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What it’s like to be a Jewish teenager in a small town right now
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) — About 4.5 hours north of the country’s most Jewish-concentrated city, is Corning, New York. Though it’s technically considered a city, Corning is more of a town, with just about 11,000 people.
While the downtown area is fairly progressive, Confederate flags can be found flying in front of homes in towns just beyond, 10 minutes in any direction. Because of the primarily rural environment, the young Jewish community is small and largely disconnected. The closest synagogue to Corning, Congregation Kol Ami, is two towns away and its youngest member is 22 years old. Teen Jews in rural areas face the challenges of building their Jewish identity in areas with limited support, resources and opportunities.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency interviewed four teens about their experiences of being young and Jewish in a small town. Three of the students attend Corning-Painted Post High School and one attends Corning-Painted Post Middle School. They spoke with JTA via Zoom on Oct. 29, three weeks into Israel’s war on Hamas. The unique Jewish identities they made for themselves are products of the environment they grew up in. In one way or another, their thoughts reflect how being raised in a rural area affected their relationship with Judaism.
JTA: For each of you, what’s your own personal connection with Judaism? In other words, describe your Jewishness.
Jonah Goldwyn, 13, Painted Post, New York: I got a Jewish education at Congregation Kol Ami for a few years every Sunday and so did my brother and sister. When the pandemic hit, it kind of fell apart because there’s not obviously not a big Jewish community around here, so classes were pretty small, there might have been four people in the class. But once the pandemic hit, we tried going virtual and that was kind of a disaster. We also tried connecting with a temple outside of Philadelphia and that was a little awkward. It was way too much screen time. Because of this, I didn’t get the same Hebrew education that my brother and sister got. Now, we go to temple and celebrate holy days. And we do a lot of holidays at home.
McKenna Kagle, 16, Caton, New York: My dad’s family is culturally Jewish and really connected with traditions and things like that. But my dad didn’t really pass it down to me. My family doesn’t really practice Judaism religiously at all. We try to do Hanukkah and sometimes we’ll do holidays with my grandparents. We used to go to the Jewish Food Festival every year when they had it at the temple in Elmira, but I don’t think they do it anymore. So I am connected but definitely not to the extent that I would like to be. I’d like to learn more about the culture, get more experience, and actually participate in holidays besides just Hanukkah.
Historic Market Street in Corning, New York, seen in February 2022. (Andre Carrotflower/Creative Commons)
Abigail Alper, 17, Corning, New York: Both of my parents are Jewish, but we’re not practicing. We celebrate holidays like Passover and Hanukkah, but we don’t participate in the ones where you connect yourself with God, due to the fact that both of my parents were raised atheists. I still identify with Judaism even though we don’t practice. My grandfather was a Cohen and I believe that if circumstances were different, possibly I would be practicing; my parents were raised in environments that made them unable to practice and affected their relationships with Judaism. My dad didn’t know he was Jewish until high school and was raised Presbyterian. I think if he was raised with Judaism, we would be practicing more. My mom came from the Soviet Union and during that time, they weren’t even allowed to practice Judaism. Now, she’s very passionate with knowledge about the Torah because she went to a school later on to educate herself on it. And she even learned Hebrew fluently, but because she didn’t have anybody to speak it with in Corning, she forgot.
Dorothy Piech, 17, Hornby, New York: My mother is Jewish, and she went to temple occasionally growing up. But because she grew up in a really rural area in Maryland, she felt alienated because she didn’t celebrate Christian holidays. And I think she didn’t want that to be our experience as her kids. We do Hanukkah and Passover and sort of acknowledge that the other holidays exist, but mostly not the religious aspects; it’s more cultural. But I identify with Judaism because it’s just such a cultural part of my identity. We use like Yiddish phrases and have that sort of relationship with it.
Consider where you live and think about a larger, more urban city like New York city. How would you compare your own experiences with Judaism to theirs?
Piech: I have cousins who live in Westchester. They get school off for Rosh Hashanah and they have a Jewish Community Center. Even though they’re also not practicing, they have tons of friends who are Jewish and they went to a bunch of bat mitzvahs when they were that age. It’s just very different. I can’t imagine having that experience and not having to explain what being Jewish is like.
