United Synagogue Youth

We learned real stuff.

I was president of our youth group in our synagogue, the USY.

I was president of our USY chapter.

I was on the national board of USY.

I was a very, very committed conservative Jew.

And I went for college to Brandeis, which it was, is a, a secular Jewish university.

You and I have had this conversation.

It was actually in the New York Times many years ago and interestingly conducted by a Tufts University professor who is a former USY international president.

His name is Eitan Hirsch.

And he pointed out that of any religious denomination across the country, conservative synagogues are the most politically divided of any religious denomination.

I went to Camp Ramah.

I was active in USY.

I, like, really was raised in the Conservative movement institutions, like, very, very clearly.

Um, I used to say sort of tongue in cheek, I grew up Conservative, which means I went to shul every Shabbat morning and then I went to piano lessons in the theater in the afternoon.

So there's a modern Orthodox shul there.

that is 7 a.m. Minyan, a modern Orthodox shul in a building, which when I was in USY was the conservative shul, but there'd been a lot of contractions and mergers.

So I actually recognized the sanctuary pre-Mechitza from me being in USY in the 1980s.

And then I would, there was a, there's a Lubavitch day school through like eighth grade in Longmeadow.

They've had a strong presence there for a long time.