PANIM Logo
Home      Donate      Contact Us      Site Map
About PANIM
 

Welcome
Our History
Our Centers
Our Staff and Board
Our Partners
Our Supporters
Benefit Dinner
Donate to PANIM
Stay in Touch
Career Opportunities


Panim el Panim
    Registration Forms
Jewish Civics Initiative
    Registration Forms
Summer JAM
PanimWorks
J-Serve
Camps
Fellowship
Educators' Institute
Other Programs
Scholarships Available


Upcoming Events
Program Forms
Recruitment &      Registration
Books & Educational      Materials
Rabbi Schwarz on...
For our Alumni

 

“Through PANIM, I have gained confidence in public speaking, I have become motivated to become involved with politics, and I have become determined to fix the social inequality in the world.”
- Eliza Kaye
Ohabei Shalom
Brookline, MA

 
 
 

PANIM EL PANIM ALUMNI LEADERS

Here are some profiles of our recent Young Jewish Activist Award winners:

2008: Ben Simon, Takoma Park, Maryland
2007: Jackie Rotman, Santa Barbara, California
2006: Joshua Offenhartz, Tucson, Arizona
2005: David Landon Frim, Boca Raton, Florida
2004: Ilana Cohn, West Hartford, Connecticut
2003: Ilana Papir, North Miami Beach, Florida
2002: Arielle Parker, Cincinnati, Ohio
2001: Elizabeth Dwoskin, Palm Beach Gardens, Florida
2000: Susan Feizzadeh, San Jose, California

Ben Simon Award Acceptance Speech (May 18, 2008)

When I registered to go on a Panim el Panim seminar in April of 2007, I didn’t know that it would entail nearly as much social justice work as it did. In fact, I had no idea that activism was such an important aspect of Jewish culture. But all the best lessons come unexpectedly.

When I arrived on the first day of the program, I didn’t know anybody else there and I was a little nervous about whether I would fit in with the other kids. Before long, though, I saw how warm and gracious everyone was. As an “icebreaker” activity we rotated around each other in two concentric circles, telling jokes and talking about our hobbies and interests. For a moment I began to wonder if I had accidentally signed up for a speed-dating seminar. But soon enough, we got down to business, taking tours of Washington, participating in workshops, and hearing presentations from organizations like the National Coalition for the Homeless.

Panim el Panim gave me confidence about my capabilities as a young American Jew who wants to be an agent for positive social change in the world. The program taught me that if I redirected some of the time and energy I was spending doing typical teen activities towards helping those who couldn’t help themselves then I could make a real difference in the world. At PANIM, there was a deep, spiritual connection binding us, teenagers from all around the country, with our responsibility as humans and as Jews to battle injustice in our world. Rabbi Sid’s message of compassion resonated profoundly with me when he told us that the one of the top priorities of a Jew should be to always expand one’s “universe of obligation,” the range of people in life one feels responsible for. This was directly in line with my own ideals, and I felt a new assurance about my faith and a greater sense of belonging to the Jewish community.

Upon leaving Panim el Panim I was eager to take on a huge project to promote social justice. I was most passionate about Darfur because after watching movies and reading about the Holocaust I could barely believe that such an atrocity was again taking place in the world. Genocide is often dubbed the worst crime known to humanity and I wanted to do my part to help ensure that Darfur was the last crisis of its kind. I tapped into the anti-genocide activist circuit, participating in conference calls with organizations like the Save Darfur Coalition and Genocide Intervention Network. I planned four Capitol Hill lobby appointments in the two months following my PANIM experience.

Then in July, three months after PANIM, I began to organize my first big endeavor, a “Dinner 4 Darfur” that was held on September 15, 2007. During the planning stages of the program I referred back to a rough plan that I outlined during PANIM’s “Dream It, Do It” social entrepreneurship workshop, when Miriam Stein, the PANIM lead faculty on my seminar, gave me one-on-one advice on outlining the steps for planning a big social justice project. The dinner involved publicity, selling tickets, booking a teen speaker and an all-teen cast of entertainment. To make the program work, we asked local restaurants to pitch-in and supply enough food to feed 250 people. Folks came out to eat, enjoy the show, and listen to a presentation about the situation in Darfur. The dinner was a huge success, uniting my Takoma Park/Silver Spring community and educating them about the genocide while raising $7,500 for Doctors Without Borders: Sudan and the Save Darfur Coalition.

