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The Conservative movement youth group was already struggling. Then came COVID.
This article was produced as part of JTA’s Teen Journalism Fellowship, a program that works with Jewish teens around the world to report on issues that affect their lives.
(JTA) — Weeks before United Synagogue Youth’s International Convention in December 2021, Alexa Johnson picked out some of the exciting seminars she wanted to attend. It would be her first big USY event and the current high school sophomore was excited to visit Washington, D.C. from her home in Los Angeles.
But then the Omicron variant hit and the event was canceled. She was disappointed but figured she would go the following year. Then she learned that there would be no 2022 convention and she started questioning her affiliation with the national organization. Why should she stay affiliated with the Conservative movement youth group if they failed to provide her with engaging programming?
“I just feel there really hasn’t been enough programming as a whole,” said Johnson, who was looking forward to meeting other Conservative Jewish teens like her. Overall the programming dissatisfaction from her and other members of the 35-person chapter at Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center started after the pandemic. “We just feel like it’s really hard to get people involved because there isn’t much programming at a regional or international level that people want to go to or look fun to them,” said Johnson.
United Synagogue Youth serves almost 8,250 Jewish youth from 3rd to 12th grade as the primary Conservative youth group since its founding in 1951. Through local, regional and international events, generations of Jews have participated in USY, but for some, this may be the end of the road for their involvement.
For decades now, Conservative Judaism has seen their numbers fall as members flock to other denominations like Reform and the United States becomes increasingly less religious. In the 1950s and 1960s, Conservative Judaism — which, despite its name, is a centrist movement between more liberal Reform and the traditionalist Orthodoxy — was the largest Jewish denomination. Now, only 15% of American Jews identify as Conservative, according to the Pew Research Center.
With Conservative numbers on the decline, United Synagogue Youth is struggling to stay on its feet. Julie Marder, the interim senior director of teen engagement, was open about the organization’s membership struggles. “Coming out of the pandemic, numbers just weren’t where they used to be,” Marder said. “They were lower than we can continue to sustain.”
While the membership decline predated the pandemic, COVID undid a lot of their work to gain back members.
Stacey Glazer, associate director of synagogue support, who also oversees the southwest region of USY, said that the southwest region was successfully building up their membership pre-pandemic, but once COVID hit, the region’s progress was erased.
A staff shortage also led to reduced international and regional programming across the organization. As of publication, there were seven events listed for the 15 regions.
The challenges the staff face turn into frustration and disappointment for the teenage members.
Dan Lehavi, a high school senior who serves on the USY board of his Los Angeles synagogue and on the Far West Regional General Board, witnesses the changes firsthand. He said in 2018 and 2019, his region filled a banquet hall for the annual regional convention, but coming back after the pandemic, the group could fit into a much smaller room. “They did their best to make it a memorable weekend as possible, but it just doesn’t have the same energy when there are so few people,” said Lehavi.
As someone who has grown up with USY, Lehavi is disappointed by the decline in attendance and engagement. “It’s just really sad,” Lehavi said. “Generally, I think that USY has been an invaluable resource for the Conservative movement as a whole. I hope that the future of the Conservative movement is a lot brighter than the present.”
Despite serving a large Jewish community spanning across southern California, Hawaii, Arizona, Nevada, and more, the region did not organize many region-wide events. During the last school year, Far West offered five events, including a regional dance that was canceled due to low registration. This year, Far West is currently only offering one regional event, in partnership with the Southwestern region. The region hopes to announce another region-wide event later in the year.
“It has just made our chapter not feel like a USY chapter,” said Samuel Svonkin, a member of Far West USY from Los Angeles. “I don’t feel like we have any connection to USY itself.” Svonkin said that regional programming lacks a pull for his fellow members and the association with USY doesn’t attract teens.
Svonkin has been a member of USY since he was 13. He grew up with teens at his synagogue going to USY events and making friends and great memories. Now, he feels like his generation is being ignored. “I feel like they’re not focusing on what their youth want. And they’re instead trying to make something that works well for them. I think they’re struggling as a result of their own incompetence of looking at what teens actually want,” he said.
USY staff acknowledge that there are fewer events overall but say they are working to improve the teen experience. Glazer, associate director of synagogue support, who also oversees the southwest region of USY, suggests that Svonkin reach out to a local staff person. “If we don’t, we don’t hear from the teens —which, at the end of the day, this is who we’re here to serve — then it’s hard to know what they want,” she said.
