Dear BaMidbar Community,
Hello! My name is Whitney Fisch and I am the proud new CEO of BaMidbar.
For those of you who know BaMidbar, you’re already familiar with our commitment to strengthening Jewish teens and young adults through positive coping skills and resilience. For those who are just getting to know us, we are a relatively young organization dedicated to fostering strength and confidence in the next generation through these vital tools.
As a community-based organization, we thrive through partnerships with day schools, synagogues, Hillels, camps, youth groups, and other organizations serving young Jews.
Originally established as a wilderness therapy program, we pivoted during COVID to focus on a community-based health model. Since then, we’ve created our very own clinic to provide direct therapeutic services to teens and young adults in the Boston area, while continuing to expand our educational and wellness programming.
Our foundation is rooted in Jewish values and adventure-based, experiential learning. Everything we do is designed to help young people build strength, confidence, and resilience to navigate life’s challenges with courage and connection.
For those who know me well, it’s about now that you might be thinking to yourself,
“Girl. Adventure-based? Really?”
To that I say,
“You better believe it.”
But first, how did I get here? While my strong commitment to daily SPF face moisturizer combined with a history of supple English skin (thanks, Grandma!) and a healthy dose of cognizant dissonance might result in my thinking I’m still in my early 30s, I am actually well into my 40s, which means I have dedicated over 20 years of professional life in service of the Jewish community.
Beginning at the Hillel at University of Georgia in the early 2000s and moving on to The Hillels of Illinois and the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, it was my year studying at the Pardes Institute in Jerusalem that truly changed my life. It was at Pardes that I finally felt vulnerable enough to say, “I don’t know enough about Jewish text and tradition. Teach me.”
From there I attended The University of Michigan’s School of Social Work where I fell in love again, this time with macro-level social work through the science of community organizing. During my time at Michigan, I would meet and take classes from Professor Tony Alvarez, one of the foremost leaders of experiential, adventure and wilderness approaches to social work practice.
I would spend the next 10 years as a school counselor, the last 6 of which I spent building a comprehensive school counseling program at Milken Community Schools in Los Angeles. During the pandemic, I would transition to a major leadership role as the Executive Director of The Hillel at Miami University in Ohio, where I spent 4.5 years building up its operations, individual giving program, and, most importantly, its engagement with young Jewish college students.
In the aftermath of October 7, I began to feel a deep sense of concern. Of course, I was worried about the physical safety of Jewish college students across the country, but it went beyond that. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the way our major Jewish institutions were responding to anti-Israel and antisemitic incidents on campus risked leading to significant burnout among Jewish teens and young adults.
How many panels on antisemitism on college campuses do we really need? Were we creating spaces for Jewish students to explore and fall in love with their Judaism beyond advocating for Israel’s right to exist? What expectations were we placing on Jewish teens and college students as a broader American Jewish community?
Most critically, I found myself asking: what will the long-term ramifications of these expectations be on the psychological safety, feelings of belonging, and Jewish identity of our young Jewish people?
These are the questions that kept me up at night.
For the past 15 years, I’ve been deeply immersed in the world of Jewish teen and young adult life—advocating for them, honoring their complexities, strengths, and challenges, and fighting to create spaces where they can be their authentic, exploratory selves—all while raising Jewish children of my own.
I’m passionate about building a Jewish community that fully commits to equipping teens and young adults with the skills and resources they need to navigate life’s challenges. These tools—developed over time—are about resilience: the ability to adapt, face adversity, and keep going, all while knowing they’re not alone.
The adults in their ecosystem must meet them where they are—not just as role models but as buffers against the stress and pressures of today’s world. Teens and young adults need to feel supported, valued, and understood, especially as they navigate the unique challenges of being Jewish in today’s complex world.
To the question of me leading a Jewish organization rooted in adventure-based modalities of healing and learning, my answer is simple: absolutely! These approaches form the foundation of a therapeutic model that uses outdoor activities and challenges in natural settings to promote personal growth, self-discovery, and healing.
By focusing on learning by doing, participants in our workshops (both teen, young adult, and otherwise) are encouraged to step out of their comfort zones, confront challenges, and develop new positive coping skills—all within safe, trauma-informed environments free from shame or blame.
Even better? This approach aligns deeply with my Jewish values.
Judaism teaches us to view personal challenges (nisyonot) as opportunities for growth, reflecting one of BaMidbar’s core values: tzmicha isheit (personal growth). Through resilience and self-reflection, we rise stronger and wiser from difficulties.
Moreover, this journey is grounded in the principle of kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh (all of Israel is responsible for one another), fostering connection and mutual responsibility as we navigate growth together.
Genuinely, I ask you: What’s not to love about this approach? I am all in.
I invite you to sign up for our newsletter and learn more about how you and/or your team can be a part of the kehillah (community) that will be the buffer of stress and models of positive coping that our Jewish teens and young adults need.
Shabbat Shalom,
Whitney Fisch, MSW
Chief Executive Officer