Then I focused my attention on an even bigger goal: the divestment of my county, Montgomery County, Maryland, from Sudan as a means of financially pressuring the government to stop the genocide in Darfur. From my involvement in the network of Darfur activists, I knew Sudan divestment was one of the major strategies being used to alleviate the crisis. I had previously rallied support at my school for the divestment of the Maryland state fund, but I never fathomed my commitment to the cause would spiral up to the point where I was coordinating a divestment campaign myself. I did not grasp the magnitude of the task before me. In retrospect, being a little naïve about what such a campaign entailed was probably a good thing.

I took the obvious first steps, initiating contact with a Montgomery County Council member Marc Elrich in September 2007. I also worked periodically with a divestment campaign supervisor from the Sudan Divestment Task Force who answered any questions I had and helped to guide me throughout the process. While these experts provided me with a loose framework for my work, I made the lion’s share of the decisions about the project by myself. I have never shied away from taking on leadership roles, and over the years, have gotten better at empowering others.

Despite my own drive, the divestment campaign never would have succeeded without the time and dedication of students across Montgomery County. I networked like crazy and identified the leaders of social action clubs at local high schools throughout the county. I then provided them with sample letters, scripts for calling council member offices, and background sheets. With these tools, these clubs rallied the students at their schools and together generated thousands of letters, calls, and postcards inundating the Montgomery County Council and forcing them to listen to our views on the importance of divestment. In many cases, the clubs were previously inactive and they needed a worthy cause, a game plan, and a tool kit to effectively tackle an issue they cared about. Darfur seemed to be an issue that clicked with everyone. Between December 2007 and March 2008, ten Montgomery County schools got involved in this campaign by either holding mass call-ins, letter-writing days or by participating in our county-wide student lobby day. All in all it amounted to what has been one of the largest teen-led campaigns for Darfur in the country.

Bill 3-08 was introduced by a majority of the Montgomery County Council on Tuesday February 12, 2008. Three weeks later, for the bill’s public hearing, I helped to coordinate a large show of support from the network of students I had built. Montgomery County citizens who wanted to see this bill pass showed up en masse, lining the back wall and spilling into the accompanying hallway. Poignant testimonies were given by students involved in the campaign as well as by two representatives of Jewish organizations devoted to ending the genocide in Darfur. The bill passed swiftly through subcommittee and on April 1, 2008 was unanimously approved by the Montgomery County Council.

The bill calls for between ten to fifty million dollars in stocks and bonds that the Montgomery County Employees’ Retirement System pension fund has—excuse me, had—invested in the Darfur genocide’s biggest financiers to be dissolved and reinvested in companies that do not represent morally questionable endeavors. I am happy to say that Montgomery County has joined the federal government, 22 states and 58 universities in the growing divestment movement. The divestment of Montgomery County also sets a precedent for other counties across the US as we become the first suburban county to approve a divestment policy.

We are all witnesses to great calamities in the world —starvation in Africa, hurricanes and tsunamis that kill tens of thousands, and genocide. But what makes one act on their desire to help? What makes one expand their “universe of obligation?” How does one begin to figure out what to do if they choose to act? I am indebted to PANIM with inspiring me to act on my impulse to help; for helping me understand what Judaism teaches us about caring for others; and for giving me the tools to be an effective agent for change in the world. If I ever had any doubts about what I would do with my life, PANIM helped me gain much greater clarity. I see myself as a young Jewish activist and I am committed to do what I can to shake people out of their apathy and to mobilize them to address the injustices in the world.

I am honored to accept the 2008 Aaron Goldman Young Jewish Activist Award. Thank You.

 

Jackie Rotman Award Acceptance Speech (May 20, 2007)

When I was twelve years old, I participated in a program in which I danced hip-hop for over eighty teenagers with developmental disabilities.  I was so nervous about what it would be like, having rarely interacted with people with special needs.  But as soon as my music came on, it was plain to see that the audience members were having a blast.  One boy got so excited that he had to have two men hold him down because he couldn’t contain his enthusiasm.  Then, halfway through my dance, the music stopped. The audience started shouting out, “Do it again!”—so we did, until our song cut out at the exact same time. I didn’t know what to do until the silence was broken by a girl in the audience who shouted out “We want to dance!” I figured there was no harm in going along with this idea and sure enough, I managed to talk my horrified-looking program director into it too. We then invited groups of audience members onstage and I taught them different dance moves. I’ll never forget the energy in the room and the self-esteem and adrenaline that these teens had when they danced.

