, from San Rafael, California. (Zoe Klevens)
“Raticus is this toy rat; he’s not quite a stuffed animal, but he looks realistic and special to me. It was this joke between my friends and me back home, and I ended up bringing it with me. I created this Instagram account called raticus.inisrael. On my first day in the airport, I knew these kids in the airport were going to think I was the weirdest person in the world or have similar humor. It made my heart happy when everyone thought it was super funny. Now wherever we go, I try to bring Raticus to all the significant places we go. He has become a mascot for our group. He has become a special thing. I share them with my parents. Masada was a challenging mountain to climb, and having Raticus there made it easier, knowing I could take him to the top and get sunset pictures. He helped to change the mood.” — Adina Golbus
Together
Sylvia Kassoff, 16, 11th grade, from Jackson, Mississippi. (Zoe Klevens)
“After going to Israel with NFTY this summer, I knew I wanted to return. I was unhappy with my home school because I felt as though I wasn’t getting a very good education. My friend from home had told me that ‘being around other Jewish people was good for me.’ That really stuck with me and made me want to come to Israel again. The cultural shift from Jackson, Mississippi to Israel is definitely large. At home, there is a lot of Southern hospitality where everyone is kind to everyone. Here, people are kind, but it is definitely different because people display their kindness differently. A lot of the time people don’t really smile on the street that much, but many give to charity and in general people are a lot more willing to be socially active here versus at home.
“My happiest moment here was when we went to the Mediterranean sea and hung out on a rock. It was directly after we finished Yam le Yam (Sea to Sea) where we hiked from the Kinneret to the Mediterranean sea. Everyone was exhausted and we got to unwind and be together. I realized that these are the people I am going to be spending four months of my life with and I really appreciated that. While the school day is a lot longer, the breaks in between learning are helpful. The content is much more interesting and easier to follow. I have learned that I want to find a community and find people that make me feel comfortable. In Israel, I have made my own community of so many other Jewish teens. I am a little worried to go back to Jackson because I know it will be a huge adjustment. I have to go back to school less than a week after I get home from Israel. I think once I get back I will notice a big difference between my friends and me. I am excited to see what the world has to offer when I arrive back home.” — Sylvia Kassoff
Full of possibilities
Anna von Thomsen, bottom left, 16, 11th grade, from Schwerin, Germany. (Courtesy of Anna von Thomsen)
“The bus ride from the airport to Heller High felt like it was so full of possibilities. I didn’t know anyone and was like this is the start. The class sizes are either one-on-one or much smaller than my class sizes at home. It’s different from having a teacher that cares about what I learn. Since I am not American, I have had difficulty socially adapting, but I am working on that. The cultural difference between German and American teens makes it difficult. Trends and humor are both incredibly different. Sarcasm is more subtle in the United States and I have found that a lot of American trends reach Germany a lot later. Germans are generally a lot more blunt whereas Americans tend to dance around subjects. I have adapted by letting my peers shape me and teach me what they find funny. I haven’t stopped believing what I believed before I came here, but I have definitely catered to other people.” — Anna von Thomsen
Connected
Kami Rosenblatt, 16, 11th grade, from Danville, California. (Zoe Klevens)
“The best advice I was given before coming here is that nothing is permanent. I’m trying to make the most of it and live in the moment. I was expecting to be homesick, [but] I was shocked at how comfortable I was by day two. I’ve never been happier. We never really know how our day is going to turn out. It can go from being an 11-hour school day to having some of my favorite memories during or right after school. I also love Israeli dancing. When I am dancing, I feel energized and a kind of kehila (community) that you can not feel anywhere else. During Simchat Torah, we unraveled the Torah and saw the whole thing. We celebrated and danced around it with people we never met before; that was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. At home, I only go to school from 8:30 a.m. until 1pm. Here, we go to school from 8 a.m. until 7 p.m. It’s draining and long. However, learning Hebrew and the Jewish history class about Israel, the land, the people, the culture, and then just Judaism – the classes are so important to be learning here. It’s immersing us into the culture even more, and it’s the kind of education I would never receive in my life again. My greatest challenge has been learning to adapt to not enough sleep and going all day long without any breaks or stops. I’ve learned not to care about the things I used to care about. I am a lot less uptight.” — Kami Rosenblatt
Tradition
Talia Rapaport, top, 17, 12th grade, from Raleigh, North Carolina. (Courtesy of Talia Rapaport)
“Last year, I attended Alexander Muss High School for a semester. My dad and all of his family had done it. I realized how much Israel means to me and knew I wanted to return to my senior year. I wanted to learn more about the history of Israel, so I could go back and share it with my community. My happiest moment at Heller High was when we made it to the top of Masada and hung an Israel flag together. It was blowing in the wind, and I felt like we had all made it. When we screamed into the mountains ‘Am Yisrael Chai,’ and it screamed back at us, it showed all of the generations and what we are continuing. This gave me a sense of Israeli pride and what we get to be a part of daily. Living on my own here has made me a lot more independent. It is great college prep. I’ve had to start making my own life decisions like choosing when to do my homework or when I want to eat out versus staying in. It is now up to me how I want to practice Shabbat. In Israel, I am trying to stay off my phone on shabbat. At home, I attend Orthodox school; I learn all the religious aspects of being Jewish, the Talmud and Chumash [the Hebrew Bible], and not the history. The hardest thing for me has been learning about reform Judaism; it’s been eye-opening. It has given me a new perspective on what the prayers mean to different people. I learned so many different tunes and melodies to songs along with saying things in English instead of Hebrew. It gives everyone the ability to learn what we are praying about.I never had any background in that. But, I’ve adapted to it and overtime I started doing the reform prayers, instead of how I learned. Everyone has done a good job of including me in services.” — Talia Rapaport
Learning balance
Noa Maccabee, left, 14, 10th grade, from Hood River, Oregon. (Courtesy of Noa Macabee)
“I grew up in a non-Jewish community and struggled with my Jewish identity. Growing up in a small community with no Jews, I didn’t really know how to be Jewish. Being Jewish to me before didn’t really mean anything, but now I know more about the world and the people around me. I have learned more about my religion and others. Now, being Jewish means being me and not having to hide it. I was looking to explore Israeli culture and thought Heller High would help me. I’ve learned to enjoy every moment and take school more seriously. Hiking Sea to Sea with some of my closest friends and being outdoors was amazing. It pushed us because we were tired and exhausted, but we kept going. We discovered a stream after hiking six miles. We were all super hot and sweaty and arrived in this secluded area for lunch. My friend Kami and I decided to go for a brief swim. At that moment, I realized how close I was to nature, and the deep connection I have made with friends is the strongest I have ever had. Being here has taken time to get used to. Balancing school, friends, and living with people all the time – the social aspect can be difficult because of lack of alone time. It was surprising how short of a time this place took to feel like home. This experience has made me a more open person. I have a much better understanding of how the world functions and lives because I have the ability to see how Jews live when they are surrounded by thousands of other Jews.” — Noa Maccabee
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The post Humans of Heller High: What nine teens learned on an immersive program in Israel appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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How the Global Religious Landscape Changed from 2010 to 2020