Alper: I keep seeing clips from, “You’re So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah,” the Adam Sandler movie, on my [TikTok] “for you” page. It’s a very new movie set in a place that has a large Jewish community. I’m like, “Dude, this is so different from my experience. I have never gone to a bar mitzvah.” It’s just so different.
Kagle: I mean, my grandparents live in New York City in a very Jewish area. It’s kind of crazy seeing like six temples in this little area. They just have so much more of an official Jewish community, and there’s none of that here.
Jonah, if you went to one of those bigger, more urban schools, would you appreciate having a larger Jewish community?
Goldwyn: Maybe. I don’t really think it would be that much better. I don’t need to be surrounded by people just because they’re the same.
What’s your high school Jewish population like?
Piech: It’s very small. I think people don’t talk about it because no one’s like, “Hey, what are you doing for Passover?” We just assume everyone else is Christian, because most of them are. I had a Jewish English teacher last year and he told us he wasn’t going to be in school one day because of Yom Kippur. And that was sort of crazy to me that he had to take a day off to celebrate his holiday even though we get days off for Easter and Christmas and things like that. But he was also the only teacher I’ve ever had who knows anything about Judaism. My mom went in and taught my elementary class about Hanukkah, and the teachers had no idea what to think. They were like “What is a latke?” And I was thinking, “You’re an adult.”
“I tuck my star [of David] under my shirt a lot. I usually wear it every day but lately, I’ve taken it off just because of everything that’s going on.” (Getty Images)
Goldwyn: I still go to temple, but I haven’t known any other Jewish kids in my middle school. Also you don’t get you don’t get the day off for High Holy Days. It’s just different because no one really knows about the religion, besides Hanukkah. In elementary school, my dad came and taught the class about Hanukkah actually.
Alper: Even though there’s a lack of a Jewish community, whenever my connection to Judaism is mentioned, people that don’t know are genuinely interested. Even in elementary school where I would assume kids would know better, they were always like, “Whoa, what is Hanukkah — a second Christmas?”
What’s a frustration you have with your school’s education surrounding Judaism?
Alper: Everybody just knows about the Holocaust. Whenever there’s any mention of a Jew or Judaism, people kind of just look around awkwardly. When my literature teacher took off for Yom Kippur, he said that “it’s a very serious holiday” and everybody was like “what even is it?”
Kagle: We were reading “Night” by Elie Wiesel and one of my teachers misspelled it as “Knight,” like the soldier, instead of the time of day. It took her weeks to realize her mistake.
Can you think of a time when being Jewish made you feel “othered”?
Piech: A few years ago in English class, we read “Maus,” [Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel/memoir about the Holocaust]. During one class, we talked about Jewish stereotypes and I was trying to say something and I paused. And my teacher asked me if I paused because I didn’t want to offend anyone. And I remember that I didn’t know how to say what I wanted to because I didn’t know whether to say “they” or “we” when talking about Jewish people because I don’t want to bring that up.
Alper: I tuck my star [of David] under my shirt a lot. I usually wear it every day but lately, I’ve taken it off just because of everything that’s going on; I don’t know with a lot of people what their thoughts on Jews are. And I know that there is history in Painted Post of Nazi agendas. After World War II, there was this guy who painted a swastika on the ceiling of his house and then painted over it. So in one of the Painted Post houses, there is a Nazi swastika under the ceiling paint. You’ll see them in bathroom stalls, under bridges in graffiti, in a lot of places. I think some kids do it because they think they are being quirky or funny. It’s crazy. It’s actually crazy.
Kagle: I forgot about this but last year in my biology class I sat at a table that literally had like 30 swastikas carved into it. I was shocked. I mean I feel like it’s a pretty common thing to graffiti, but the fact that nobody had done anything about it was crazy. That was the place I sat every single day and I had to look at those hate symbols every single day. It was unnerving.
Art Spiegelman’s “Maus” is a Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir about the Holocaust in the form of a two-volume comic book. (Philissa Cramer)
What are your experiences with the conflicts in Israel?
Alper: Mostly what has affected and unnerved me is you hear about antisemitism and people protesting against Jews as a whole. I don’t agree with war in general — war to me is just so unprogressive — but there’s a lot of new prejudice surfacing. It’s crazy to think that right now I can tell somebody that I am a Jew and they might think that I’m dangerous or against Palestine when Islam, Judaism and Christianity are all Abrahamic religions.