This encounter showed me that my passion for dancing could be used to bring joy to others. A few months later, I began talking to various friends about helping me create a dance outreach program based on this experience. Sadly, the common response was: “Maybe in a few years.  We're too young.”  The assumption that I couldn’t make something important happen because I was young frustrated me.  Who would make me believe in my own ability to make a difference? 

That’s where PANIM came into the picture.  Last March in Washington D.C., my Panim el Panim lead faculty, Miriam Stein, quoted President John F. Kennedy’s words: “The Jewish people, ever since David slew Goliath, have never seen youth as a barrier to leadership.”  Miriam elaborated, “Oftentimes people say ‘teens are the world's future generation,’ or ‘tomorrow's leaders,’ but I think you should be insulted by that.  Teenagers can be leaders right now.” PANIM empowered me to take action and gave me the necessary confidence to reach out to my community to make a difference.

PANIM also helped me to see the good works that can be done in the language of Jewish values and in the context of the lessons of Jewish history. For instance: Jews are instructed to remember that we were once wanderers in the desert and so we must be prepared to support others who become “lost” on their life journeys; Jews  were slaves in the land of Egypt, so we must come to the aid of others who are oppressed.  There is also the mitzvah of looking after the ger, yatom v’almanah - the stranger, orphan and widow.  This does not literally apply just to orphans and widows, but rather stresses the broader idea of caring for the most vulnerable in our midst.

Keeping these Jewish values in mind, along with the values of rachamim – compassion, chesed – kindness and re’ut – friendship, I founded an organization called Everybody Dance Now!.  Through six weekly classes instructed by five college and high school students, I bring dance to over one hundred low-income and underprivileged children and teens weekly, and have touched the lives of over two hundred youth in total.

I am proud that my program does the work of tikkun olam by bringing dance to children who mostly, cannot afford the dance lessons that I enjoyed growing up. But what really makes the program unique is that it also teaches the values of tikkun olam and community service by giving our students the opportunity to perform for the elderly, terminally ill, and community at large.  This teaches kids the lifelong value and joy of giving back, and also instills in them a sense of self-esteem and confidence.

The students in Everybody Dance Now! come from the poorest neighborhoods in my city and attend schools with very minimal public funding.  Because of their lack of access to transportation, we teach them directly at their after-school programs.  Most of their parents do not speak English.  My best student, Vanessa, is a 4th grader who just emigrated from Mexico. Vanessa wrote in a testimonial, “What I love about hip-hop is that I get to do the cartwheel, the splits, and the shoulder stand. When I dance, I feel free.  I’m learning English.  I like hip-hop.” Another one of my students, Debbie, is the sweetest little girl with big glasses and overalls, and when you look at her you’d never guess that she’s such a great hip-hop dancer.  She used to be very close with her uncle and would dance with him all the time until he passed away about a year ago-- and she didn’t feel ready to dance again until coming to my class.  Now Debbie says, “What I love about hip-hop is dancing what I feel. By dancing I express myself. When I dance, I feel that nobody can stop me! Thank you for teaching me!” My favorite testimonial of all was by a girl named Stephanie, who said, “When I dance, I feel like I can do anything. I feel confident and I feel like anything is possible. Thanks for teaching me some moves.”  Stephanie’s words truly capture the goals of Everybody Dance Now!: to empower our students and give them self-esteem, direction, and hope.

I am committed to keeping Everybody Dance Now! going even after I graduate high school and go off to college. Towards that end I have taken several measures to ensure its sustainability.  I have recruited nine talented young assistants whom I am training to help lead the program when I graduate.  Also, receiving PANIM’s Small-Alper Incentive Grant last July encouraged me to submit a professional grant application to the Santa Barbara Foundation, which awarded my program $1,500!  These grants, along with various other donations and sponsorships, have enabled me to pay my instructors a competitive wage, to purchase costumes for my students, to sponsor master classes, and to bring in local professionals who teach our students dances that celebrate their Latino heritage.

Attending Panim el Panim and founding Everybody Dance Now! has taught me to believe in myself and has shown me that I truly can do anything I put my mind to.  Clearly, as the PANIM faculty explained in Washington D.C. last March, teenagers are not just “the next generation” or “the leaders of tomorrow,” as so many people claim they are.  They can be the leaders of today. 

On behalf of the thousands of teens who are touched by PANIM every year, I am honored to accept the 2007 Aaron Goldman Young Jewish Activist Award.

 

Joshua Offenhartz Award Acceptance Speech (May 21, 2006)

There is a saying in the Torah: “Do not place a stumbling block before a blind man.” While some interpret this verse literally—don’t put something in front of someone who can’t see it—I think it suggests something broader. We carry with us biases and prejudices that are deeply rooted in our minds. It blinds us to things that we should be seeing.

