After working with Jewish teens across Baltimore and the Washington, D.C., area for three years, Rabbi Benyamin Moss was promoted to regional director of NCSY Atlantic Seaboard on July 1.
NCSY, a Jewish youth group founded in 1954 by the Orthodox Union, provides Jewish teens with programming to connect with their Jewish roots, according to its website.
Moss has served as NCSY’s district director in Baltimore for the past three years, taking on a managerial role in 2024. His work will now span from Richmond all the way up to Philadelphia.
“I’m honored, I’m excited, I’m optimistic,” Moss said of his new role. “It’s a really big job; there’s a lot to do. I feel like now, we’re at a really unique time to be engaging Jewish teens and their thinking about Judaism, perhaps in a way that they hadn’t prior to Oct. 7. It feels like a really appropriate and exciting time to be involved in informal education for young Jewish teens.”
Having done this work for years, it seemed “pretty clear” to Moss that regional director was the logical next step, he said.
Moss’ new role as Atlantic Seaboard director will involve traveling from the Greater Washington area to Baltimore, Philadelphia and southern New Jersey to oversee NCSY’s program leaders and educators in all of those regions.
He will communicate with stakeholders in each community to engage each team, help manage NCSY’s finances and partner with the national NCSY in programming.
More than 2,000 teens across the Baltimore and D.C. area participated in NCSY programming outside of school in the last year, Moss said.
“I think that speaks to the dedication of our staff, but it also speaks to the need that teens are expressing,” he added. “They want to be a part of something; [they] want to be part of the Jewish community. And I think it’s a great time to be in this role.”
Moss is no stranger to working with Jewish teens. The licensed social worker spent 11 years as a teacher and eleventh grade advisor at Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School in Baltimore and enjoys the work.
“I love giving teens opportunities to thrive and grow, wherever they are on the Jewish spectrum,” Moss said.
He referenced an article by eJewishPhilanthropy that emphasized a “huge growth in the need for Jewish teen engagement.”
“There’s been a lot of publicity on the college campus front in terms of how much Jewish students have felt unsafe,” Moss said. “But really, on the high school level, there are things happening in our region and throughout the country where we see the need for increased support.”
Jewish Student Union, one of NCSY’s programs, serves as a “welcoming, empowering safe space for Jewish teens who want to explore or celebrate their Jewish identity” in local high schools, Moss said. The club’s facilitators also prepare students for Jewish leadership beyond high school.
“JSU is like Hillel for high schools,” Moss said.
In Baltimore County, NCSY has a chapter of JSU in Pikesville, Franklin and Towson high schools and private schools McDonogh School, The Park School of Baltimore, Gilman School, The Bryn Mawr School and Garrison Forest School.
NCSY also facilitates Latte & Learning programs at local Starbucks locations where Jewish students can connect with fellow Jewish teens.
In addition to JSU and Latte & Learning, the Senator Ben Cardin Jewish Scholars Program allows 200 teens across Baltimore and D.C. to study Jewish ideas on leadership and hear from local community leaders about their experience applying Jewish values to their work.
These leaders range from doctors and lawyers to businesspeople and politicians: “We’ve had some really fascinating, incredible speakers,” Moss said.
The 10-week program culminates with a lobbying trip to Capitol Hill; the Orthodox Union connects the group with congressional representatives to discuss issues pertinent to the Jewish community.
“It’s a really wonderful experience for the kids,” Moss said.
He added that JLead is a cohort of rising high school seniors preparing to attend college.
“We’re preparing them in how to, first of all, understand the issues that they’re going to be facing, understanding where they can turn to for support, how to create Jewish community on campus,” Moss said.
JLead helps students understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said, and teaches them “how to be an advocate for Israel” once they arrive on campus.
Moss said NCSY is currently launching a social action initiative, partnering with local organizations in Baltimore and the D.C. area that offer teens access to volunteer opportunities.
Moss has seen the result of teen programming for Jewish high school students firsthand.
“There’s a teen that came over to me less than a year ago and said to me, ‘I got to be honest with you; I never thought about being Jewish before Oct. 7. Now, I can’t stop thinking about it,’” he said. “And it was such a telling moment to me.”
Moss said he looks forward to continuing this impact on a broader scale.
