Ferne Levy is not your typical leader of a large, suburban Reform synagogue. She’s not a clergy member, executive director or the director of a school.
But for 30 years, she’s been playing a role at Shir Ami in Newtown that is perhaps just as important. As director of youth engagement, it’s Levy’s role to engage teens in synagogue and Jewish life.
Through SHAFTY, Shir Ami’s youth activity and service organization, she does just that.
“Every thriving community has a spark, and for our teens that spark is SHAFTY,” said Brent Osborne, Shir Ami’s executive director. “You can see it in the ways they show up for each other and the ways they lead with confidence. What Ferne has built over 30 years is extraordinary. She has created a legacy that gives our teens roots in Jewish life and the wings to carry it forward into the world.”
In her three decades leading the organization, Levy has expanded it from grades 3-12 to K-12. Today, there’s a board of 22 high school students and 35-40 kids in the K-2 and 3-6 cohorts. (Seventh and eighth grades can be more challenging due to the demands of bar and bat mitzvah schedules.)
The respective cohorts gather for social activities like hayrides and bowling, and service activities like baking cookies for congregants who are homebound. Each year, too, the older SHAFTY group plans Shir Ami’s Purim carnival, which draws around 400 people to the synagogue.
Levy’s goal with SHAFTY is to connect Jews to each other and to Jewish life. It’s also to help them build life skills and to instill Jewish values like tikkun olam.
“I always feel like my job is to help them grow in a way that’s going to help them in college and beyond. I teach leadership; I teach teamwork; I teach public speaking. I feel like I’m a partner with their parents to help them grow as young adults,” she said.
Shir Ami is perhaps most proud of the fact that SHAFTY alums have gone on to become “rabbis, educators, communal professionals and lifelong Jewish leaders,” as a recent news release put it.
Rabbi Emily Ilana Losben-Ostrov grew up at Shir Ami and as part of SHAFTY, and she now serves Temple Sholom in Scotch Plains, New Jersey. She credits SHAFTY and Levy with helping her realize that she wanted to become a rabbi.
“It allowed me to flourish, have leadership and come closer to my Judaism,” Losben-Ostrov said.
During her time in SHAFTY, the future rabbi served as social action vice president and as president of the whole group. She said it helped her see how important Judaism was, but also that it could be “fun.”
“SHAFTY became probably the most important aspect of my adolescence,” she said.
Levy was a big reason for that, according to Losben-Ostrov. She just always felt like she could talk to the adult in the room.
“Ferne was this wonderful, positive, calm presence,” she said. “Ferne has always been this safe space. I could talk to her about anything.”
Levy grew up at Shir Ami herself. Her family was one of the original founding members in the late 1970s. And while she was active in SHAFTY as a teen, she never planned to lead it.
After graduating from college in 1991, she was asked to help out with bar and bat mitzvah classes. A year later, she was asked if she could help with the youth group, too. Then, when she had her oldest daughter, Levy left her full-time job to focus on raising her family, but her job also became de facto leader of SHAFTY.
Her director title came in 2000, and that was also when she began organizing SHAFTY into grade-based cohorts.
“It’s just who I am; it’s what I do; it’s what I love. It’s really rewarding; it’s really challenging; it’s fulfilling,” she said.
And it continues to be. Levy sees SHAFTY as an essential part of engaging families in synagogue life.
“I feel like the youth group is part of helping the synagogue grow in general. We’re a piece of the puzzle. Once you have children involved, parents want to be part of it because of their kids,” she said. “They need their safe space, and sometimes they can’t always get it in school.”
Since July 1, the Newtown synagogue has welcomed 60 new families and grown its religious school enrollment, so SHAFTY should continue to grow with it.
“It gives me energy; it gives me hope,” Levy said. “I think that we teach the value of caring for others, not just yourself. They have to keep talking about who we are, what we stand for, and hopefully they want to raise Jewish families.”
