Departures don't mean the end... but it is a wake-up call

This morning, an article was forwarded that appeared in the Jerusalem Post. Keith Berman, a YJ alum, friend to the alumni as well as staff member of Young Judaea stepped down as Director of Year Course after spending 25 years working for the movement. (If you are friends with Keith on Facebook, you learned about this earlier this week with his own update.) In addition, it was made public that Rabbi Ramie Arian also stepped down.

Young Judaea, in the past 365 days alone, has endured quite a number of changes. Between the financial aftermath of the recession, budgeting problems, supposedly greatly effected by the Madoff scandal, cut-backs, programmatic elimination, the closure (temporary, we hope!) of CYJ West etc., this is an organization that has suffered tremendously. And, since this isn't just another youth group, we, alumni, have had to bear witness, many of us reaching out to help without much more to offer than support, without much else to do.

It has been painful to watch.

It could be said, however, that many of us in Tikkun HaShachar saw this writing on the wall. In fact, we did. Look at the "writing on the wall" on our Facebook page. As much as we love to be right, we hate it when we are.

There is good news, however. We aren't powerless. We aren't silent anymore, either. We have chanichim and mazkirut members that understand how dire the situation is. We have people at National that seem to be open to working with us to encourage the growth of the movement. We have Hadassah members and groups that are supportive of the movement.

Despite the doom and gloom that this article may allude to, and we can be as realistic as possible, we have to believe. After all, ani v'atah n'shaneh et ha'olam.