In previous years, USY’s Marder said, there was no need to heavily advertise regional and international events; teens would just attend with their synagogues naturally. But now, “We can’t just build a regional convention and assume that people are going to come because we created it. We need to take a step back and start doing more local programming and support the chapters and help them build. Then we can build the bigger programs,” said Marder. Attracting more attendees is not an easy fix, but Marder and the rest of USY are working to build the best programs that they can create.
As they continue to regroup, USY is working towards supporting congregations in teen engagement and rebuilding the pipeline to USY. “That means redesigning and rethinking how we are running our regional and international programs to build up to the large programs that we once had,” Marder said. “We want to do it with excellence. To not just throw a program out there to throw out a program. That we are creati
This year, in place of an international convention, USY offered three different summits: a Heschel Summit at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City, a Civil Rights Journey based in Alabama and Georgia, and a Teen Climate Activism Retreat set in Maryland. Stacey Glazer wants USY’s events like these summits to focus on what young Jewish teens are interested in, whether that is religion or social justice.
Teens from Pinwheel USY, the Pacific Northwest Region of the Conservative movement youth group, attend an event in July 2022. (Via Facebook)
In addition to these three retreats, USY planned on hosting a Teen Leadership Summit in Denver, but the event was canceled. Glazer did not have an answer as to why the summit was canceled.
Focusing on what teens are interested in proved to be successful for USY. Last December, the official Instagram account reported that the Civil Rights Journey only had seven spots left, four days before the registration deadline. Moreover, over 1,200 teens participated in regional or international programming, according to an Instagram post summarizing some of USY’s successes in the second half of 2022.
On top of rethinking the way USY creates programs, last year, USY also cut membership fees for its individual members, a cost that was absorbed by the synagogue. Synagogues now pay just one fee to have all of its members be associated with the national organization. “I think we had some pretty good success with [cutting fees] this year,” Marder said. USY would not provide specifics to JTA but did say the organization is not losing money because of the pay structure change.
At the end of United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism’s fiscal year in 2022, the parent organization of USY reported that they collected a little over $6.3 million in membership dues, around a $45,000 increase from 2021. But that is still a drop from 2019, when United Synagogue collected over $7 million dollars in membership fees. Despite a recent increase in collected membership fees, the organization did see a stark decline in membership fees between 2019 and 2022, according to published figures.
Nevertheless, Glazer provided statistics that show membership growing. In March of 2018, USY recorded 5,138 members from 3rd grade to 12th grade. In June of 2020, USY recorded 4,408 members across those same demographics. From 2020 to their members now, they recorded an increase of about 3800 members as they now record having over 8,200 members.
Membership numbers are on the rise, but USY is having struggles with staff shortages, a large cause of reduced programming. Marder said that of the 12 regional staff members, only eight work full-time. With 15 active regions, supporting each region equally is a challenge. For regional overnight events this year, many nearby regions combined their events so more attention from staff and youth leaders could be put into the events.
Rather than hiring more staff, Stacey Glazer said that the organization wanted to work with the staff they have and “maybe come up with a new structure where we’re using each of our employees to the best benefit to USY as a whole,” said Glazer. She also said that the lack of staff is not because of financial pressures, but because they are working on restructuring the ways they function as a staff. And Glazer acknowledged that they will eventually need to hire more staff.
Additionally, Marder said that there are fewer full-time chapter directors at synagogues. During the pandemic, when Jewish organizations like synagogues were cutting staff, youth departments were heavily affected. Marder said that synagogues with chapter directors task them with other youth-related jobs as well.
The time USY is taking to rebuild may be causing the Far West region to struggle, but not all regions are dragging behind. Sigal Judd, a teen member of the Central Region — which encompasses parts of Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan, Western Pennsylvania and West Virginia — was excited about the current status and future of her region. “We have really grown in the past few years and have had many more events to keep the people coming,” said Judd.
For Jewish teenagers who do not attend Jewish high schools, finding connections with other Jewish youth can be hard. Judd is grateful for the relationships USY gives her. “I am lucky to have these friendships from [Central Region USY] and a pen pal from the Far West region. I love being a part of the Jewish community through USY and growing my Jewish identity surrounded by kids like me,” she said.
