By Diana Brement,
JTNews Columnist
Matt Lemchen, BBYO program director for the Evergreen region of Washington, Oregon and Northwest Canada, was recently awarded the International BBYO Arnie Weiner Award for Professional Excellence in Furthering the Principles of AZA and BBG, BBYO’s young men’s and young women’s divisions.
The award is particularly significant as Matt was nominated and chosen by BBYO youth leaders from across North America. Matt has worked for the organization for five years.
“Matt is so deserving of this award,” said Nadia Hecker O-Brien, an Evergreen region teen participant. “He knows the line between being the teens’ friends and being in charge. He is fun loving and is always positive even when the situation might not be. He is a great guy, and gives so much to BBYO, so it is wonderful that he is getting something in return.”
BBYO — B’nai B’rith Youth Organization — has been around more than 85 years. Local chapters are teen-led, allowing kids to experience the democratic process while developing lifelong leadership skills and Jewish values.
In an e-mail, Matt reflected that “it’s easy to get caught up by all of the different variables involved in working with an organization like BBYO. This award helps me to refocus on what this work is really about; providing real life leadership opportunities, cultivating Jewish identity, and making a real positive impact on the teens who represent the future of our Jewish communities.”
Along with many other local community leaders, Matt has a particular interest in attracting unaffiliated teens to this pluralistic organization. He’s working with other organizations to “attract more teens and provide more meaningful Jewish experiences like J-Serve,” a day of service in the Seattle area coordinated by the Jewish Federation. (It’s on April 25 this year. For information contact Amy Hilzman-Paquette at amyhp@jewishinseattle.org.)
On March 22, Evergreen BBYO will hold an alumni open house during their regular Monday evening meeting. Alumni are invited to rejoin their chapters and share memories with current BBYO members.
For information on the open house, or about BBYO, get in touch with Matt at mlemchen@bbyo.org or 206-232-7115, ext. 241.
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Dr. Dan Rosen, clinical psychologist and professor at Bastyr University, is doing a survey on anti-Semitism, part of a long-standing interest in studying Jews and Jewish issues.
“We’re still actively collecting data,” Dan told me, so he’s not drawing any conclusions, but he explained how his specialty in multicultural psychology led to an interest in studying American Jews. “I’m committed to supporting the optimal health” of the Jewish community, he explains.
With the number of Jews who helped develop the modern field of psychology, and the huge number of Jewish psychologists, you’d think Jews would be over-studied, but that’s not the case.
“There’s a whole list of reasons…why Jews don’t study Jews,” Dan says, including assumptions that we’re part of white dominant culture (not really), or we’re averse to “drawing attention to ourselves.”
He adds, “there are some needs that Jews have in the context of psychotherapy that might not fit in the needs of the general population… All of this research…is in order to better support clinicians and health professionals in being able to serve American Jews.”
Some of those needs might surround religious or cultural identity, which often fluctuates, he says.
If you take the survey (please do!) at www.surveymonkey.com/s/FYYVYXJ, you’ll see that Dan and his academic partner Lewis Z. Schlosser, Ph.D., at Seton Hall, are trying to parse out a relationship between both experience and perception of anti-Semitism and psychological well-being.
The seed for this study came out of a previous study of Dan’s which showed that “we might be more connected or less connected with Jewish identity at different parts of our lives.”
That study also raised the issue of the relevance of the Holocaust to survivors as well as their children and grandchildren, and a sense of rootlessness, of being “a relatively nomadic people.” Then, of course, there are all the modern ills not unique to Jews. “We’re not immune” from mental health issues, he says.
Dan has been a bit of a nomad himself until settling in Seattle two years ago with his wife, Kate Koester. He grew up in Omaha, did undergraduate and graduate studies in Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Arizona before finishing his training at Harvard Medical School and Boston Medical Center. He and Kate love Seattle and have joined the Kavana Cooperative. Recently he co-led a six-week experiential workshop for them, exploring Jewish identity in a psychological framework with Noam Pianko of the University of Washington’s Jewish Studies department, “one of the best experiences I’ve had as a member,” he says.
I told Dan the survey made me think of the scene in the film Annie Hall, when Woody Allen is having dinner with Annie’s WASPy family and he morphs into a Chassidic Jew. Dan laughed and said there is a psychological concept of “healthy paranoia,” but we have to be careful it doesn’t tip the scale and “interfere with one’s ability to enjoy…life.”
In addition to teaching and academic studies, Dan has a private practice in Fremont. You can learn more about his work at www.drdanrosen.com, or call him at 206-251-8530.