In 2014, seven teenagers joined the CTeen Extreme summer program to get a taste of Yiddishkeit. Last week, they met up again, and the difference couldn’t have been more stark.
By Anash.org reporter
In 2014, seven teenagers joined the CTeen Extreme summer program to get a taste of Yiddishkeit. Last week, they met up again, and the difference couldn’t have been more stark.
The seven teens are Lev Yakov Voskoboynik, Dovid Goldshmidt, Ben Bursk, Zac Horowitz, Seth Wasserman, and Dovid Vingart. In 2014, they were taking early steps in Yiddishkeit, and each one ended up joining their local CTeen chapter.
That summer, each one traveled from their hometown to join CTeen Extreme, a unique travel camp whose stated goal is to give the teens “extreme adventures, extreme trips, and an extreme love for being Jewish.”
40 teenagers joined that summer, and although the camp only lasts for two weeks, it leaves a lasting impression on each one. But for those seven teens, the two weeks turned out to be life-changing.
Fast-forward seven years, to Lag B’omer 2021. Six of the teens, now all between the ages of 22-24, met up again at the wedding of Dovid Goldshmidt, the seventh teen from their group, to Talya Portnoy. And the difference couldn’t have been more stark.
Each one of the boys are now is fully frum, learning in Lubavitcher yeshivas throughout the world! Together, they celebrated with their friend, whose life had been transformed by CTeen, knowing that they too, had overcome all odds to go through the same transformation.
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