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‘The Pitt’ tackled the trauma of the Tree of Life attack. Here’s how survivors of the synagogue shooting reacted to the episode.
When Audrey Glickman, a lifelong Pittsburgher and a survivor of the Tree of Life massacre, sat down to watch The Pitt Friday morning, she knew exactly what was coming. And still she found herself moved by it.
On Thursday’s episode of the HBO Max medical drama, which is set in Pittsburgh, a patient arrives at the emergency room with a burn. It’s the Fourth of July. Fireworks crackle outside. In her kitchen, the woman had been using a samovar — a traditional metal urn often used in Jewish homes to heat water — when the sudden noise startled her and she dropped it.
The scalding water spilled onto her leg.
When her doctor asks what happened, she offers an explanation that reaches further back than the holiday. “I was on my way inside,” she says. “October 27, 2018.”
She doesn’t need to say more.
The episode never recreates the Tree of Life synagogue shooting, the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history. There are no gunshots, no flashbacks, no swelling score. Instead, the trauma surfaces the way it often does in real life: indirectly, years later, triggered by noise, memory, or the body’s refusal to forget. The scene assumes the audience already carries the weight of that day. That restraint reflects how the show has handled Jewish moments.
In its first season, The Pitt established – not through backstory but through behavior – that its protagonist, Dr. Michael “Robby” Rabinovich (played by Noah Wyle), is Jewish. In one episode, after a brutal shift, he sits on the floor of a makeshift morgue, clutching a Star of David and reciting the Shema prayer. The moment is brief and unresolved; he later admits he isn’t even sure he believes the words he’s saying. It’s not a declaration of faith so much as a reflex — what surfaces when language runs out.
In the new episode, the survivor, named Yana Kovalenko and portrayed by actress Irina Dubova, asks Dr. Robby where he goes to synagogue.
“Rodef Shalom,” he replies, naming an actual Reform shul in Pittsburgh.
Kovalenko says she is a Tree of Life member and was at the synagogue on the day of the attack.
“They’re rebuilding,” Dr. Robby says.
“Yes, something new,” she says, adding, “Remember, rebuild, renew,” echoing the same phrase Tree of Life uses on its website.
That exchange gains more meaning if you know that Tree of Life is, in fact, rebuilding on its original site — and that, for now, its congregation meets in Rodef Shalom’s building. That insistence on local specificity extends beyond the script. Wyle, who is Jewish and whose parents met while attending college in Pittsburgh, has said authenticity is key to the series, which was inspired by the city’s Allegheny General Hospital.
Glickman said friends texted her about the episode Friday morning, so she was prepared for the reference but was still affected by how it unfolded.
“It’s really delightful,” she told the Forward. Not because every detail was perfect — she laughed about the accents, and the samovar struck her as more inherited than typical — but because the episode captured something truer than procedural accuracy.
“They do a lot of calling out of Pittsburgh,” Glickman said. “They treat it the way other shows treat New York or San Francisco. It lends authenticity, and it’s kind of exciting.”
Television often treats trauma as singular and spectacular, something that happens once and violently to one person at a time. The Pitt depicts it instead as communal and environmental, something that hums in the background long after the event itself has passed. “There is no clock on how long it takes,” Dr. Robby tells his patient.
Barry Werber, another Tree of Life survivor, knows that trauma personally. Werber was in the basement with his fellow congregants when they heard gunfire. He escaped into a storage room with two others, Carol Black and Melvin Wax. “We couldn’t find the light switch,” he later recalled. “It was pitch black.”
After a few moments, Wax, who was hard of hearing, thought the shooting had ended, so he took a fateful step outside the storage room and was instantly shot dead. His body fell back into the storage room, and the shooter, Robert Gregory Bowers, stepped inside. Through the darkness, Werber said, Bowers could not see Black hiding behind the door or himself toward the back of the room.
“To this day, I can’t go into a room and sit with my back facing the door,” he told the Forward.
Years later, that vigilance remains. Werber is still in therapy. He avoids crowds. He instinctively scans buildings for security. He attends synagogue services now via Zoom — partly because his wife is ill, and partly because being in a room full of people still doesn’t feel safe. “It took a lot out of me,” he said.
Werber, who worked for nearly 40 decades for the healthcare company that inspired the show, has yet to see the episode. He doesn’t subscribe to Max. “I spend enough on cable,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll get HBO. I’ll see if any of my friends have watched it.”
