USY
I am part of a youth group called United Synagogue youth (USY). In USY there are a lot of regions. There are regions for Eastern Canada (Ecrusy), Chicago (Chusy), Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Western Pennsylvania and West Virginia (Crusy), Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Iowa, Colorado, Missouri, Kansas and Southeast Illinois (EMTZA), California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Hawaii (far west), Northern New Jersey and part of Staten Island (Hagalil), north and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and Arkansas (Hanegev) and much more. Some things I like about USY are the activities, meeting new friends, and the traditions.
Just recently there was a convention for my region. It’s not one of those conventions that are boring and have to work all the time. It’s extremely fun! Just in case you wanted to know my region is Ecrusy. Anyway we played dodgeball and my teams won all rounds. The activities were: dragons den, dodgeball, Kadima karnival, fashion show, archeological dig, making Israeli salad, “exploring Israel”, hunger games and a lot more. They were all really fun because everyone was into the activities and loved them. Also the activities were a chance to meet new people.
In Ecrusy there are chapters. Chapters meaning in Ottawa the chapter is jaccusy. There are chapters for Toronto, Montreal etc. Even though our region is the smallest region I still meet tons of people. There were so many people I could hang out with during chofesh (free time). A good thing about meeting new friends is that I can teach them our traditions.
there are TONS of traditions in our region. If I were to name all of them there would be a HUGE list. At this past convention we even made a new tradition! In one of the prayers we bang tables and say words that don’t relate to the prayer. At this convention we were not allowed to do that so instead of saying whoopdeedo we said Baruch HaShem. It was so funny that the people in my class that went to the convention (including me) do it at school.
overall USY is EXTREMLEY fun. If you want to sign up press here. After you press the link press find my chapter and look for where you live. Sadly it is only in North America but there are summer programs where you go places. Hope you sign up!