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Community Corner

Oswego Teen Selected for Prestigious Diller Fellowship

Lizzy Katz, a sophomore at Oswego East High School, has been selected by the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago to participate in the region’s inaugural cohort of the Diller Teen Fellows, a 15-month international leadership program that includes a three-week trip to Israel.

 

Katz will join 19 other Chicago-area teens for monthly seminars and weekend retreats focusing on tikkun olam (social action and community service), Jewish identity, Israel and Jewish peoplehood. The Chicago program runs concurrently with a mirror program in Chicago’s Partnership 2Gether region in Israel, which includes Kiryat Gat, Lachish, and Shafir. In the spring, American fellows will have the opportunity to host their Israeli peers in Chicago, before the cohort travels to Israel for a joint seminar the following summer.

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Upon returning from Israel, teens will be mobilized to put what they’ve learned into action through individual social justice projects.

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The international Diller program began in 1997, and has grown to include 10 North American/Israeli partnerships. The program was created to inspire and train future generations of Jewish leaders worldwide who will be committed to the Jewish community, Israel and community service. Since 1997, the Helen Diller Family Foundation and partner communities have graduated more than 2,000 Teen Fellows, creating a network of young Jewish leaders throughout the world.

 

The Diller Teen Fellows program is generously funded by the Helen Diller Family Foundation, a supporting foundation of the San Francisco Federation’s Jewish Community Endowment Fund. The local Chicago program is a collaboration of the Helen Diller Family Foundation, the International Diller Teen Fellows office, the JUF/Federation, and Chicago’s Partnership 2Gether region in Israel.

 

The local program is open to Chicago area Jewish high school sophomores and juniors. For more information, please visit http://www.juf.org/teens/diller.aspx or contact Jessica Fisher at JessicaFisher@juf.org.

 

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