Carol Black, who was hiding in the same basement storage area as Werber during the attack, said the episode’s portrayal of flinching felt immediately familiar. “Every little unexpected sound still makes me jump,” she told the Forward. “If somebody sneezes and I’m not expecting it, I jump.” She said she has learned to live with the reflex. “You’re never going to get over it,” she said. “You just get used to it.”
Black, whose brother Richard Gottfried was among the 11 people killed in the shooting, said she was grateful to see the story reach a wider audience. “I don’t want the story of what we experienced to go cold,” she said. “This is a very popular show. People need to know about this.”
One of the episode’s most quietly revealing moments comes when the patient asks the nurse tending to her burns if she is Muslim. When the nurse says yes, the patient thanks her — not for the care she’s receiving in the room, but for what came years earlier. After the shooting, she recalls, it was the Muslim community that showed up, raised money, and paid for funerals.
Wyle, who also co-wrote this episode, told Variety that the interfaith solidarity “was the most underreported aspect of the story, and perhaps the most hopeful moving forward.” R. Scott Gemmill, an executive producer, added: “You can’t do a medical show, set in Pittsburgh, with a Jewish doctor without addressing that.”
The exchange in the episode is brief, almost awkward. The nurse doesn’t know what to say. The patient waves it off. “Anyway,” she says. “Thank you.” The show doesn’t pause to turn the moment into a lesson. It lets it pass, the way lived history often does.
That restraint resonated deeply with Glickman, who remembers the support across religious lines that followed the attack, and the ache of realizing how rare that feeling now seems. “I hope it means we’re going to get past the divisions we’re having right now,” she said. “We were there before. We can be there again.”
She also laughed at a detail few critics would think to note: Before arriving at the hospital, the patient treats her burns with honey. “That is so us,” Glickman said with a laugh. “That is so Jewish.”
#ThePitt’s Noah Wyle, who wrote Episode 3, talks with @TVLine Senior Editor Ryan Schwartz about revisiting the Tree of Life shooting and the Muslim community’s support and solidarity in the aftermath. https://t.co/KEHiBVeuUu pic.twitter.com/WTDSeL2Gkg
— TVLine.com (@TVLine) January 23, 2026
The post ‘The Pitt’ tackled the trauma of the Tree of Life attack. Here’s how survivors of the synagogue shooting reacted to the episode. appeared first on The Forward.
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Republican Rep. Calls on Georgia Hospital to Cut Ties With Iranian Regime-Connected Physician
Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA) Source: Youtube
Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA) has called on Emory University and Georgia medical regulators to fire a physician with familial ties to a top Iranian official, amid international furor against that official for his role in the brutal suppression of protests in Iran.
In a letter dated Jan. 22, the Carter urged Emory University to terminate Dr. Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larijani’s appointment and asked the Georgia Composite Medical Board to revoke her medical license, arguing that her connection to her father, Ali Larijani, poses national security and patient trust concerns. The letter contends that allowing someone with such ties to practice medicine in the United States is “unacceptable,” especially given recent U.S. actions targeting Iran’s leadership and repression apparatus.
“Allowing an individual with immediate familial ties to a senior official actively calling for the death of Americans to occupy such a position poses a threat to patient trust, institutional integrity, and national security,” Carter wrote.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury this month sanctioned Larijani, who serves as Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, for his role in coordinating the Iranian government’s violent crackdown on peaceful protesters that erupted in late 2025 and continued into January 2026. According to the Treasury, Larijani publicly called on security forces to use force against demonstrators demanding basic rights, and his actions are tied to thousands of deaths and injuries.
Those sanctions, announced Jan. 15 by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, target Larijani along with nearly two dozen other officials and shadow banking networks that finance the Iranian regime’s repression and global destabilizing activities. The move is part of a broader U.S. effort to increase economic pressure on Tehran, using executive authorities related to human rights abuses and support for terrorism.
The sanctions designation bars Larijani and the other named individuals from the U.S. financial system and prohibits American persons and companies from conducting business with them. Treasury officials said the measures also aim to disrupt the financial networks that allow Iran’s elite to launder revenue from petroleum and petrochemical sales funds that the U.S. says are diverted to repression and support for proxy groups abroad.