For years, when I went out with friends, family, or on my own, if I saw a homeless individual I would avert my eyes and change my direction so as to avoid any encounter. I assumed that these individuals were drug addicts, criminals or freeloaders.

There are not many times in life when you experience a breakthrough that allows you to shake off a long-held view and see things in a new light. Yet I was fortunate to have such a breakthrough when I attended my first Panim El Panim seminar in March 2005. PANIM set up an “Encounter with Homelessness” program in the hotel, and then an amazing Street Torah program that literally removed the stumbling block from before my eyes. I came to understand the condition of homelessness as a much more complex phenomenon than I previously understood. I met homeless people who needed to be seen as human beings, no different than any of my peers or myself. Most importantly, I was empowered to believe I could do something about the problem.

Our entire delegation was so inspired by the Panim el Panim experience that we decided to do something. We knew that PANIM would support any action we took. In fact, we applied and received a Small-Alper grant, decided to name ourselves “T.E.A.M. Tucson” and incorporated as a 501c3 non-profit organization.

In the past teens in our community had done things like reading to underprivileged children, visiting an elderly home, organizing a food drive—all great projects. But T.E.A.M. Tucson had bigger ambitions.

We decided that we were going to organize a benefit concert to raise $50,000 for teen homelessness in the Tucson area. Leaving our first organizing meeting, I remember feeling exhilarated—how hard could this be?

But when we started to plan the project, it occurred to us that we may be in over our heads. It is a very hard thing to start your own non-profit organization, especially when all you have are six teenagers and a 31 year-old probation officer as your advisor. We made a lot of mistakes, learned a ton about ourselves and the concert business and rolled with the punches. Slowly, our concert began to take shape.

On January 15 th of this year, T.E.A.M. Tucson put on its first annual benefit concert, and with the help of 93.7 KRQ, our local radio station, brought pop star Ashlee Simpson to the Tucson Convention Center. Drawing a crowd of 3,100 people, T.E.A.M. Tucson was able to raise $34,000 and donate it to Our Family, a charity that handles the needs of homeless teens. While raising less then our original goal we established a name for ourselves and ensured the project would have support next year. Not only did we ensure donors for next year, but our concert made headlines in every major Tucson paper, and on every local television channel. On top of it all, the mayor attended our donor reception and announced that in honor of all of our hard work, as well as the participation of Ashlee Simpson, January 15, 2006 would be proclaimed Ashlee Simpson and T.E.A.M. Tucson Recognition day.

The money we raised, went directly into use. Our Family used some of it to buy a new youth transportation van. The rest of the money is being used to fix shelter roofs and create more bed spaces throughout Tucson in those same shelters.

I have learned many things from my experiences in planning the T.E.A.M. Tucson concert–how to start a business, how to write a grant, how to approach to corporations and businesses, and the like. But even more important is what I learned about myself.

I learned that to succeed, you need to work really hard. I learned to negotiate conflicts between my friends and others while maintaining the integrity of my beliefs. I became more deeply committed to making a difference in this world.

I attribute much of this growth and learning to the Panim el Panim program. The experiences and programs I had the pleasure of participating in really opened my eyes to the world around me. I came to understand that one of the core teachings of Judaism is to make the community in which I live a better, more just place. We live in a time that demands action. The lessons of PANIM were never more important.

I am deeply honored to accept the 2006 Aaron Goldman Young Jewish Activist Award.

David Landon Frim Award Acceptance Speech (May 15, 2005)

Good Evening.  It is an honor to be here tonight to accept the Aaron Goldman Young Jewish Activist Award. I owe PANIM a debt of gratitude, not only for the honor, but for inspiring me to embark on the course that I have chosen.

I founded an organization called R.E.A.CH., Religions for Ethics And CHange, in order to form a group of college students, diverse in terms of politics, culture and religion, but who all share a desire to work for the betterment of our local community, and in some small way, the global community.

R.E.A.CH. is the only progressive interfaith group on my college campus, Florida Atlantic University .  Made up of Jews, Protestants, Catholics, Muslims, and Buddhists, R.E.A.CH. is becoming a growing force in the South Florida community. We have collected hundreds of pounds of supplies for the needy in our community. We have organized relief efforts for victims of Hurricane Mitch in Haiti . This past fall we arranged for the shipment of art supplies for children in Sri Lanka in the wake of the Tsunami disaster through an organization called the International Child Art Fund. Currently, I am heading up R.E.A.CH.’s effort to publish a magazine designed to provide an interfaith perspective on pressing social and political issues.

