Olivia Zacks attended San Francisco’s Brandeis Hillel Day School from kindergarten until eighth grade, graduating with 45 other classmates. Now in her first year at Lowell High School, she is one of 800 students in the freshman class.
While she loves the diversity that a school like Lowell affords, Zacks looks forward to meeting once a month with the girls she grew up with at Brandeis Hillel as part of a Rosh Hodesh group.
“It’s really important to me,” she said. “School can be so stressful, with so many people, so it’s great to see the same girls I’ve known for so long.”
The group began when the girls were starting their eighth-grade year. Batshir Torchio, a Judaic studies teacher at BHDS, decided to implement the curriculum of Rosh Hodesh: It’s a Girl Thing. The Philadelphia-based program was started in 2002 by the national nonprofit Moving Traditions. It came to the Bay Area in 2007, and currently there are 22 local groups running.
“There are 300 groups meeting across 26 states and Canadian provinces,” said Corinne Taylor-Cyngiser, Moving Traditions West and Southwest regional coordinator. “The Bay Area is one of the most successful areas for it, the West Coast mother hub for this program.”
Individual institutions decide whether to sponsor such a group, and if they do, Moving Traditions provides them with a curriculum.
What’s different about the Brandeis group is that it was the first large group to continue after its students had moved on to other schools. Taylor-Cyngiser calls it an “alumni group.”
As with other Rosh Hodesh groups, Torchio ties each month to a Jewish theme. But now, instead of meeting in a classroom, the girls meet in each others’ homes.
“We focus on the challenges of being a young woman in this culture,” Torchio said. “This group is a deeply meaningful experience for all of us, and I feel so blessed to be a part of it.”
When the group first began, Daniella Davidoff saw it as a great way to get out of going to services.
But after she heard Torchio’s explanation, she decided to join. “It’s a place where we could talk about what’s going on in our lives, to get away from school and talk about life.”
Now that Davidoff attends St. Ignatius High School, where students make the sign of the cross at morning prayers, she is grateful to have Rosh Hodesh to return to.
“Now it’s gone from a sisterhood to more of a home where you can return after everyone’s gone all these new places,” said Davidoff. “In eighth grade, we all had an idea of what was going on in each other’s lives, but now we get to see the change in all the girls’ lives… You can say anything you’re thinking, and that lets a lot of the girls who are having a hard time with high school get advice and know it’s not just them who are having those issues.”
Ricki Blakesberg, a freshman at the Urban School of San Francisco, said she didn’t feel as comfortable talking openly about her life while at Brandeis. But now, she said, “I feel like they’re my sisters. I know I have these girls who are always there for me, and I don’t worry about being judged or someone telling everyone. Not everyone has that, so I feel really lucky.”
Taylor-Cyngiser agrees that Torchio’s group is exactly the kind of success story she and her colleagues at Moving Traditions love to hear. “Her group crosses this boundary that people think is impossible, which is how do we keep them connected to Judaism in an alive and meaningful way?” she said.
A smaller Rosh Hodesh group in the Bay Area tells a similar story. Elizheva Hurvich was head of the religious school at Kehilla Community Synagogue in Piedmont when she started the group in 2007. Hurvich left her job last year, and Kehilla decided not to continue supporting the program. But some of the girls wanted it to continue, so now the families pay Hurvich directly, and they meet in her Berkeley home.
The group is down to four girls now, but its members don’t want to open it up to new people because of the tight bonds they’ve formed. They don’t use the Moving Traditions curriculum, either, though, like Torchio, Hurvich always introduces a Jewish theme. Mostly, the girls just check in about what’s going on in each other’s lives.
“Originally, I was drawn to facilitating a group like this because it empowers young Jewish women to stay connected to something spiritual post-bat mitzvah,” Hurvich said. “But more than that, it’s become just a really safe space for them.”