Muslims grew fastest; Christians lagged behind global population increase
• Christians are the world’s largest religious group, at 28.8% of the global population. They are a majority everywhere except the Asia-Pacific and Middle East-North Africa regions. Sub-Saharan Africa has surpassed Europe in having the largest number of Christians. But Christians are shrinking as a share of the global population, as millions of Christians “switch” out of religion to become religiously unaffiliated.

• Muslims are the world’s second-largest religious group (25.6% of the world’s population) and the fastest-growing major religion, largely due to Muslims’ relatively young age structure and high fertility rate. They make up the vast majority of the population in the Middle East-North Africa region. In all other regions, Muslims are a religious minority, including in the Asia-Pacific region (which is home to the greatest number of Muslims).

• The religiously unaffiliated population is the world’s third-largest religious category (24.2% of the global population), after Christians and Muslims. Between 2010 and 2020, religiously unaffiliated people grew more than any group except Muslims, despite their demographic disadvantages of an older age structure and relatively low fertility. The unaffiliated made up a majority of the population in 10 countries and territories in 2020, up from seven a decade earlier.
• Hindus are the fourth-largest religious category (14.9% of the world’s population), after Christians, Muslims and religiously unaffiliated people. Most (99%) live in the Asia-Pacific region; 95% of all Hindus live in India alone. Between 2010 and 2020, Hindus remained a stable share of the world’s population because their fertility resembles the global average, and surveys indicate that switching out of or into Hinduism is rare.
• Buddhists (4.1% of the world’s population) are the only group in this report whose number declined worldwide between 2010 and 2020. This was due both to religious disaffiliation among Buddhists in East Asia and to a relatively low birth rate among Buddhists, who tend to live in countries with older populations. Most of the world’s Buddhists (98%) reside in the Asia-Pacific region, the birthplace of Buddhism.
• Jews, the smallest religious group analyzed separately in this report (0.2% of the world’s population), lagged behind global population growth between 2010 and 2020 – despite having fertility rates on par with the global average – due to their older age structure. Most Jews live either in North America (primarily in the United States) or in the Middle East-North Africa region (almost exclusively in Israel).
These are among the key findings of a Pew Research Center analysis of more than 2,700 censuses and surveys, including census data releases that were delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic. This report is part of the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures project, which analyzes global religious change and its impact on societies around the world. Funding for the Global Religious Futures project comes from The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John Templeton Foundation.
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Antisemitism in some unlikely places in America