Larijani’s role in the crackdown has also been highlighted by a former Iranian government insider, who spoke with the IranWire outlet, alleging that Larijani played a central role in orchestrating the January 2026 suppression drawing comparisons to historic violent suppressions and suggesting the strategy was part of internal power consolidation within Iran’s leadership.
Protests that began in Iran in December have left at least 5,000 people dead, more than 7,300 injured and upwards of 26,800 detained, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. The unrest was initially sparked by rapidly deteriorating economic conditions, skyrocketing inflation, and a plummeting currency. However, the demonstrations quickly expanded into a wider movement opposing the country’s ruling establishment. Iranian authorities released their first official death toll on Wednesday, reporting 3,117 fatalities. The government said 2,427 of those killed were civilians or members of the security forces, while the remainder were labeled “terrorists,” without offering a detailed accounting of civilian versus security force casualties.
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Iran Claims Long-Range Missile Progress as US Boosts Military Presence Amid Deadliest Crackdown Since 1979
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 17, 2026. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iran claimed this week it successfully tested its first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of striking the US’s East Coast, as Washington bolsters its military presence in the region and tensions soar amid Tehran’s intensifying crackdown on protesters.
According to state-affiliated media, the Iranian government conducted a successful missile launch test this week from an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) base in Semnan, a city in north-central Iran, firing it toward Siberia with Russia’s approval.
Even though the missile was reported to have a range of up to 3,700 miles, it is unclear whether it reached its target, as the launch video shows little beyond a projectile soaring through the clouds.
Last year, a report from the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) warned that Iran could possess up to 60 intercontinental ballistic missiles by 2035, signaling the regime’s growing long-range strike capabilities and the potential future threat to the US and its allies.
“Missile threats to the US homeland will expand in scale and sophistication in the coming decade,” the report said. “North Korea has successfully tested ballistic missiles with sufficient range to reach the entire Homeland, and Iran has space launch vehicles it could use to develop a militarily viable ICBM by 2035 should Tehran decide to pursue the capability.”
Meanwhile, as regional tensions mount over the regime’s brutal crackdown on anti-government protests, the United States has moved a range of military assets into the area — including the USS Abraham Lincoln and its strike group.
In the last few weeks, President Donald Trump has repeatedly warned that he may take “decisive” military action against Iran if the regime continues killing protesters.
“We’re watching Iran,” Trump said on his way back from the World Economic Forum in Davos. “I’d rather not see anything happen but we’re watching them very closely.”
“We have a large fleet moving into the region. We’ll see what happens if we have to use it,” he continued. “We are building a very large force there, and we are closely monitoring their actions.”
For his part, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Thursday accused the United States and Israel of fueling the widespread anti-government protests, calling it a “cowardly revenge … for the defeat in the 12-Day War.”
IRGC commander Gen. Mohammad Pakpour also threatened Israel and the United States over any potential military action, warning them to “avoid any miscalculations” to prevent what he described as a “more painful and regrettable fate.”
“The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and dear Iran have their finger on the trigger, more prepared than ever, ready to carry out the orders and measures of the supreme commander-in-chief,” Pakpour was quoted as saying by local media.
With pressure mounting at home and abroad, experts say it remains unclear how Tehran will respond — whether by escalating militarily beyond its borders or by offering limited concessions to ease sanctions and mend ties with the West.
The nationwide protests, which began with a shopkeepers’ strike in Tehran on Dec. 28, initially reflected public anger over the soaring cost of living, a deepening economic crisis, and the rial — Iran’s currency — plummeting to record lows amid renewed economic sanctions, with annual inflation near 40 percent.
With demonstrations now stretching over three weeks, the protests have grown into a broader anti-government movement calling for the fall of Khamenei and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and even a broader collapse of the country’s Islamist, authoritarian system.
According to the US-based human rights group HRANA, 4,519 people have been killed during the protests, with another 9,049 fatalities under review. At least 5,811 people have been injured, and 26,314 arrests have been recorded.
Iranian officials have put the death toll at 5,000 while some reports indicate the figure could be much higher.
On Friday, the UN Human Rights Council said that the current wave of violence against protesters is “the deadliest crackdown since the 1979 Islamic Revolution,” citing credible evidence that the actual death toll is “much higher” than official figures, which already run into the thousands.
With Iranian authorities maintaining an internet blackout for over two weeks, the actual number of casualties remains difficult to verify. Activists fear the internet shutdown is being used to conceal the full extent of the crackdown on anti-regime protests.