We believe that when it comes to the education of Jewish teens, area synagogues should be in partnership not competition to be able to provide our teens with multiple options for helping them find the Jewish educational experience that is right for them. HaMakom gives the ability for those in partnering synagogues the ability to access options throughout the Jewish community. 

The program aims to reach teens today by helping to meet them where they are, when they have time and what interests them the most. None of our synagogues are able to do teen programming as robust in terms of timing and programming alone but by coming together to give known and respected options to our synagogue teens we are helping remove barriers to reasons why teens aren't able to find the time for Jewish learning post B'nai Mitzvah when its not the top priority for them.

As was shown in the Jewish Ed Project census and we have seen first hand in our communities, running a post b'nai mitzvah educational experience can be very difficult as the the teens have mounting time expectations and greater lack of feeling of requirement on the behalf of the parents. Along with lack of time, there is the lack of peer group available in an individual synagogue to encourage a teen to attend. HaMakom addresses the issue by giving more options in multiple ways. By opening up multiple day, time and program options it allows for teens and their families to find the right overall program for them.

HaMakom will function in two main ways. Both being the "place" for Jewish teens and their families to discover different Jewish learning opportunities with partnered organizations and also being a way 5 times during the year to bring Jewish teens together in for more social focused experiences to be able to meet other teens from outside of their own synagogues.