By HENRY SREBRNIK Antisemitism flourishes in a place where few might expect to confront it – medical schools and among doctors. It affects Jews, I think, more emotionally than Judeophobia in other fields.
Medicine has long been a Jewish profession with a history going back centuries. We all know the jokes about “my son – now also my daughter – the doctor.” Physicians take the Hippocratic Oath to heal the sick, regardless of their ethnicity or religion. When we are ill doctors often become the people who save us from debilitating illness and even death. So this is all the more shocking.
Yes, in earlier periods there were medical schools with quotas and hospitals who refused or limited the number of Jews they allowed to be affiliated with them. It’s why we built Jewish hospitals and practices. And of course, we all shudder at the history of Nazi doctors and euthanasia in Germany and in the concentration camps of Europe. But all this – so we thought – was a thing of a dark past. Yet now it has made a comeback, along with many other horrors we assume might never reappear.
Since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, there has been a resurgence of antisemitism, also noticeable in the world of healthcare. This is not just a Canadian issue. Two articles on the Jewish website Tablet, published Nov. 21, 2023, and May 18, 2025, spoke to this problem in American medicine as well, referencing a study by Ian Kingsbury and Jay P. Greene of Do No Harm, a health care advocacy group, based on data amassed by the organization Stop Antisemitism. They identified a wave of open Jew-hatred by medical professionals, medical schools, and professional associations, often driven by foreign-trained doctors importing the Jew-hatred of their native countries, suggesting “that a field entrusted with healing is becoming a licensed purveyor of hatred.”
Activists from Doctors Against Genocide, American Palestinian Women’s Association, and CODEPINK held a demonstration calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza at the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C., Nov. 16, 2023, almost as soon as the war began. A doctor in Tampa took to social media to post a Palestinian flag with the caption “about time!!!” The medical director of a cancer centre in Dearborn, Michigan, posted on social media: “What a beautiful morning. What a beautiful day.” Even in New York, a physician commented on Instagram that “Zionist settlers” got “a taste of their own medicine.” A Boston-based dentist was filmed ripping down posters of Israeli victims and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine did the same. Almost three-quarters of American medical associations felt the need to speak out on the war in Ukraine but almost three-quarters had nothing to say about the war in Israel.
Antisemitism in academic medical centres is fostering noxious environments which deprive Jewish healthcare professionals of their civil right to work in spaces free from discrimination and hate, according to a study by the Data & Analytics Department of StandWithUs, an international, non-partisan education organization that supports Israel and fights antisemitism.
“Academia today is increasingly cultivating an environment which is hostile to Jews, as well as members of other religious and ethnic groups,” StandWithUs director of data and analytics, and study co-author, Alexandra Fishman, said on May 5 in a press release. “Academic institutions should be upholding the integrity of scholarship, prioritizing civil discourse, rather than allowing bias or personal agendas to guide academic culture.”
The study, “Antisemitism in American Healthcare: The Role of Workplace Environment,” included survey data showing that 62.8 per cent of Jewish healthcare professionals employed by campus-based medical centres reported experiencing antisemitism, a far higher rate than those working in private practice and community hospitals. Fueling the rise in hate, it added, were repeated failures of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) initiatives to educate workers about antisemitism, increasing, the report said, the likelihood of antisemitic activity.
“When administrators and colleagues understand what antisemitism looks like, it clearly correlates with less antisemitism in the workplace,” co-author and Yeshiva University professor Dr. Charles Auerbach reported. “Recognition is a powerful tool — institutions that foster awareness create safer, more inclusive environments for everyone.”
Last December, the Data & Analytics Department also published a study which found that nearly 40 per cent of Jewish American health-care professionals have encountered antisemitism in the workplace, either as witnesses or victims. The study included a survey of 645 Jewish health workers, a substantial number of whom said they were subject to “social and professional isolation.” The problem left more than one quarter of the survey cohort, 26.4 per cent, “feeling unsafe or threatened.”
The official journal of the Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine concurs. According to “The Moral Imperative of Countering Antisemitism in US Medicine – A Way Forward,” by Hedy S. Wald and Steven Roth, published in the October 2024 issue of the American Journal of Medicine, increased antisemitism in the United States has created a hostile learning and practice environment in medical settings. This includes instances of antisemitic behaviour and the use of antisemitic symbols at medical school commencements.
Examples of its impact upon medicine include medical students’ social media postings claiming that Jews wield disproportionate power, antisemitic slogans at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) David Geffen School of Medicine, antisemitic graffiti at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Cancer Centre, Jewish medical students’ exposure to demonization of Israel diatribes and rationalizing terrorism; and faculty, including a professor of medicine at UCSF, posting antisemitic tropes and derogatory comments about Jewish health care professionals. Jewish medical students’ fears of retribution, should they speak out, have been reported. “Our recent unpublished survey of Jewish physicians and trainees demonstrated a twofold increase from 40% to 88% for those who experienced antisemitism prior to vs after October 7,” they stated.
In some schools, Jewish faculty are speaking out. In February, the Jewish Faculty Resilience Group at UCLA accused the institution in an open letter of “ignoring” antisemitism at the School of Medicine, charging that its indifference to the matter “continues to encourage more antisemitism.” It added that discrimination at the medical school has caused demonstrable harm to Jewish students and faculty. Student clubs, it said, are denied recognition for arbitrary reasons; Jewish faculty whose ethnic backgrounds were previously unknown are purged from the payrolls upon being identified as Jews; and anyone who refuses to participate in anti-Zionist events is “intimidated” and pressured.
Given these findings, many American physicians are worried not only as Jewish doctors and professionals, but for Jewish patients who are more than ever concerned with whom they’re meeting. Can we really conceive of a future where you’re not sure if “the doctor will hate you now?”
Henry Srebrnik is a professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island.
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The 2025 Toronto Walk (and talk ) for Israel

