TWO RABBIS—Rabbi David Ellenson, president of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, and Rabbi Annette Koch of Congregation Beit Haverim in Lake Oswego, at the Feb. 9 presentation by Ellenson at the Portland Hilton. Koch studied with Ellenson at HUC-JIR.

 

Portland teens changed by mission to New Orleans

By DEBORAH MOON

article created on: 2008-02-15T00:00:00

Nine Portland teenagers may not have changed the world during their four-day intercultural mission to New Orleans, but they made a difference to the people whose neighborhoods they helped and in their own perceptions of the world.

The Jewish and African-American teens ranging in age from 14 to 19 spent Jan. 18-21 in New Orleans on a community service program organized by the Community Relations Committee of the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland with support for St. Philip Episcopal Church.

“We were like a family when we left New Orleans,” said 19-year-old Joseph P. Young IV.

“The barriers first started really breaking down when we started the dirty work in the storm drains together,” said 14-year-old Violet Trachtenberg. “It was the work that we were doing that made us so open to each other, and really bond with each other.”

“After the first day, we were just one big group,” said Shawn Rosenthal, 16. “It didn’t matter how old we were, what color we were, or what our religious beliefs were. … Cleaning out the storm drains … was hard work and in order to pull it off, we all had to work together.”

The teens and their two adult team leaders cleaned storm drains, tutored school children, watched the inauguration, toured the still heavily damaged Lower Ninth Ward, visited the Orthodox synagogue destroyed by the flooding after Hurricane Katrina and explored the culture that has made New Orleans famous.

Jonathan Emanuel, who with Celeste Carey, led the trip, said the trip was “a blur of wonder.”

The teens said they felt that even in their short trip, they made a huge difference to the people they met.

“The mere fact that we were traveling to an area that has probably been forgotten about, on account of it’s having been three years since it was first devastated, was one of the most incredible things to me,” said Daniel Barnett. “Here we were, a small group of teenagers and two adults doing what we could to make a difference when most of the world’s sympathy had moved on to newer situations.”

Trachtenberg said she learned the true importance of baby steps on the trip.

“As a group, we could not 100 percent fix New Orleans,” she said. “We made a miniscule dent in what needs to be done there. However, if we hadn’t done that work, it would not have been done. I started to understand what it means to do the best work you can do, even if it’s not enough.”

Emanuel said, “One woman came out of her house and told us, ‘You just saved our neighborhood.’”

That kind of gratitude was repeated over and over.

“The people of the south oozed hospitality and compassion themselves,” said Barnett. “They constantly expressed their unfaltering gratitude with not just words, but stories, embraces, tears and often an invite to see their repaired property. They were fiercely proud of what the many volunteers from around the nation had done for them.”

Trachtenberg said the juxtaposition of watching President Obama sworn in and then volunteering in an elementary school was especially poignant.

“He (Obama) talked about not waiting to act any longer. And we didn’t wait any longer,” she said. “We watched the inauguration and an hour later went off to volunteer at an elementary school. The inauguration really put our work into perspective.”

Young said he especially enjoyed volunteering at the elementary school, which has been in temporary quarters since its original home was destroyed in the flooding.

“My favorite part of the trip was going to help teach at the school,” he said. “It was a blast.”

Now back in Portland, the teens have already reunited once—at a community-wide Wednesday Night High School program at Congregation Shaarie Torah on Feb. 4.

“When seeing them all again last night after a couple weeks apart, we greeted each other with solid hugs and big grins,” said Barnett.

Plans are under way for another gathering at St. Philip Church March 8, when the teens will give a PowerPoint presentation at a potluck dinner for their families, rabbis and clergy interested in the project.

JFGP Community Relations Director Robert Horenstein said organizers and teens are also talking about community service projects that the group could do locally. And another intercultural teen trip to New Orleans also is in the works.

The teens who participated sound eager to continue their experience and have others repeat it.

“To experience the culture of the South, the food (the best hot sauce around), the different people from all over the states there to help out… If I had the opportunity to do this again, I would do it in a heartbeat,” said Young.

“Coming back, I now see things in a much different, enlightened perspective,” said Barnett. “Even though I have always felt it severely inhumane to be racist, I now find it completely and utterly unfathomable. I am also incredibly more proactive about the conservation of our resources as well as the need for other teens like myself to go out and do something similar … to see how the world and its people live in comparison to us.”

Trachentberg said she found it hard to go back to the routine of high school.

“It made me eager to finish my education and start really doing some good in the world,” she said. “It’s time to start the era of responsibility, and now I want to do my part.”