After a seven-month teen leadership program, Jewish students said they feel better equipped to respond to antisemitism and have difficult conversations.
More than 300 Jewish teens participated in this year’s Leaders for Tomorrow program, organized by the American Jewish Committee, from November 2024 to May 2025. Through monthly meetings, the program allowed teens to make friends, explore Jewish and Israeli history, develop advocacy skills and lobby on Capitol Hill, according to AJC’s website.
“It’s a really cool experience because it’s Jewish students who come from all across the DMV — there’s students who go to Jewish private schools, public schools, private schools that are not affiliated with Judaism, so it gives them the opportunity to get to know each other,” Emily Jacobson, the assistant director of young leadership at AJC Washington, said.
Educational sessions included Jewish identity, antisemitism, Israeli-Palestinian relations and modern-day Israel, Jacobson said.
Aaron Swibel, a participant and sophomore at Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville, applied to the LFT program in search of opportunities for hands-on advocacy.
“I think that the world isn’t necessarily progressing in how much we’re combating antisemitism, so I feel like it’s almost my duty to gain this knowledge and be able to not only stand up for myself and other Jews, but these morals apply to other aspects of life,” Swibel said.
Those morals include being able to recognize oppression and combat it first by educating oneself, he added.
“Something I found interesting is actually how much I didn’t know,” Swibel said.
Students learned about the diversity of the Jewish people, having spent a session discussing Jewish identity from Mizrahi Jews to Ethiopian Jews.
The LFT lessons went beyond what Swibel had seen on the news about Israel and the Palestinian territories, such as the fact that the Palestinian areas had been governed by Great Britain and, in 1947, the Arab world rejected a United Nations resolution that would have divided Great Britain’s former Palestinian mandate into Arab and Jewish states.
The final session, in May, focused on “real-world” college advocacy.
“I don’t feel as fearful of campuses that have all of these antisemitic issues because in a way, [LFT] taught me that the only way Jews can stick up for themselves is if they’re together,” Swibel said. “That’s one of the things this program taught me, that Jews need to be together and Jews need to uplift one another because we can’t do it on our own.”
Looking toward college in the near future, Swibel said he feels more confident in his ability to be the first to say, “That’s not right,” or “Let me teach you about this,” if he finds himself in a situation that warrants speaking up.
Sydney Hardy, a participant and rising junior at Maret School in Washington, D.C., said she also gained confidence through LFT.
“They really teach you to be prideful in who you are,” Hardy said, adding that she began wearing a “Bring Them Home Now!” dog tag halfway through the program.
She appreciated the camaraderie with fellow Jewish students, the safe environment and the reminder that Jewish teens are not alone.
“A lot of times, recently, a conversation about how you’re feeling can turn into an argument, where you’re like, ‘I’m really sad about the hostages,’ then it’s an immediate backfire, like, ‘What about the people in Gaza?’” Hardy said.
She said she benefited from the “strong basis of facts” that the educational sessions provided, which will allow her to take on difficult conversations down the road.
“Now, when I get to college and see [problematic] things, I’m going to very inspired to join a community and find friends in the Jewish community, to fight for what we believe in and take a step against the antisemitism that’s happening there — to point out the line between political beliefs and antisemitism,” Hardy said. “If you don’t have [difficult conversations], nobody’s going to learn and nobody’s going to take away new perspectives.”
The highlight of the program for many was the trip to Capitol Hill. Sixteen D.C.-area students joined nearly 200 LFT participants from across the country for a day of advocacy.
“I saw a lot of hope in them,” Jacobson said of the students. “They felt hope that there are people out there that will help and that there’s ways to advocate for yourself. And with that came the confidence.”
AJC provided the students with some questions to ask their representatives, Swibel said. But the teen was surprised when Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and other officials had more questions than responses for the students.
“They really wanted to ask us a lot of questions about how we were feeling in our lived experiences,” Swibel recalled. “I highlighted the school experience about how there aren’t enough repercussions for students who commit acts of antisemitism.”
He referenced an instance when three swastikas were drawn on Richard Montgomery High School’s property within two weeks in March 2024, adding that the school principal didn’t publicize the consequences, if any, meted out to the perpetrators.
Hardy said much of the discussion focused on antisemitism and social media, and the impact that sometimes unintentional antisemitic rhetoric has on members of the Jewish community: “It’s hard being a Jewish teen right now, seeing all that on social media and all the hate.”
“I wasn’t totally sure it was going to make an impact going in, but then when I left [Capitol Hill], … I felt like I had done something,” Hardy said. “The [Jewish] community has been faced with a lot lately, and it was cool to be one of the people fighting for us.”
Swibel said he recommends LFT to any Jewish teen looking to make a difference.
“The thing I love about LFT is that your voice is always heard,” he said.
