Exactly Where I’m Meant to Be: 10 Years of Active Jewish Teens (AJT)

Polina C. is at the vanguard of Ukraine's Jewish future — and she credits her passion, confidence, leadership skills to one groundbreaking teen program.

By Polina C. - Hesed Nefesh Director of Children's Programs; Poltava, Ukraine | August 21, 2024

Polina C. (center) is a mentor for young Jews in her native Poltava, Ukraine — a role she attributes to her involvement in Active Jewish Teens (AJT).

This year marks a decade since Active Jewish Teens (AJT) — the JDC youth network in the former Soviet Union (FSU) in partnership with BBYO — was founded. For Polina C., 22, a young leader from Poltava, Ukraine, AJT connected her to Jewish peers, Jewish life, and a passionate commitment to serving the most vulnerable Jews in her community. In this reflection, Polina— now a Jewish communal professional — walks us through her Jewish journey, and how AJT inspired her to take this path.  

In her role at Hesed Nefesh, Polina C. runs programs for children like this arts-and-crafts session.

AJT is 10 years old: What does that mean for me? 

It means 10 years of connection, personal development, and motivation — 10 great years I never want to forget and a story I never want to end. It means a decade of Jewishness that I’ll never regret and will always remember with pride. Always.

Before AJT, Jewish life was something of a mystery to me. When I was a small child growing up in Poltava, Ukraine, for instance, my grandparents had a menorah, but I didn’t know what it was for, let alone what it was called. They also had a hamsa, and I saw my grandfather reading the Torah, but again, I didn’t understand the purpose of these sacred objects and books. 

Then I went to a local Jewish camp and gradually got involved in the life of the Jewish community at our city’s JDC-supported Hesed Nefesh social welfare center. I learned more about Jewish culture, and I began to see my grandfather with more clarity: I understood the dishes he cooked, why he lit the menorah, when to eat matzah and why, and the origin of holidays like Passover. 

And then I heard about AJT. 

I was drawn in from the start. Here was a group of teenagers who were ordinary people with ordinary hobbies, but who all had something in common, and it wasn’t just their age or interests. They had that unifying ingredient — they were all Jewish, just like me. 

There are so many teen programs I could’ve joined, but there was nothing quite like AJT — a program where I could gain leadership skills alongside other young Jews, all from a Jewish perspective. 

At AJT, you not only learn, you do. You launch your own project, develop it, see it flourish — and in doing so, you experience a kind of self-actualization. I learned that everything our ancestors endured, everything they struggled with, offers important lessons for us today, and I’ve applied these lessons in my own life. Because of AJT, I felt more connected to this history. 

I gained confidence, too. I felt like a leader not only at school or at home, but in front of people who didn’t even know me, like when I was doing presentations and workshops. AJT helped me discover what I’m capable of — and show the world, too. 

AJT’s impact on my life reverberates to this day, and I see this in my choice to go back and work at the place where my Jewish journey began all those years ago: Hesed Nefesh. 

​​I choose to work here because it’s my history, my passion, and my life. As the head of our children’s program, I organize weekly classes, community events, and Jewish camps — because for every child, camp is a special adventure they’ll never forget. 

Throughout the terrible nightmare that began on February 24, 2022, we’ve welcomed many internally displaced persons (IDPs) to Poltava. They bring a diversity of perspectives, and no one person or family is the same: Some of them haven’t wanted to talk about their experience, some are stressed out, and some have quickly made themselves major forces in our community.

But no matter what they’ve endured, every IDP family needs one thing to get their lives back on track: childcare. Kindergartens weren’t open for the longest time, and so children had to stay at home. Socialization is vital for life — of course, it’s important for children to interact and play together. This helps them adapt more easily to their new Jewish home here in Poltava.  

That’s why we launched a camp for internally-displaced children — a place where they can spend time and just be kids. Now, when they come here, they know each other’s names, faces, and favorite cartoons and toys. They’re like family and they’re only 3 or 4 years old.  They’ll often say to each other, “This is my BFF!” That’s the kind of simple joy every child deserves.

And that’s one of the crucial programs we offer. Every day, we reach every generation of Jew — from the young children I serve to members of our community in their eighties and nineties.

We do everything we can to make these programs accessible. Today, everything is digitalized — entertainment, communication, even community life — but we also know that digital technology can be challenging for our seniors.

That’s why JOINTECH — the JDC initiative that leverages technology to innovate care for vulnerable Jews in the former Soviet Union and beyond — is vital, especially right now, as elderly Jews struggle to stay sane amidst shelling, air-raid sirens, and general uncertainty.  Through smartphones specially designed for the elderly, JOINTECH enables the men and women we serve to not just keep in touch, but fully join adult education classes, Jewish holidays, and all sorts of Hesed events. 

They’re so eager to learn. I even got to teach my grandmother and her friends how to use these phones — together, we proved that they can do it! Through JOINTECH, they can feel more in control — it’s a choice that boosts their health and well-being. 

AJT’s impact on my life reverberates to this day, and I see this in my choice to work at the place where my Jewish journey began: Hesed Nefesh.

JDC makes all of this possible — they’re the organization that will always be there. Throughout this crisis and long before it, too, they’ve given us Ukrainian Jews the confidence to embrace our Jewish future, no matter what’s going on in the world.

JDC has also changed my life — through AJT. I’m so glad to know that AJT continues to develop and expand, steadily spreading to more and more communities and countries. It’s a blessing: There’s nothing like AJT, and once a teen gets connected, they’ll stay involved in Jewish life forever.

No matter where I go, I will always keep the values of AJT in mind — remembering those places, those people, and those seminars and events with joy. They led me right here, to Hesed, where I know I’m doing exactly the work I’m meant to be doing. I’m so thankful for that.

With 10 years of AJT proudly behind us, I know I’m not alone in that gratitude. None of us are. 

Polina C. is the director of children’s programs at the JDC-supported Hesed Nefesh social welfare center in Poltava, Ukraine. 

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