IOWA CITY (AP) — The Jewish Studies club — or as students call it, the “Jew Club” — started as a joke at City High.
At least, the two teenage club founders, juniors Jeremiah Collins and Tobey Epstein, pitched the idea to their principal as a sort of comedic commentary on how few students at the school were Jewish.
It seemed like a joke to classmates.
“For me, it was more of a joke at first,” junior Shoshie Henley said. “Tobey added me and all the other Jews at school — which is about eight — into a group chat. I thought that was Jew Club, the group chat.”
But the joke didn’t seem to register with campus principal, John Bacon, who is perhaps the district’s most vocal promoter of the education theory that extracurricular involvement is tied to academic success.
“We always tell kids, if we don’t have something that interests you, create it,” Bacon said about the few clubs on campus where students discuss religion, including a Rosary Club and now the Jewish Studies club.
When Bacon took the idea seriously, suddenly, so did Collins and Epstein.
“We thought we were going to get shot down,” Epstein said. “But then he was like ‘yeah,’ and we were like ‘oh, this is real now.’”
The idea of the club quickly morphed into something more meaningful, an opportunity to explain different aspects of their religion, and in their own way, chip away at negative stereotypes around Judaism. But first, Collins says he and Epstein “have to make it fun.”
“Because most kids’ first idea of fun is not to come and learn about a religion,” Collins said. “So we have to add some jokes in there, play some games, like Top 10 Celebrities You Didn’t Know Were Jewish.”
Tobey led Tuesday’s 20-minute meeting solo. Collins, who was out with the flu, usually helps provide comedic relief, and to the disappointment of Tuesday attendees, also usually brings an order of bagels subsidized by the local synagogue.
Tuesday’s topic was synagogues, or “not Jewish churches.” The club has a lot of memes and a few regulars, most of which are not Jewish.
“I also expected it to be mainly Jewish kids, but it ended up being mainly non-Jews learning about Jewish stuff,” said Henley, who is Jewish. “So whenever I come its mainly me interrupting.”
“I appreciate Shoshie’s presence,” Epstein said, rolling his eyes.
The meetings are small enough and short enough that much of the time is spent riffing. At the club’s fifth meeting, members played a game where they guessed what images of sections of a synagogue were called, choosing between two options. Talking over the type of lamp that hangs in synagogues, the group got sidetracked talking about flag traditions and Disney Land.
“Which is why, in Disney Land, they actually only have 49 stars on their flag, so they don’t count as actual flags, so they don’t have to light them or take them down on certain days,” Epstein said.
“That is some good trivia,” Shoshie says, dryly.
The club organizers aren’t experts. Tobey will sometimes bounce ideas off Jewish teens in the room. Sometimes they will look to the corner, where the club’s teacher sponsor sits quietly observing, to check their definition of terms, such as Diaspora.
The duo runs their presentations by local rabbis in the area to make sure the information is correct. Both students participate in the Agudas Achim Congregation in Coralville.
They are quick to clarify that they aren’t trying to convert their colleagues to Judaism. Though one non-Jewish club regular, junior Evan McElroy, did decide to try eating only kosher food in November, saying he hoped to use the new lifestyle as an excuse to get out of a Thanksgiving meal. Ultimately the student gave up, saying “I like pepperoni pizza too much.”
Collins and Epstein reason their club could have a multiplying effect; maybe attendees walk away having learned something, and maybe they share that knowledge with more people at a later date. They hope simple lighthearted efforts like their club can chip away some of the harmful stereotypes they and other Jewish people face growing up.
In his own academic career, Collins recalls peers cracking jokes about the Holocaust to him. He says his parents worry about his brother wearing a yarmulke, a head cap worn by some Jewish men. Epstein recalls elementary school kids throwing his yarmulke on the ground. Most of the stereotypes he encounters center around greed he said, adding that he didn’t tell people about his bar mitzvah in an attempt to avoid the first follow-up question, “how much money did you make?”
“I’d say the only anti-Semitism I’ve experienced in my life is people just don’t understand what Judaism is, how it works, why it is the way it is,” Epstein said.
The club was formed around the time anti-Semitic attacks made national headlines. Since the club was formed, four people were killed in a kosher supermarket in New Jersey, and five people were stabbed at a Hannukah celebration in New York.
Noting upticks in racism, anti-Semitism and a slew of other issues in the U.S., Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz, who leads the Agudas Achim congregation, estimates it’s a difficult, anxiety-ridden time to be young, Jewish or not. She is proud of the new club at City High.
“I thought it was wonderful,” said Rabbi Esther. “In a time of increasing antisemitism, the best response is to lean into your values.”
Though they pad out their short meetings with humor, Collins and Epstein keep in the back of their mind the theory that a “lack of knowledge breeds fear.”
“Fear breeds hatred,” Epstein said, “as we’ve learned through history—”
“—and Star Wars,” Collins adds.