Kagle: I have a lot of feelings about this. But I think to me, it’s kind of crazy how many people equate supporting Palestine with antisemitism. Because, without a doubt, Palestinian people are being completely oppressed and have been for years and it’s not antisemitic to say that the state of Israel is doing bad things. And so many people and politicians are saying that they stand with the Jewish community, but that doesn’t mean you have to stand with the state of Israel.
Piech: I don’t support it. I’m against the conflict in the same way Abby is. But people use it as an excuse for antisemitism. There was another conflict a couple years ago and antisemitic activity was on the rise then too. Just because there’s a majority Muslim country and a majority Jewish country fighting, that doesn’t mean you can use that to attack members of either religion.
Do you see yourself staying in a rural area or moving to an urban one?
Goldwyn: I want to live in a city after high school or college, not because of Judaism, but it would be good in that regard too. If I have kids, I’d probably move to somewhere that still has a few temples around it because that’s important to me; it gives some structure. I think it’s good to use religion to help decide what you think about the world. If you don’t have any knowledge on that, then you won’t have good ideas. A verse could change how you view the world. A lot of it is true, and a lot of it is smarter than what people think. I would want that for my kids, if I decide to have them.
Alper: I probably would pick a place where there’s more of a Jewish presence, just so I can educate myself more on who I am. I personally love religion, I think religion is so interesting as a concept. It’s how we find the world as humans, and I would love to learn more about my culture.
Piech: Because I’m a senior, my plan right now is to go to Boston for school. Being a larger city, I would love to have some connection with the campus hillel and with the Jewish community, just to surround myself with people who understand that part of my background. If I have kids, it would be important to me to educate them and teach them about their culture. I also want to make sure that they never feel ashamed or alienated because of it.
Kagle: I don’t think I’m necessarily going to choose where I live based on Judaism, but I definitely want to go to a big city, and with that, there will come connections to Judaism.
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The post What it’s like to be a Jewish teenager in a small town right now appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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As Gaza War Continues, Hamas Calls for Global Protests While Israel Marks Breakthroughs in Medical Innovation
A pro-Hamas march in London, United Kingdom, Feb. 17, 2024. Photo: Chrissa Giannakoudi via Reuters Connect
As the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas calls for global protests amid stalled Gaza ceasefire talks, Israel has broken new ground despite the ongoing conflict, achieving a major medical breakthrough in synthetic human kidney development.
The contrast illustrates a stark contrast between the priorities of Hamas, an international designated terrorist group that has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades, and Israel, the lone democracy in the Middle East that has long been a leader in tech and medical innovation.
On Wednesday, Hamas urged worldwide protests in support of Palestinians, calling on the international community “to denounce Israel’s genocidal war and starvation policy in Gaza.”
“We call for continuing and escalating the popular pressure in all cities and squares on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday … through rallies, demonstrations and sit-ins outside the embassies of the Israeli regime and its allies, particularly in the US,” the statement read.
The Palestinian terrorist group also called to expose what it described as “the terrorism of the Zio-Nazi occupation against defenseless civilians.”
Hamas’s latest move against Israel comes amid stalled indirect negotiations over a proposed 60-day ceasefire and hostage release deal, which collapsed last month after the group vowed it would not disarm unless an independent Palestinian state is established — rejecting a key Israeli demand to end the war in Gaza.
In its statement, Hamas demanded the opening of all border crossings to allow immediate aid into the war-torn enclave and urged a global condemnation of “the international community’s inaction on the Israeli crimes.”
Amid mounting international pressure to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Israel announced new measures to facilitate the delivery of aid, including temporary pauses in fighting in certain areas and the creation of protected routes for aid convoys.
Israeli officials have previously accused Hamas of diverting aid for terrorist activities and selling supplies at inflated prices to civilians, while also blaming the United Nations and other foreign organizations for enabling this diversion.
Hamas’s statement also emphasized that the “global resistance movement must continue until Israeli aggression on Gaza ends and the siege on the coastal strip is lifted.”
Meanwhile, as Israel faces escalating hostilities and the heavy toll of war, the Jewish state continues to push the boundaries of innovation and resilience, achieving new medical breakthroughs while confronting ongoing challenges.
