School alumni and Jewish education professionals hosted an open panel on activities for Jewish teenagers Jan. 19 at the Upper School. Panel members discussed opportunities centered around Judaism that are available to students in high school and college.

The panel consisted of Director of the Center of Youth Engagement at Stephen S. Wise Temple Andrea Gardenhour, Executive Director of Hillel at UCLA Rabbi Aaron Lerner, Netanya Perluss ’16 and Wise Temple Youth president Brandon Ptasznik.

Interim Head of Upper School Liz Resnick moderated the discussion. The panel answered a series of prepared questions before opening up the discussion to the audience.

Topics discussed included youth groups in Los Angeles, summer and year-long programs available for students and Jewish presence on college campuses.

“There are many Jewish community programs that usually come from youth groups but then expand into the wider Jewish community, which is intentional for you to be able to, when you get to college, have a big community of people around you,” Gardenhour said.