On September 3rd, I ignored a day’s worth of Zoom classes, choosing to stare into my phone rather than be an active participant in my lessons. A group chat with my co-authors exploded with dialogue, the steady stream of excited messages fully distracting me from a day’s education. After months of drafts, revisions, and pitches, our article “For Continuity’s Sake? Addressing Hookup Culture in Jewish Youth Groups,” an indictment of sexism and objectification in Jewish youth spaces, was finally published on Jewish Philanthropy. There was no going back to ignoring the harmful hookup culture in youth groups and there was no going back to ignoring my own memories.
My fellow authors and I all met through the Rising Voices Fellowship, a Jewish feminist writing program created by the Jewish Women’s Archive. On a virtual retreat in April, we spontaneously began a conversation about our youth group experiences and discovered that regardless of our different regions and organizations we had all recognized an oppressive hookup culture that enforces outdated gender roles and creates a sex-negative environment. Perpetrated through cheers, sexual games, rumors, and more, male sexual behavior was usually venerated while female sexual behavior was subject to condemnation. Everyone who has participated in youth groups knows about this hookup-obsessed culture, yet meaningful discourse on consent and sexual safety were notably missing. Inspired by our common experiences, the silence surrounding this issue, and the pressing need to start this conversation, we put our Jewish feminist writing education to work and decided to write an article. We started working shortly after the April retreat and spent the whole summer tweaking the piece until it was ready to be published.
Much like the issue of toxic hookup culture itself, we wrote about, I assumed that this article would be trapped under the radar, just one dissenting voice in a massive crowd of supporters. As soon as we published, however, the comment section began to fill with words support and agreement. I realized that we were not alone. Youth group alumni and the Jewish community as a whole were ready to have this conversation, and we were poised to lead the dialogue. Yet before I could lead, I needed to revisit my youth group experience for the first time and put words to the feelings I have repressed for years.
At my first high school NFTY event I was 14 years old, and drawn to attend kallah in hopes of seeing if all – or any – of the rumors were true. Even as a child, I knew that youth groups were for hookups. Gossip through the Jewish grapevine made me believe that by joining a youth group I would automatically become more mature and ready for sexual experiences. Once I entered that space, however, I realized how wrong that conception was.
At that age, I didn’t have the emotional tools to fully comprehend this new environment, let alone navigate the entangled landscape of friendships, rivalries, hookups, exes, and relationships. It felt in opposition to other Jewish spaces I had frequented, like summer camp and synagogue. Instead of being treated like a valued individual, a member of the community, I was just another girl, another freshman, unimportant until I had made myself relevant. Hookups were the only topic of conversation, the only means to achieve social relevance, and the only thing youth groups seemed to be for. I felt pressure from all sides, even from other girls who I had expected to share in my discomfort. Before a dance one Saturday night, I remember being regaled by the upperclassmen in my host house with stories of past hookups and current relationships as they encouraged me to wear revealing clothes and act a certain way to attract male attention. This hookup-obsessed culture dominated every other aspect of youth group. I was confronted with the confusion, pain, and fury of being objectified and sexualized in a Jewish space, when Judaism had only ever meant peace and fulfillment before I had joined.
Dances and mixers were political events, stages upon which reputations and rumors would be formed. Our bodies were public domain, open to discussion and judgement, our actions and expressions constantly analyzed by a crowd of people always one step ahead, always leaving you to wonder what you did wrong, or what you should do next. I felt isolated from the overwhelming hookup culture that was propped up by upperclassmen, advisors, and even alumni eager to maintain the status quo. Unable to properly name or discuss this culture, my isolation intensified. Many of my peers fell naturally into the social structure, but I felt uncomfortable almost constantly at events, seemingly alone in my embarrassment. Taking a trip to the bathroom meant seeing several different couples making out in dark corners of the building, and the Saturday night dance floors looked the same. It seemed like most people felt that youth groups were sex-positive, safe spaces in which teens could interact with other teens, but the culture was ultimately sex-negative. Compulsory and heteronormative, toxic hookup culture thrived in youth groups where meaningful conversations about consent and inclusivity were absent.
NFTY points were my worst point of contention even then; I wanted to argue with every person that embraced this concept, but I quickly learned that the overwhelming majority of members were beguiled with NFTY points. As an average member, someone hooking up with me would receive only one point. Compared to rabbi’s daughters, who were worth five, and adult advisors, who were worth 10, I was relatively worthless. To assign numeric values to peers and judge a person’s social worth based on their sexual activity is a distinctly anti-Jewish concept to me both then and now. Slut-shaming was rampant among the general population, yet girls and other folks assigned female at birth were unfairly stigmatized and harassed. The double-edged sword of hookups created a toxic environment that pressured people of all gender identities to reduce themselves and their peers to their sexual history.
Disgusted with the objectification at events, as well as the distinct lack of Jewish learning and ethics, I left NFTY after my second kallah. When asked, I told my friends that I just “didn’t like it,” a phrase vague enough to protect me from any further questions, inadvertently masking my anger with distaste. It wasn’t until I began working on the article that I rediscovered the true reasons that isolated me from youth groups and I learned that I wasn’t alone in my beliefs.