In a major medical breakthrough, scientists at Sheba Medical Center and Tel Aviv University have successfully grown a synthetic 3D miniature human kidney in a lab using specialized stem cells derived from kidney tissue — one of the most promising advances in regenerative medicine.
Dr. Dror Harats, chairman of Sheba’s Research Authority, described this achievement as a reflection of Israel’s leading role in global medical innovation.
“Despite growing efforts to isolate Israel from international science, breakthroughs like this prove our impact is both lasting and essential,” he said.
In a landmark study, a team from Sheba’s Safra Children’s Hospital and Tel Aviv University’s Sagol Center for Regenerative Medicine created synthetic kidney organs that matured and remained stable for 34 weeks — the longest-lasting and most refined kidney organoids developed to date.
Nearly a decade ago, the research team became the first to successfully isolate human kidney tissue stem cells — the cells responsible for the organ’s development and growth.
Previous attempts to grow kidneys in a lab using general-purpose stem cells were short-lived, typically lasting only a few weeks and often producing unwanted cell types that compromised research accuracy.
However, this Israeli research team used stem cells taken directly from kidney tissue — cells that naturally develop into kidney parts — allowing them to create a much purer and more stable model with key features found in real kidneys.
This medical breakthrough could have far-reaching implications, redefining the current understanding of kidney diseases and advancing the development of innovative treatments.
Researchers believe the model could help assess how medications impact fetal kidneys during pregnancy and move science closer to repairing or replacing damaged kidney tissue with lab-grown cells.
The discovery came days after researchers from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and international partners discovered a way to boost the immune system’s cancer-fighting ability by reprogramming how T cells, which are white blood cells critical to the immune system, produce energy.
The researchers explained in a study published in the peer-reviewed Nature Communications that disabling a protein known as Ant2 in T cells greatly enhances their effectiveness against tumors.
“By disabling Ant2, we triggered a complete shift in how T cells produce and use energy,” Prof. Michael Berger of Hebrew University’s Faculty of Medicine, who co-led the study with doctorate student Omri Yosef, told the Tazpit Press Service. “This reprogramming made them significantly better at recognizing and killing cancer cells.”
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Netherlands to Push EU to Suspend Israel Trade Deal but Won’t Recognize Palestinian State ‘At This Time’
Netherlands Foreign Affairs Minister Caspar Veldkamp addresses a press conference, in New Delhi on April 1, 2025. Photo: ANI Photo/Sanjay Sharma via Reuters Connect
The Netherlands is spearheading efforts to suspend the European Union-Israel trade agreement amid rising EU criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza, while simultaneously refusing to recognize a Palestinian state, contrasting with other member states as international pressure mounts.
On Thursday, Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp announced that the Netherlands will push the EU to suspend the trade component of the EU-Israel Association Agreement — a pact governing the EU’s political and economic ties with the Jewish state.
This latest anti-Israel initiative follows a recent EU-commissioned report accusing Israel of committing “indiscriminate attacks … starvation … torture … [and] apartheid” against Palestinians in Gaza during its military campaign against Hamas, an internationally designated terrorist group.
Following calls from a majority of EU member states for a formal investigation, this report built on Belgium’s recent decision to review Israel’s compliance with the trade agreement, a process initiated by the Netherlands and led by EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas.
According to the report, “there are indications that Israel would be in breach of its human rights obligations” under the 25-year-old EU-Israel Association Agreement.
While the document acknowledges the reality of violence by Hamas, it states that this issue lies outside its scope — failing to address the Palestinian terrorist group’s role in sparking the current war with its bloody rampage across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Israeli officials have slammed the report as factually incorrect and morally flawed, noting that Hamas embeds its military infrastructure within civilian targets and Israel’s army takes extensive precautions to try and avoid civilian casualties.
In a Dutch parliamentary debate on Gaza on Thursday, Veldkamp also announced that the government would not recognize a Palestinian state for now — a position that stands in sharp contrast to the recent moves by several other EU member states to extend recognition.
“The Netherlands is not planning to recognize a Palestinian state at this time,” the Dutch diplomat said.
“This war has ceased to be a just war and is now leading to the erosion of Israel’s own security and identity,” he continued.
This latest decision goes against the position of several EU member states, including France, which has committed to recognizing Palestinian statehood in September.
The United Kingdom has likewise indicated it will do so unless Israel acts to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and agrees to a ceasefire.
