Larry Kaplan was born in Philadelphia. He was raised here, too. He loves the city’s Jewish community, but he recently identified a problem: Young Jews in the City of Brotherly Love — and elsewhere, for that matter — are not as interested in preserving their culture’s traditions and values as previous generations.
So, he started Mercaz — a non-affiliated group focused on engaging Jewish youth.
“I realized that there is a fracturing amongst different organizations. There is apathy and a lot of disconnect. After Oct. 7, I realized that if I don’t put something together, we could lose a whole generation of Jewish teens. Where will we be in 10 or 20 years [without intervention]?”
Kaplan’s concerns can be explained by two anecdotes from his time leading Jewish teens, which spans decades. In the early 2000s, Kaplan wanted to exemplify the Jewish maxim of “never again” by protesting a genocide being committed in Africa. He decided that he would take a bus of teens to Washington, D.C., for a march. He was told by other adults that such an event might not be attractive to teens, and that he would have trouble finding young Jews who wanted to attend. What started as a one-bus operation grew exponentially.
“The next thing you know, we had 11 full buses,” Kaplan said.
Now fast forward to last year. A rally for Israel was being held in Washington D.C., and Kaplan again wanted to bring a bus of teens. This plan never materialized due to lack of interest.
“There is too much apathy right now, too much disconnect,” he said. “We would have been lucky to get five people.”
Mercaz’s charter is to help reinvigorate Judaism among teens without any affiliations or allegiances to specific synagogues or movements. Kaplan said all Jews— and non-Jews — are welcome. He doesn’t want Mercaz to compete with other organizations or draw teens away from any Jewish commitments they are already honoring.
“We’re unaffiliated. We don’t compete with any other program,” he said. “In fact, I encourage all the kids to join other Jewish organizations. We support all the synagogues and the Hebrew schools.”
Mercaz held its first event last month, a get-together with food and drinks that allowed teens to mingle.
“We had 45 teens show up, which is just incredible,” he said. “I thought maybe we would get half of that, so I was blown away. The energy was great and everybody had an amazing time.”
Kaplan made sure to speak to each teen individually.
“It’s a matter of making sure people know about it and building a community,” he said.
Mercaz was founded largely thanks to a grant from the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia. The organization gave $85,000 of capital from the Bernard and Etta Weinberg Fund.
Kaplan’s hopes for the organization are even greater than just uniting Jews. Kaplan told a story about a previous class he taught.
“There was a non-Jewish kid who came to a discussion and was so inquisitive. He asked a lot about Israel, and didn’t know much about what was happening or Zionism or anything. He ended up coming back to the next discussion because he was so interested in learning more,” he said.
Kaplan doesn’t just hope to bridge divides between the Jewish community and non-Jews, though. In fact, he is hoping that inter-Jewish relations grow stronger through the program. Kaplan said that he is a strong believer in the idea that Jews of Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist backgrounds can learn from each other. He has been a vocal advocate of this point to rabbis and synagogue leaders in the community in his efforts to help them galvanize teens to learn about Mercaz.
Kaplan is tailoring his approach to the target demographic. Speakers that he plans to bring in will be names that are recognizable to teens. Jewish influencers, like Michael Rapaport and Montana Tucker, have already spoken at events organized by Kaplan and attracted large crowds of young Jews.
“I want [teens] to come to the speakers, join our leadership team, volunteer or even just go to a Phillies game and be proud to be Jewish,” he said.
“I want them to feel as if it’s their program,” he added. “They’re the ones who are ultimately going to make it successful — I can do what I do, but without them it won’t reach its full potential,” he said.