It feels unnatural to look back on my years in NFTY through such a serious lens. The rigorous academic and social pressures of high school, culminating in the college application process senior year, provided more than enough stress for the average high school student. Youth groups provided more than enough freedom. Whenever I try to justify the actions of my peers and attempt to understand why so many acquiesced to the harmful sexual culture, I come back to this concept of stress and stress relief. Youth groups events were one of the few spaces where we were free, able to interact with our contemporaries with limited supervision. Advisors were obviously aware of the toxic sexual attitude present, yet their unspoken acceptance of the status quo is damning. Despite the frameworks of youth leadership present in many Jewish youth groups, adults hold a majority of the power; under their leadership toxic hookup culture has thrived without proper consent education to combat it. I am beyond searching for excuses. I am now dedicated to holding these groups responsible for their shortcomings and creating change to ensure no more members are subject to the hookup culture that has damaged the healthy sexuality of so many Jewish youth.
In numerous discussions with peers, I’d recounted uncomfortable memories from my days in NFTY. Whenever my friends and I would get to sharing our “horror stories,” we’d always laugh at each other, making light of what I hadn’t yet understood as traumatic. Experiences like being groped on the dancefloor and pressured to hookup with someone weren’t just cringe-worthy – they were traumatizing. Writing with my co-authors was therapeutic. Their continued support has helped me to better understand what I really experienced at kallah. This culture extends beyond NFTY, affecting every other Jewish youth group and the Jewish community as a whole. Until the article was actually published, those stories still felt wedged inside of me, far enough away to be ignored, waiting for the day they would be exposed. When “For Continuity’s Sake?” was released, a switch flipped inside of me. My stories were no longer my own. Freeing and terrifying all at once, I watched as our article circulated around the Jewish internet, exposing my co-authors and I to both sympathy and critique.
Whether because of humility or fear, my co-authors and I didn’t anticipate a major reaction from the Jewish community, let alone responses from the youth group themselves. Yet the article continued to spread, and after about a week we had reached the attention of the most powerful Jewish youth groups in North America. Reaching out to us through email and zoom, youth group leadership (both teens and adults) were interested in hearing our experiences with the toxic hookup culture that inspired our article. It seemed at first that the youth groups were meeting with us to potentially mollify our anger, and let us know how “effective” their current sexual harassment measures are. Part sympathetic and part incredulous, were initially addressed as whistleblowers who sought the end of youth groups rather than reform. Nevertheless, our calls for structural change would not be quieted with one conversation. Several of the youth groups looked to my co-authors and I to write a consent-based curriculum. Instead, we established ourselves as a platform for teens to share their experiences called “Jewish Teens for Empowered Consent,” and said that all educational material should be created by trained experts. After a number of meetings, I now feel confident that youth groups will begin the process of accountability in the ranks of leadership.
However, change from the top doesn’t always change the culture for average members on the bottom. So, we created an Instagram page to establish a safe space for others to anonymously share their experiences with youth group hookup culture. On our page, we collect testimony through an anonymous google form and share infographics about hookup culture as a concept. We quickly received both positive messages and negative criticism from youth group members, the latter demanding that we delete both our article and our Instagram page. One direct message claimed that our article was embellished, and another argued that our critiques would encourage antisemitism.
Our message took months to finalize, yet only minutes to garner backlash. We receive criticism on several fronts; the #MeToo era has exposed a sea of reactionaries bent on belittling and even denying the stories of women. The Jewish community is often not receptive (and sometimes downright hostile) to internal critique, fearing that any negative exposure would be grounds for increased antisemitism. My co-authors and I are all young women recently involved in Jewish youth movements. How are we supposed to get our message through against these odds?
Even now, months after the inception of the original article and weeks after its publication, I still question whether or not my experiences were valid enough to recount in writing. I wonder endlessly whether my anger is misguided, if the microaggressions I have experienced were the result of a misogynistic culture, or just my own fault. My anxieties stand in opposition to everything I know about shame, guilt, and denial, but they persist regardless. Is this activism or attention-seeking? Will my actions unintentionally harm the Jewish community rather than heal it? I wonder to what extent I can actually create change. Youth groups are a near-sacred institution. The sexual culture in these spaces sometimes even serves as a pull factor for prospective members. In the face of implied and explicit opposition from both peers and adults, as well as the psychological burden of revisiting traumatic memories, what is the point of vulnerability, of sharing these stories at all?
All around me I feel the pressure to stay silent; I’m compelled to delegitimize the distress I felt in NFTY, compelled by critics to desist from my written word and erase our online presence, compelled by shame to pretend nothing ever happened to me or any of my peers. For the first time in my Jewish life, I am embracing the uncomfortable nature of vulnerability and conflict rather than hiding it under layers of apathy. We continue to meet with youth group leaders, and as they grow to take responsibility for the misogynistic hookup culture thriving under their leadership, I feel change is almost within reach. What gives me the largest confidence boost, however, is the growing number of story submissions on our Instagram page.
Alumni of all identities, backgrounds, and regions are opening up to us, contributing their voices to the conversation. I want to make youth groups a truly safe space, one where teens are able to explore their sexuality without the toxic games that objectify and pressure underage members. Visualizing an empowering, sex-positive youth group, I see programming on consent, gender roles, and LGBTQ+ inclusivity. Advisors are trained in sexual assault prevention and serve as valuable resources for members struggling with trauma. All teachable through a Jewish lens, small group discussions can encourage vulnerability and dialogue among peers. Jewish continuity is a mission worth fighting for and can only be achieved if we revise the way youth groups teach their members to respect their own bodies and the bodies of others.
Four years after my entry into youth groups, I’ve finally been able to process the harmful culture I was subjected to. Now, I’m more than ready to join a discussion about consent and power in Jewish spaces; there is still much work to be done, and we need participation from the community as a whole in order to create a healthier culture for every Jewish teen.
