Do you think about “big things”- like gender, sexuality, and class? Do you have complicated feelings about what it means to be a Jew? Do you wish the adults in your life would just listen to you for once?

Well, Teens@JUF is listening! Right now! If you are a Jewish girl between 13 and 18 living in the Chicago area, take a quick 15-minute survey about your experiences. You can find it online at surveymonkey.com/s/VW9H397.

The results will directly impact the kinds and qualities of services JUF has available to you. For example, the Research Training Insititute (RTI)-whose 2015 class created this survey!

RTI is for U!

Interested in becoming a Research Training Intern next year? JUF’s RTI program is an internship for Jewish high school-aged girls interested in exploring issues of race, class, power, gender, sexuality, and privilege, through the lenses of Judaism and academic research. By seeking to better understand their own communities, RTI interns hope to affect real changes in the kinds and qualities of programs, supports, and services available to their peers.

This year, 16 RTI interns representing a diversity of experiences are creating a survey to explore how privilege and oppression inform the identities of young Jewish women in the Chicagoland area.

As a part of our team, you will have the opportunity to join our research team and work with us to address critical questions, like:

• Who is the “perfect girl” and what does a girl have to do to be like her?

• What are the secrets to her success?

• What happens when girls try to live up to these expectations?

These questions help us dive into this important topic. Where we go from there will be up to you!

When you become an RTI intern, you will receive training by DePaul University researchers to design a study of the messages teen girls have to navigate, collect data from your peers, and analyze the results. You will learn how to use these findings to educate others and pursue social justice.

And you will enhance your résumés and college application materials-not only by pioneering the first-ever Jewish teen research internship in Chicago- but also by engaging in college-level discussion and research methodology.

Plus, you will make new friends

among a diverse group of young Jewish women in the Chicago community with a broad range of backgrounds, experiences, interests, ideas, and skills!

For more information about how to get involved in next years’ Research Training Internship, visit
juf.org/teens/RTI_About.aspx .