Sunday - Religion and Culture

Ok - so it is past midnight and I'm a little late. Just pretend I finished on Sunday.

This is sort of a strange one to do on a Sunday, because while I chose Sunday for Religion and Culture for some obvious reasons - those I will be writing about today have a much more religious view concerning Saturday. Now you probably realize from that, there is a link to Judaism in this article.

Lest we go too far and you say, "Well, THIS has nothing to do with girls," and you leave without reading any further, let me throw this out at you - Girl Scouts.

I hope I have your attention. What could possibly be the link between Judaism and Girl Scouts? It seems a troop of Girl Scouts in New York City has achieved something of a record in the 100 year history of Girl Scouts of America - Troop 3131 is the first all Jewish Girl Scout Troop. Realizing this, they focus on the Jewish Heritage of the members.

Girl Scouts of America encourages its members to study and be proud of their heritage. One of the badges Girl Scouts and Junior Girl Scouts can earn is the "My Heritage" badge. A quick Google of "Girl Scouts" and "Heritage" shows many GSUSA programs focusing on culture and heritage.

Troop 3131 holds their meetings at Chabad-Lubavitch of the West Side in New York City. At a recent meeting, a youth director at the Chabad House presided over their discussion, and is quoted as saying: "We are lucky to live in America today where we have the freedom to celebrate our religion easily."

Well-put, and it can be said that while girls may have been overlooked in the past as an integral link in preserving certain cultures, this seems to be fading out. In the past few years, there has been much emphasis on the Jewish Community on bringing up girls to understand their heritage from a very young age - and teaching it through the use of one things many girls have always loved - dolls. The most recent historical doll released by Mattel in the long-standing American Girl Dolls line is Rebecca - their first Jewish character - who lives in New York City in 1914.

http://www.americangirl.com/fun/agcn/rebecca/

Here is an article that tells a bit more about Troop 3131, and how they got started:
http://www.chabad.org/news/article_cdo/aid/1112647/jewish/Jewish-Girl-Scouts-Make-History.htm

Note: The articles that were used in writing this article suggested that this is the first and possibly only All-Jewish GSUSA troop, but the comments in the cited article, and some Google searching, make this appear to not be completely true.