I can trace a large measure of my current activism to my experience on PANIM. I came to one of PANIM’s Jewish Civics Initiative Seminars in January 2003 as a high school senior. PANIM faculty helped me understand how Judaism would have us respond to the most vulnerable in our midst. They also taught us that helping the less fortunate through community service is not enough. The political training that PANIM provided helped me understand that to really heal the world, one must not only commit personal acts of community service; rather, we must combine this with an advocacy strategy to change the present day systems which breed inequality and injustice in our world.

This insight helped shape one of the most ambitious undertakings of REACH. Last year, we launched a program for new Americans who which to enter college. These high school students, mainly recent immigrants from Haiti , are highly intelligent, motivated, young people. However most are not gaining access to universities because of language barriers and the complicated college admissions process. Members of REACH took such students under their wings. We take them on tours of local college campuses, assist them with filling out forms and with preparation for standardized tests. While we are very proud of this program, we also realized that it was not enough. There are just so many new Americans that we can personally help in this way. We are now getting active advocating for changes in the school system and with local and federal government programs that might assist many more new Americans who face these challenges to college admissions. Our primary mode for this advocacy – our own interfaith publication – distributed in our local campuses and businesses.

Through REACH, I have come to appreciate how people of different faiths understand God and the mandates of their respective religions. I believe that if you really want to understand the meaning of God the Eternal, you must first transcend your own perspectives and get beyond your own, personal needs. If we can understand the hopes, joys, and fears of people who are very different from us – and understand these sentiments as if they were our very own – then we might begin to understand the meaning of religion and God. PANIM provided me with my first glimpse at this truth.

Often times, the vocabulary of liberals, or conservatives, Jews, Catholics or Muslims simply gets in the way of understanding that the biggest social and political issues come down to how society extends its concern to individual human beings. This is the Jewish teaching of tzelem elohim, treating people as if they were made in the image of God. Once I realized this fact, I found that it was possible to build consensus on a wide range of issues across both political and religious lines.

If we are all in the image of God; if we are all a divine reflection of the Eternal – then our differences and our diversities, our friends, and enemies alike, are all part of the very same tapestry.

In a country that is increasingly partisan, the Jewish teaching of tzelem elohim – and understanding the nature of our tapestry – could take us a long way toward creating a more just society. There are many insights that I gained from PANIM. None was as important as this teaching. For this, and for the honor of the award you bestow on me this evening, I am full of gratitude.

 

Ilana Cohn's Bio

Ilana Cohn still remembers the night four years ago when a panel of homeless individuals spoke about their lives to a group on students during her Jewish Civics Initiative (JCI) seminar. As Ilana sat in the audience, she was struck by the presence of “real human beings” behind the problems discussed so dispassionately on the radio or in class. It occurred to her then that uniting together with these individuals would be an effective way to initiate change.

While a student at Wesleyan University, Ilana began participating in community service projects near campus. She soon learned about an organization called the North End Action Team (NEAT), a grassroots neighborhood organization dedicated to initiating change in the poor section of Middletown, Connecticut. Ilana soon realized that there were many Wesleyan students interested in getting involved with a program like NEAT and that NEAT was very much in need of more volunteers. As coordinator of a restructured NEAT volunteer program for Wesleyan students. Ilana facilitated a more successful collaboration by establishing a “needs and resources” committee (with both students and local residents) and by creating a quarterly newsletter aimed at involving more members of the community in the revitalization of the neighborhood.

Working with NEAT, Ilana found a way to connect on a deeper level with the individuals that she had gotten to know through her one-on-one volunteer work. She credits her experience on JCI with showing her that all people are created “b’tselem elohim, in God’s image,” and helping her frame her actions within the context of Jewish respect for life.

 

Ilana Papir's Bio

When Ilana Papir was a young girl she would stay up reading late into the night--despite her parent’s admonitions to go to bed--because she just couldn’t put down her book. As she got older she slowly realized that reading wasn’t just entertainment but that it could also bring knowledge, joy and comfort. The more she grasped the vital importance of literacy, the more she thought about those children whose parents didn’t have time to read to them (or perhaps didn’t know how to). In the back of her head, an idea was starting to take shape.Her 10th grade trip to Washington, DC to participate in a Panim el Panim: High School in Washington seminar gave her the push she needed to turn her idea into an action plan. During one of the seminar’s sessions she heard a homeless man read poetry he had written. She realized at that moment that children in shelters, whose lives were in upheaval, would benefit greatly from having books in their lives. Panim el Panim inspired her to believe that she could personally make a difference by bringing children’s books to local shelters in Miami and reading to children there.

