The evaluation study looks at teens' reactions to the four-week trip and how they integrate their experiences in Israel into their lives back home during the school year. Our Jewish Identity Project Soul is a congregation development project that uses action research to help the congregation examine its current status and plans for the future. The Action Guide is a 140 page book that presents lessons from the congregation field culled from in-depth interviews with dozens of synagogue volunteers and professionals who work with older adults. The book is currently distributed and follow up contacts are being made with congregations and communities that are seeking to improve their programming and services for the Jewish elderly. In The immediate project entails analyzing data from over 600 women who completed a questionnaire on their socio-political views at the Lion of Judah national meeting.
Plans are underway to develop the survey for administration with other Jewish women's groups.
Alumni of teen trips are perhaps the best recruiters. As such, this year's project also entails the development of a manual for mentoring teen recruitment. Hadassah Leadership Academy October 1998 was the launching of the Hadassah Leadership academy, a program to educate and train Jewish women leaders for Hadassah and for the Jewish community. In recent years, the American Jewish community has begun devoting increased attention and resources to its adolescents. Unfortunately, there is very little systematic knowledge about the lives these teenagers lead.