For the second half of March, I took a very special trip to South Africa. Now, this was not just a 16-hour trip down to see the amazing teens in Shelanu and Zahav BBYO, but it was also the first time I got to see the childhood home of my mom. While she was not there to share the moment with me, I did get to kick off my trip staying with my uncle and cousin while my mother’s mother joined me from Seattle. BBYO had always been a place where I got to explore my family's heritage through meeting South African teens at IC, a story I know is not unlike so many others; now I got to explore that heritage on the streets my mom once walked.

After some meaningful time with my family, I then headed over to Johannesburg to see the school my mom grew up in, BBYO chapters, and the incredible Jewish community. I stayed in Glenhazel, the densely populated Jewish neighborhood with a downtown filled with kosher restaurants, ice cream shops, and supermarkets. On Shabbat, the streets were filled with families walking to and from shul, and doors were left open as friends and families filtered in and out of houses to share meals. This sense of Jewish pride translated right into the BBYO chapter: people came from far and wide to spend time with orphans for a chapter program and exemplified Jewish values. The brand-new chapter board did an incredible job incorporating Jewish values into the programming, and the teens were excited to participate.

Off to the beautiful city of Cape Town (my favorite city in the world), where we stayed in Fresnaye, a Jewish neighborhood shaped like a dreidel. In this community, teens were excited to be joined by Israeli Paralympic gold medalist Ami Dadaon. For Shabbat, we had dinner, and people were excitedly asking questions and showing off the amazing sights their city has to offer. This community, although smaller than Johannesburg’s, was extremely tight-knit, with lots of siblings and cousins filling the membership of the chapter and ties deepened through all of the Jewish organizations the city has to offer.

One of the coolest parts of each of these communities was their Jewish day schools: in Cape Town, it was the historic Herzliya School, and Johannesburg boasted several King David Schools, including in Sandton, where my mom grew up. There are a lot of communities that have Jewish day schools—not all of them are equally successful—but South Africa sets a high bar for how Jewish day schools should be integrated into the community. Youth are excited to be at their schools, and no one would rather attend schools outside of the community. There is great balance between athletics, academics, and, of course, a Jewish education.

The schools offer a great experience, and the BBYO chapter boards are working hard to complement their school’s education with a different spin on the Jewish experience. We planned some amazing calendars filled with ways they wanted to engage their peers and show them sides of their Jewish identity outside of their familial and scholastic traditions. They are also working so passionately to bring in teens outside of the Jewish school system so that they have a way of meaningfully practicing their Judaism.

I am forever grateful for this opportunity to explore my roots and see firsthand how well the next generation is preserving the culture my mom and her family have tried to imbue my life with. That’s the magic of BBYO: you can walk in disconnected, with ingrained pieces of your identity, and come out in touch with those very same pieces. In the spirit of Founder’s Fest, here’s to 101 more years of cultural exploration, 101 more years of family, and 101 more years of BBYO!