This month as we name our Change Maker, we want to do things a little differently and chat with our honoree, Ms. Varda Cheskis Sauer. A teacher by trade and a champion for creating more places and ways for teens to connect with Jewish life, Varda is known and beloved by the hundreds of students that come through the doors of the Jewish Culture Club at
North Springs Charter High School.
This spring after 14 years, she’s moving on from sponsoring the club, but her support and dedication will not be forgotten. Thank you, Varda, for investing in the Jewish teens of Atlanta and for being a Change Maker in our community!
JumpSpark: How many years have you sponsored the Jewish Culture Club at North Springs?
Varda Cheskis Sauer: I have sponsored the Jewish Culture Club for 14 years! Some students approached me in 2005 about starting a “Jewish club.” Initially I told them no because, with North Springs being a public school, I did not want to violate the law of separation of church and state. Then, we came up with the idea of a Jewish “Culture” Club where everyone would be welcome who might want to join! The rest is history!! We are the largest club at North Springs with the most active membership! Virtually EVERY member attended every single meeting!
JS: Why did you choose to devote so many years to teens?
VCS: I know that most teens have little or no Jewish continuity in their lives from their Bar/Bat Mitzvah years until they have children of their own. That’s a long gap with no Jewish education! My goal was to provide education at every single meeting in order to fill that gap! It was a challenge to figure out a model that would draw students in and KEEP them!! After all, they had to give up their lunch period and social time with their friends! Having Rabbi David Silverman as our main speaker was definitely a huge asset and draw for the students. He has been extremely engaging with the teens and made every meeting fun and inspirational!
JS: Do you have an idea of how many total teens have come through the club over the years?
VCS: My estimate is about 1600 teens came through my North Springs Jewish Culture Club! The club grew very quickly – word spread like wildfire! The club started out with 20 student-teens, doubled in size the next year, and by the 4th year, we had 100 members and could barely fit in any room in the school! By the 10th year, we had 160 active members and were lucky to have the use of the huge Band room and Media Center for our meetings! No classroom could accommodate a club of our size!
JS: What do you most hope they’ve learned from you and the Jewish culture club?
VCS: The teens have experienced a real sense of ‘kehillah’ or ‘community!’ They loved having a regular time when they would learn about Jewish culture with other teens in their public school. Over the years they have told me that they learned so many things about Judaism and its culture that they never studied when younger. They have been taught excellent skills on how to respond to many questions from the general school population. They said this gave them a sense of security within their social circles.
JS: How many years did you work as a teacher and what subject(s) did you teach?
VCS: I was at North Springs High School for 24 years! I taught Sociology and Health Education in the late 1980s for 3 years and then I shifted careers for a few years while raising my children. I came back to NSHS in 1995 and retired in 2016! I created two amazing Internship classes – Mentorship and Magnet Internship. I taught 11th and 12th graders all about the value of internships and then I placed them all out into internships during their class time with me! My classes were definitely a favorite elective for the students!
JS: How else have you worked or volunteered with Jewish teens?
VCS: As a teen myself, I was a volunteer teaching assistant at my own synagogue Hebrew School in Chicago. As a mom, I served on the Adult BBYO Board in the mid-1990s. I chaperoned teens on numerous field trips for the Greenfield Hebrew Academy (now Atlanta Jewish Academy) including their big 8th grade trip to NYC.
In response to the tragic mass shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue last fall, and the growing number of anti-Semitic incidents both in the southeast and nationally, the summit examined the reality of anti-Semitism and how to communicate and advocate for the world we want to see.
In groups by grade, teens gained awareness of their personal experiences with anti-Semitism, discussed how anti-Semitism exists in their lives, and developed skills to respond to anti-Semitism throw role-playing exercises.
With nearly 200 parents and teens participating in the event held at Temple Sinai, summit organizers had no idea the demand was so high for such an event. Kelly Cohen, JumpSpark Director, said, “As we see from the large crowd that came to the summit, when we create programs and opportunities that speak authentically to the needs of our community, people come!” 
When finishing her empowering story of bravery and transition, Dr. Joy Ladin prompted me and my peers with a question: “What was your experience of growing up as a girl?” To my surprise, the majority of responses to the question, including mine, were negative. We discussed in our conversation the topics that us, as teenage girls in the modern world, face, most of which were feelings of adversity and fear. A few examples included memories of my peers’ parents telling them to change because they were “showing too much”, them getting dress code violations for their bra straps and thighs showing, and their constant fear of slut shaming.
Joy started off this conversation with the topic of gender versus sexuality. She explained to us that these two things do not need to go hand in hand, nor do they have the same connotation to every individual. Once again, this was something I had never thought about before, so my mindset was transformed. I realized that all of those negative memories of growing up a girl made up who we had become. With further discussion, I was inspired that gender and sexuality are not as simple as I thought, and that two people with totally different experiences of being a women could still be defined as one.
As I went to sit down and join in on the conversation I greeted everyone with a warm smile and a friendly greeting. Upon getting to know the girls and hearing their stories I realized I could relate to them on many levels. Then once we did the activity where we all listed things we have in common i realized there were a lot more things I hadn’t realized, like that we all didn’t like school and all loved pizza and Chris Hemsworth.
