Variety is the seasoning of choice for Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy senior Sam Abrams. The 17-year-old participates in many different activities both through school and the Jewish community at large, but they all have a connecting thread: education.
At the B’nai Tzedek Youth Council, he teaches Bar and Bat Mitzvah-aged kids how they can use gift money to help non-profit organizations.
“We connect them to non-profits so they can practice philanthropy and know the value of money,” Sam said.
He became involved with the group after they helped direct him to donate to the Jewish War Veterans after his Bar Mitzvah. Sam hopes his efforts at B’nai Tzedek “help kids grow into mensches.”
During the summer months, he’s also used education to help the community. At Herzl Camp, a Jewish summer program in Wisconsin, he became a junior counselor and B’nai Mitzvah tutor this year.
“Helping kids prepare for Bar and Bat Mitzvahs and becoming a role model for all these kids was really a cool experience, especially after being a camper for seven years,” Sam said.
In previous years, he’s also helped out with the summer educational programs at Congregation Beth Shalom’s religious school as a Hebrew language tutor and continued to help there throughout the school year as well.
“I’ve come to realize how positive my experience was growing up at HBHA and Beth Shalom, and I want students in our area to have a similar positive experience, because I think it helps jumpstart your academic life and your career,” Sam said.
As co-president of the National Honor Society chapter at the Academy, Sam helped lead a group of students tutoring children at Roesland Elementary School. Academy teacher Laura Hewitt was impressed with how Sam handled the experience.
“Sam was assigned to work with a young man who was having a really bad day. It just was remarkable for Sam to be able to relate to him … he figured out very quickly what (kind of help) this young man needed,” Hewitt said.
Sam is no stranger to community service, having helped organize groups of students to help organic farmers with maintenance and harvesting, as well as bringing groups to Harvesters to sort food donations.
He’s also a member of the basketball and soccer teams at school, although baseball is his favorite sport. Since the Academy doesn’t have a baseball team, he plays in other leagues in the area.
Outside of school, he also is the Midwest region religious education vice president for United Synagogue Youth. Last year, he was vice president of the Kansas City chapter, where he oversaw various Israel advocacy programs.
“It’s a big responsibility, but I’m partners with every one of the chapter religious education vice presidents, so they give me a lot of help,” Sam said.
He’s organizing a meeting of approximately 250 kids from the region over Thanksgiving weekend in Omaha.
USY isn’t his only passion. After a civil rights history trip to Alabama last year, Sam found himself energized on the subject. On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, this year, he found himself giving a speech on unity to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
“My generation has a distance with the civil rights movements. We take those rights for granted,” Sam said. “It becomes extremely evident now how far we’ve come since Freedom Summer in 1964, and yet, we still have a far way to go.”
So what does one do with a passion for education and wide-ranging interests? After college, Sam hopes to join the foreign diplomatic service.
“My dream job would be to work in a foreign embassy or in the State Department,” he said. “I’ve been taking Hebrew for the last 10-plus years, and I’m definitely interested in the Middle East.”
He says part of the reason he’s interested in this career is that current events are always part of the dinner table conversation with his parents, Mike and Renana Abrams.
“I see America as a beacon of good. We’re a superpower, and I think we have the ability to use our influence to grant freedom to those who are oppressed and increase the mission of democracy,” he said. “With all the anti-American sentiment (in the world), I feel it’s especially important (now.)”