She decided to call her project “The Shared Story,” and through it Ilana has collected more than 8,000 books and used them to create libraries in 14 homeless shelters. She and 35 other students who joined with her have spent countless hours reading to disadvantaged youngsters (Ilana herself has helped two young boys learn to read). Ilana has touched the lives of many children through “The Shared Story” project, and has been widely recognized for her efforts. Not content to rest on her laurels, Ilana plans to start another chapter of “The Shared Story” when she attends Cornell University this fall, and has even convinced her younger brother to continue the program in Miami!

Arielle Parker's Bio

Arielle Parker discovered her passion for world repair at an early age. A third-generation survivor of the Holocaust, she resonates deeply to issues of social justice. During high school, she coordinated volunteer efforts benefiting the AIDS Volunteers of Cincinnati, underprivileged children, and the environment. She initiated recycling programs throughout the city, helped to lead and facilitate Hands Across the Campus, a student-led cultural sensitivity program, and coordinated the first youth volunteer docent component of the international "Anne Frank in the World" exhibit. In 1996, she became the first young person to receive the Community Service Award of the National Conference of Christians and Jews.

Parker's love of learning is infused with an abiding mindfulness of the responsibility which comes with the power of knowledge. A Justice Louis Brandeis Scholar at Brandeis, Parker earned degrees with honors in Philosophy, Sociology, and General Science, hoping to acquire understanding that might lend itself to scientific, social, and semantic contributions to the world. She helped to develop the Brandeis Coalition for Peace and worked with visiting faculty to illuminate the situation of disadvantaged students in the sciences. She was awarded the Sachar Grant and the Karpf Peace Prize for her empowerment and education work in Grenada, the Workum, Schusterman, and Everett fellowships, for her work in the field of Jewish education, the J.V. Cunningham award for writing, the Giller-Sagan Prize for scholarship in Women's Studies and the Elie Wiesel Prize for ethical writing.

Parker is a rabbinical student at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies. She is the rabbinical intern of the University of Judaism, where she advises the Hillel and helps coordinate religious life on campus. She continues to be an activist for Israel, women, and children, and a bridge-builder between various communities.

Elizabeth Dwoskin's Bio

Elizabeth Dwoskin is currently attending Columbia University in New York City. When she was honored with the YJAA award, she was a senior in high school. During high school Liz was editor of her school's literary magazine, Seeds; the features section editor of the school paper, The State of the Arts; and the arts section editor of the yearbook. She interned at the Palm Beach Post, edited and wrote for the 'Next Generation' page in The Sun Sentinel newspaper, was president of both the Imagination and Women's Studies Clubs, and was vice president of the Spanish Honor Society. After school, she teaches creative writing at the Morse Geriatric center and at Urban Youth Impact in an arts program of her creation.

Elizabeth came on Panim el Panim in February, 1999, following which she organized a program to teach art to underprivileged youth. As a student at the Dreyfoos School for the Arts, Elizabeth recognized the potential of her peers. Due to Liz's efforts aach week approximately 50 students would venture to the "bad part of town" and share their skills with young people who did not have comparable educational opportunities. Through art, Elizabeth and the other student teachers were able to connect with these at-risk students and give them new opportunities for self expression.

Susan Feizzadeh's Bio

Susan is currently studying psychology and Jewish education at the University of California, Berkeley. Born and raised in Sunnyvale, California, Susan takes pride in the Iranian culture that her parents, Iranian immigrants, have incorporated into the lives of her and her three siblings. During her high school years Susan was very involved in Jewish camps and her synagogue, has volunteered for organizations such as Stanford Hospital, Kid Call, the Emergency Housing Consortium, Special Olympics, and many other local projects.

In February 1999, Susan attended the PANIM’s Jewish Civics Initiative Retreat where she had the opportunity to volunteer at a predominately African-American elementary school. From this experience Susan took the initiative to create a multicultural club, "All Shades of Colors," with the objectives "to break down the racial barriers and make our school an inclusive community." She received the Young Jewish Activist Award in recognition of this undertaking.

 


PANIM | 6163 Executive Blvd,| Rockville, MD 20852 | (301) 770-5070 | Fax: (301) 770-6365
Email: info@panim.org | Privacy Statement
Copyright 2005, PANIM. All rights reserved.