Last week, sitting in the office sometime late at night (or at least: "late" for someone who works on a website -
must've been 7:30
ish). I decide to return a call I'd received from my old
BBYO regional advisor after she'd also
Facebook-messaged me earlier in the week. She needs to get in touch, clearly.
We get on the phone, catch up on what we're each doing, and toss around a bunch of names - "
alumni,"
har har - I haven't heard in a while. The conversation's mostly pleasant. And then: she asks me for money. Or, specifically, she asks me to
ask my dad for money.
I didn't think the question would come up, though I knew of the potential for it to (one day) exist. Really, though: why else does your old youth group advisor call you? Unless, of course, they need some kind of legal testimony, which I hadn't entirely ruled out either (remember this sentence). But I didn't think the question would come up. Or at least come up like that. Because it was a well-known fact - by this advisor, by any advisor, by all of my friends - that my father hated -
HATED - my Jewish youth group, with good reason. Any trouble I got into in high school could, without a stretch, be traced back to
BBYO.
First:
BBYO's different from most Jewish youth groups in that it almost
totally encourages sexual relations between young Semites by segregating the sexes - it's divided into
AZA (
Aleph Zadik Aleph, the idea behind it a fraternal order, ordained by foreign letters like a REAL frat) and
BBG (
B'Nai B'rith Girls). Meetings happen individually, but typically at the same location, and brother/sister chapters have events together. Meetings were often a series of lurid penis jokes and loud, screaming calls to order. All meetings had to abide by parliamentary procedure, which, when assumed by a body of angry, horny, pissed-off and fucked-up high
schoolers, results in absolute hilarity.
AZA Chatper #1882, Jack
Entratter (named after the old Vegas mobster. Our mascot, inexplicably: the gamecock) was certainly no exception to the rule. At one point in my tenure with them (including a truncated stint as chapter president and a positon on the regional board - don't ask me how), that room had more distinct, well-threaded connections to the American Black Market than any single body of people I've ever been in a room with since. There was always someone to help illicitly acquire booze - or if not, a partner in crime to "fish" for it - and I'm sure entrance to some high-stakes illegal gambling game (in Vegas, no less)
could've been found. Drugs? Naturally. The next time you're looking for really, really good pot, go be an advisor at a
BBYO regional event. You'll 'confiscate' the best grass (and possibly, these days:
pharms, blow, crystal
meth, and
amyl nitrates) in town. Need a place to party? You're going to a "youth group event." Something about "brotherhood" and "
getting our numbers up with recruiting" and maybe some "community service." The most community service I ever saw happen in
BBYO was the taking of drugs out of lower income neighborhoods and putting them in the hands of upper-middle to upper-class privileged youth. And then: girls.
BBYO is a feeding ground for everything any parent - contemporary or not - has ever been worried about in regards to their
childrens' relations with the other sex.
AZA breeds
misogyny. There used to be some terrible song we used to sing about a "
BBG whore", the lyrics of which, if I ever repeat in public, I could be reasonably executed for - and
BBG, well...I can't speak for the long-term effects it had on the girls, because I'm not one. And there were far better eggs in
BBG than there ever were in
AZA (pun unintended). But I will say this: for a while, our regional mascot was the
Domino's Noid. This was due in no small part to a rumor about a room full of
BBG girls who ordered
Domino's at a
regional convention one winter. The delivery guy who showed up was apparently attractive, and the girls never paid for the pizza. Figure it out.
Playwright and essayist Rachel
Shukert wrote about this once, and
every word of her incredible essay rings true. Needless to say, (1) there were and probably still are good kids in
BBYO and (2) I had a great time doing it (but wonder whether or not I might have dropped out of a better college had I not). But I know people who have literally become pimps, drug addicts, club "promoters" (whatever shady shit that entails) and, well, me.
I more or less told the advisor that there wasn't a freezing chance in hell of my dad donating to their cause. She was shocked: "after everything we gave you...he wouldn't pony up?" Spoken like a true...well, like a true
BBYOer. On with the hard sell. After she tried to hit
me up for money - and me laughing, as I've been playing
Russian Roulette with my
ConEd bill for the last two months - she gave up. I felt really good about not donating money to them: I can't encourage or condone that kind of thing in good conscious, though I'm sure there's a large portion of the American Jewish Community more than willing to both "pony up" and get their kids off their hands for a few hours each week, in the
faux-good-conscious that they're helping build the Jewish character of their kids (thereby assuaging their inherent "I should raise my kids more Jewish, shouldn't I?" guilt). But any parent who Knows What The Fuck Is Up - oh, and I will - would not send their kids to a Jewish youth group. Not a chance in hell.
M.I.A. - Paper Planes