By GERRY POSNER There are walks and then there are walks. The Toronto UJA Walk for Israel on May 25, 2025 was one of a kind, at least as far as Canada and Jews are concerned. The number of people present was estimated to be 56,000 people or 112,000 total shoes. (How they get to that number is bewildering to me, since there is no one counting). This was 6,000 more than last year. Whether it is true or not, take it from me, it was packed. The synagogues in Canada should be so fortunate to get those numbers in total on High Holidays. The picture here gives you a sense of the size of the crowd.

This was my first walk in Toronto for Israel and I was with my granddaughter, Samantha Pyzer (not to forget her two friends whom she managed to meet at the site, no small feat, even with iPhones as aids). The official proceedings began at 9:00 a.m. and the walk at 10:00 a.m. There was entertainment to begin with, also along the way, and at the finish as well. The finish line this year was the Prosserman Centre or the JCC as it often called. The walk itself was perhaps 4 kilometres – not very long, but the walking was slow, especially at the beginning. There were lots of strollers, even baby carriages, though I did not see any wheelchairs. All ages participated on this walk. I figured, based on what I could see on the faces of people all around me that, although I was not the oldest one on the walk, I bet I made the top 100 – more likely the top 20.
What was a highlight for me was the number of Winnipeggers I met, both past and present. Connecting with them seemed to be much like a fluke. No doubt, I missed la lot of them, but I saw, in no particular order (I could not recall the order if my life depended on it): Alta Sigesmund, (who was, a long time ago, my daughter Amira’s teacher), Marni Samphir, Karla Berbrayer and her husband Dr. Allan Kraut and family. Then, when Samantha and I made it to the end and sat down to eat, I struck up a conversation with a woman unknown to me and as we chatted, she confirmed her former Winnipeg status as a sister-in- law to David Devere, as in Betty Shwemer, the sister of Cecile Devere. I also chanced upon Terri Cherniack, only because I paused for a moment and she spotted me. As we closed in near the finish, I met ( hey were on their way back), Earl and Suzanne Golden and son Matthew, as well as Daniel Glazerman. That stop caused me to lose my granddaughter and her pals. Try finding them amid the noise and size of the crowd – but I pulled it off.

As I was in line to get food, I started chatting with a guy in the vicinity of my age. I dropped the Winnipeg link and the floodgates opened with “ Did I know Jack and Joanie Rusen?” So that was an interesting few minutes. And I was not too terribly surprised to come across some of my Pickleball family. All of these meetings, along with spotting some of my sister’s family and other cousins, were carried on with the sound of the shofar as we moved along the way. In short, this was a happening. Merchants selling a variety of products, many of them Israeli based, were in evidence and, of course, the day could not have ended without the laying of tefillin, aided by Chabad, who have perfected the procedure to take less than a minute. See the photo. Chabad had a willing audience.
Aside from the joy of sharing this experience with my granddaughter, the very presence of all these Jews gathered together for a common reason made this day very special to me. However, there was a downside to the day. The downside was that, as we began to walk back to our car there was no other way I could figure out how to return when the rains came and came. While we walked faster, we were impeded by pouring rain and puddles. But Samantha wanted to persevere, as did I. We made it, but were drenched. My runners are still drying out as I write this two days later.
What with being surrounded by 56,000 people, the noise, the slow walking, and the rain, I can still say the day was a real highlight for me – one of the better moments since our arrival in Toronto in 2012. As well as the photos we took along the way, I have the reminder of the day, courtesy of the UJA, as evidenced from the photo. It was not just the walk, but the talk that accompanied the walk that made it so worthwhile for me. I would do it again, minus the rain.