Jewish students, seeking connection since start of war, find it in high school cultural clubs
Students Kate Kerpen, left, and friend Charlotte Packer helped create a Jewish cultural club at Paul D. Schreiber High School in Port Washington last fall. Credit: Newsday/Kendall Rodriguez
For Charlotte Packer, 16, the need for Jewish students to connect in school has been greater than ever since October.
With family members in Israel, Packer said, she was terrified for them when she heard Hamas had attacked the country. While her relatives were safe, she was so distraught that she didn’t go to school for a few days.
“I was really a nervous wreck,” said Packer, a junior at Paul D. Schreiber High School in Port Washington. “Since Oct. 7, there’s a general feeling of uneasiness. With the way the world is going, it’s hard to feel totally safe as a Jewish person.”
Packer and friend Kate Kerpen, 16, also a junior at Schreiber, helped create a Jewish cultural club at the school — one of at least two formed at Long Island high schools since the start of the war. Those two clubs join a dozen others at high schools across Long Island in what some see as a gathering momentum among Jewish students to display their pride since the conflict began.
Beginning in September, Packer and Kerpen researched online and looked for resources to start a Jewish cultural club. After Oct. 7, the need to start one "was evident more than ever,” Kerpen said. “The kids needed a safe place to go.”
Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel in a surprise attack on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages. Israel responded with one of the deadliest and most destructive military campaigns in recent history. The war has killed over 30,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
On Long Island, Jewish and Muslim communities have reported a spike in antisemitism and Islamophobia. In recent months, swastikas were discovered in schools in East Meadow, Syosset, Smithtown, Commack and Port Washington.
Packer and Kerpen held the first meeting of the newly established club at their high school on Dec. 15. That meeting, during Hanukkah, included a dreidel game and drew about 50 people, the teens said. Since then, the club has met twice a month and held activities where teens decorated cookies, hosted Jewish-themed "Jeopardy!" and painted on canvases.
“Our club gave people that sense of safety,” Kerpen said. “It’s a fun place to be authentically yourself.”
The club in Port Washington and 13 others in Long Island high schools are part of the Jewish Student Union network. Two were created after October — one in Port Washington and another in Sanford H. Calhoun High School in Merrick, said Rabbi Sammy Aronson, director of Mid Island NCSY, the youth division of the Orthodox Union. Hundreds of students on the Island participate in the clubs, he said.
Jewish Student Union is a program of the Orthodox Union, which is one of the largest Orthodox Jewish organizations in the United States, according to its website.
Organizers said the clubs are open to all students.
Since Oct. 7, Aronson said, his organization has heard from a lot of students who said they wanted to start a club in their school.
“I think that for the first time in a long time … there is a sense of the Jewish students and Jews around the world feel threatened,” he said. “The response has been that they want to express their Jewish pride in new ways. And they want to get involved more and they want to be more connected to their Jewish values.”
Hailey Arnell, 15, a sophomore at Wellington C. Mepham High School in Bellmore, said being part of the club has helped her cope.
Avery Cohen, 18, a senior at Commack High School, said the club offered her a safe space to connect with others.
“It gives me a safe place to really feel my Jewish pride and with people that are like me,” she said. “It's a place where, since we're such a minority, we can come together and be the majority in a room. And it feels so special to have that connection with everybody there.”
With AP
For Charlotte Packer, 16, the need for Jewish students to connect in school has been greater than ever since October.
With family members in Israel, Packer said, she was terrified for them when she heard Hamas had attacked the country. While her relatives were safe, she was so distraught that she didn’t go to school for a few days.
“I was really a nervous wreck,” said Packer, a junior at Paul D. Schreiber High School in Port Washington. “Since Oct. 7, there’s a general feeling of uneasiness. With the way the world is going, it’s hard to feel totally safe as a Jewish person.”
Packer and friend Kate Kerpen, 16, also a junior at Schreiber, helped create a Jewish cultural club at the school — one of at least two formed at Long Island high schools since the start of the war. Those two clubs join a dozen others at high schools across Long Island in what some see as a gathering momentum among Jewish students to display their pride since the conflict began.
Beginning in September, Packer and Kerpen researched online and looked for resources to start a Jewish cultural club. After Oct. 7, the need to start one "was evident more than ever,” Kerpen said. “The kids needed a safe place to go.”
Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel in a surprise attack on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages. Israel responded with one of the deadliest and most destructive military campaigns in recent history. The war has killed over 30,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
On Long Island, Jewish and Muslim communities have reported a spike in antisemitism and Islamophobia. In recent months, swastikas were discovered in schools in East Meadow, Syosset, Smithtown, Commack and Port Washington.
Packer and Kerpen held the first meeting of the newly established club at their high school on Dec. 15. That meeting, during Hanukkah, included a dreidel game and drew about 50 people, the teens said. Since then, the club has met twice a month and held activities where teens decorated cookies, hosted Jewish-themed "Jeopardy!" and painted on canvases.
“Our club gave people that sense of safety,” Kerpen said. “It’s a fun place to be authentically yourself.”
The club in Port Washington and 13 others in Long Island high schools are part of the Jewish Student Union network. Two were created after October — one in Port Washington and another in Sanford H. Calhoun High School in Merrick, said Rabbi Sammy Aronson, director of Mid Island NCSY, the youth division of the Orthodox Union. Hundreds of students on the Island participate in the clubs, he said.
Jewish Student Union is a program of the Orthodox Union, which is one of the largest Orthodox Jewish organizations in the United States, according to its website.
Organizers said the clubs are open to all students.
Since Oct. 7, Aronson said, his organization has heard from a lot of students who said they wanted to start a club in their school.
“I think that for the first time in a long time … there is a sense of the Jewish students and Jews around the world feel threatened,” he said. “The response has been that they want to express their Jewish pride in new ways. And they want to get involved more and they want to be more connected to their Jewish values.”
Hailey Arnell, 15, a sophomore at Wellington C. Mepham High School in Bellmore, said being part of the club has helped her cope.
Avery Cohen, 18, a senior at Commack High School, said the club offered her a safe space to connect with others.
“It gives me a safe place to really feel my Jewish pride and with people that are like me,” she said. “It's a place where, since we're such a minority, we can come together and be the majority in a room. And it feels so special to have that connection with everybody there.”
With AP
Dandan Zou covers education for Newsday. Previously, she worked for a community newspaper in Maryland and a personal finance magazine in Washington, D.C.