For its part, Germany said it was not planning to recognize a Palestinian state in the short term, and Italy argued that recognition must occur simultaneously with the recognition of Israel by the new entity.
Spain, Norway, Ireland, and Slovenia all recognized a Palestinian state last year.
Israel has been facing growing pressure from several EU member states seeking to undermine its defensive campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.
On Thursday, European Commission Vice President Teresa Ribera strongly condemned Israel’s actions in the war-torn enclave, describing the situation as a “grave violation of human dignity.”
“What we are seeing is a concrete population being targeted, killed and condemned to starve to death,” Ribera told Politico. “If it is not genocide, it looks very much like the definition used to express its meaning.”
Until now, the European Commission has refrained from accusing Israel of genocide, but Ribera’s comments mark one of the strongest European condemnations since the outbreak of the war in Gaza.
She also called on the EU to take decisive action by considering the suspension of its trade agreement with Israel and the implementation of sanctions, while emphasizing that such measures would require unanimous approval from all member states.
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Graduate Student Unions Promoting Antisemitism, Reform Group Says
Students listen to a speech at a protest encampment at Stanford University in Stanford, California US, on April 26, 2024. Photo: Carlos Barria via Reuters Connect.
Higher-education-based unions controlled by United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (UE) are rife with antisemitism and anti-Zionist discrimination, according to a new letter imploring the US Congress’s House Committee on Education and the Workforce to address the matter.
“Tracing its roots to communism in the 1930s, the UE is a radical, pro-Hamas labor union that has a long history of antisemitism,” the National Right to Work Foundation (NRTW), one of the US’s leading labor reform groups, wrote on July 30 in a message obtained by The Algemeiner. “The UE openly supports the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which is designed to cripple and destroy Israel economically. Today, the UE furthers its antisemitic agenda by unionizing graduate students on college campuses and using its exclusive representation powers to create a hostile environment for Jewish students. The hostile environment includes demanding compulsory dues to fund the UE’s abhorrent activities.”
NRTW went on to describe a litany of alleged injustices to which UE members subject Jewish student-employees in the US’s most prestigious institutions of higher education, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to Cornell University. At MIT, the letter said, “union officers” aided a riotous group which illegally occupied a section of campus with a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” participating in the demonstration and even denying access to campus buildings. UE members at Stanford University, meanwhile, allegedly denied religious accommodations to Jewish students who requested exemption from union dues over that branch’s supporting the BDS movement. And Cornell University UE was accused of denying religious exemptions in several cases as well and followed up the rejection with an intrusive “questionnaire” which probed Jewish students for “legally-irrelevant information.”
The situation requires federal oversight and intervention, NRTW said, including Congress’s possibly clarifying that student-employees are not traditional employees and are therefore afforded protections under sections of the Civil Rights Act which apply to the campus.
“These continuing patterns of antisemitism are illegal, immoral, and must be stopped,” the letter continued. “We encourage you to do all that is in your power to investigate and help bring an end to the UE and its affiliates’ nonstop harassment and intimidation of Jewish students … The Trump administration can also use tools available to it under Title VI and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act against colleges who work with unions to create a hostile environment for Jewish students.”
July’s letter is not the first time NRTW has publicized alleged antisemitic abuse in unions representing higher education employees.
In 2024, it represented a group of six City University of New York (CUNY) professors, five of whom are Jewish, who sued to be “freed” from CUNY’s Professional Staff Congress (PSC-CUNY) over its passing a resolution during Israel’s May 2021 war with Hamas which declared solidarity with Palestinians and accused the Jewish state of ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and crimes against humanity. The group contested New York State’s “Taylor Law,” which it said chained the professors to the union’s “bargaining unit” and denied their right to freedom of speech and association by forcing them to be represented in negotiations by an organization they claim holds antisemitic views.
That same year, NRTW prevailed in a discrimination suit filed to exempt another cohort of Jewish MIT students from paying dues to the Graduate Student Union (GSU). The students had attempted to resist financially supporting GSU’s anti-Zionism, but the union bosses attempted to coerce their compliance, telling them that “no principles, teachings, or tenets of Judaism prohibit membership in or the payment of dues or fees” to the union.
“All Americans should have a right to protect their money from going to union bosses they don’t support, whether those objections are based on religion, politics, or any other reason,” NRTW said at the time.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.