2008 Woodie Awards
CJF Enlists YU Grad Students in Website for Jewish Teens
Shayna Hoenig
Issue date: 5/13/08 Section: Features
In today's computer age, people turn to the cyber world as an accessible source of information and research. The popularity of the internet has resulted in a shift of elements of social interaction to the digital sphere, including venues such as the blogosphere and other social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace.
Many Jewish youth organizations have attempted to channel the instant connection available through the internet into sources of education and interaction by developing websites geared specifically to Jewish teenagers. Frumteens.com, a website run by an anonymous moderator, is one online forum which contains hundreds of threads dealing with anything from skirt lengths to Zionism. Negiah.org, started by the Orthodox Union's youth organization NCSY, serves as the first-ever abstinence website. The Center for the Jewish Future (CJF), Yeshiva University's division of community enrichment, has joined these efforts in a partnership with a new teen website known as TheLockers.net.
The Lockers, created and directed by Rabbi Shua Eliovson, is an anonymous online forum that allows Jewish high school students to post statements, questions, concerns, or other feelings on a wide range of topics. Every message that is submitted is reviewed by a moderator in order to ascertain that the post is appropriate for public viewing, and does not contain offensive or hurtful content. The Lockers contains several different forum topics, nicknamed "lockers," including discussions on relationships, stress, drugs, body image, faith, and school, among other topics. The Lockers currently boasts over 2,000 topics and a member count numbering over 3,000.
In need of skilled moderators for his website, Eliovson turned to Yeshiva University as a "place to find committed Jewish leaders," explained Chana Topek of the CJF, who is also a student Wurzweiler School of Social Work. "The CJF took on this partnership and planned a series of training sessions for those who moderated the website this year. The CJF also held monthly meetings on a host of different topics pertinent to teens in order to allow the moderators time to meet, discuss, and learn."
Many Jewish youth organizations have attempted to channel the instant connection available through the internet into sources of education and interaction by developing websites geared specifically to Jewish teenagers. Frumteens.com, a website run by an anonymous moderator, is one online forum which contains hundreds of threads dealing with anything from skirt lengths to Zionism. Negiah.org, started by the Orthodox Union's youth organization NCSY, serves as the first-ever abstinence website. The Center for the Jewish Future (CJF), Yeshiva University's division of community enrichment, has joined these efforts in a partnership with a new teen website known as TheLockers.net.
The Lockers, created and directed by Rabbi Shua Eliovson, is an anonymous online forum that allows Jewish high school students to post statements, questions, concerns, or other feelings on a wide range of topics. Every message that is submitted is reviewed by a moderator in order to ascertain that the post is appropriate for public viewing, and does not contain offensive or hurtful content. The Lockers contains several different forum topics, nicknamed "lockers," including discussions on relationships, stress, drugs, body image, faith, and school, among other topics. The Lockers currently boasts over 2,000 topics and a member count numbering over 3,000.
In need of skilled moderators for his website, Eliovson turned to Yeshiva University as a "place to find committed Jewish leaders," explained Chana Topek of the CJF, who is also a student Wurzweiler School of Social Work. "The CJF took on this partnership and planned a series of training sessions for those who moderated the website this year. The CJF also held monthly meetings on a host of different topics pertinent to teens in order to allow the moderators time to meet, discuss, and learn."
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