NCSY - Inspiring the Jewish Future

• Connect. Inspire. Empower.

• NCSY is the premier organization dedicated to connect, inspire and empower Jewish teens and encourage passionate Judaism through Torah and Tradition.

• Donate Now!

Spread the word: Email

While most of his fellow classmates spent their summer traveling, working at camps or enjoying the pool, Zev Eleff was busy researching and compiling 52 years of NCSY history. The end result, the book Living from Convention to Convention: A History of the NCSY, 1954-1980, chronicles the creation of NCSY in its critical, formative years. It documents the struggles and, ultimately, the triumphs of a small group of passionate and dedicated men and women who, in defiance of conventional wisdom, pioneered a vibrant Torah–true outreach program for American teens.

“Though NCSY's programs and methodologies have changed with the times,” Rabbi Steven Burg, NCSY International Director, recollected, “the passion and unwavering dedication to Torah that our founders built into our organization years ago remains the same; it is the glue that holds our organization together and a main reason for our continued success.”

Though Rabbi Burg had been thinking about commissioning a book on NCSY’s history for a while, finding a researcher/writer equal to the task of capturing the rich history of the organization was not easy. Then, one fateful Shabbos last winter, Zev joined the Burgs for Shabbat in their Bergenfield, New Jersey home, and Rabbi Burg knew he had found the person for whom he’d been looking.

“We were talking around Rabbi Burg’s Shabbos table about the idea of the NCSY book,” said Zev, who had just finished editing Mentor of Generations: Reflections on Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. “Researching and writing the book sounded like amazing fun, and I was thrilled that Rabbi Burg opened this opportunity to me.”

Zev, who grew up in Baltimore , Maryland and Skokie, Illinois, is a senior in the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein Honors Program at Yeshiva University, former editor-in-chief of the undergraduate newspaper, The Commentator, accomplished book editor and, now, a published book author.

Though funding for the book came from NCSY, Zev personally did not get paid to write it. “This book was a labor of love for me and extraordinary fun,” he says, “and it was definitely a team effort. Rabbi Burg and Ronit Meitlis-Hofer (Assistant Director of OU Program Development) were consistently supportive of me, looking at rough drafts of the book and putting me in touch with various former and current NCSY officials whose internal documents provided a wealth of information for me.”

Zev said that he collected most of his information not through interviews, but through archival research. “Old NCSY manuals and published documents were extremely helpful,” he said.

Zev only wrote about the history of NCSY through 1980; when asked why, he said, “After NCSY took off and became the multi-service movement spread across the North American forefront that it is today, it became nearly impossible to write a concise history of its efforts and programs. To document its history after 1980 would require a volume for each of its 18 fully-operational sub-regions, rather than one comprehensive work.” Zev, who plans to pursue a career in Jewish education upon his college graduation this May, said he does not have plans to undertake that daunting project (“a challenge for some other historian,” he says), but is happy with his effort to record the early makings of NCSY. <> Of Zev’s effort, Rabbi Burg stated, “Zev has done an exemplary job documenting the early days of NCSY. Through diligent, meticulous research, Zev was able to uncover many historical gems that illustrate the challenges NCSY initially faced as a youth movement committed to Torah and mitzvot in the 1950s and ‘60s. I look forward to the sequel, detailing how NCSY continues to carry the torch into the new millennium and beyond.”

NCSY City: International Office, NY