A Jewish teen feels a sense of concern – he or she missed Sunday School last week and now feel disconnected. Luckily, teens have ways of staying connected to Judaism that don’t involve being at a synagogue or youth group meeting. Technology has a huge impact on virtually every aspect of a teen’s life today, and the life of a Jewish teen is no exception. Many Jews use technology to stay connected to the Jewish world. Ladue Horton Watkins High School sophomore Adina Barg said she never feels disconnected to Judaism thanks to her use of social media.

“I use social media mostly to get connected to my Jewish culture on Facebook,” Adina said. “I’ve ‘liked’ pages that have to do with B’nai Amoona, or Israel or the St. Louis Jewish community.”

With the click of a button, teens are able to receive updates about the Jewish community. Before the digital age, it was not as convenient for teens to connect to the community; they would have to spend more time present at youth groups and other Jewish-related events to stay involved. Now with the convenience of technology, not only can teens connect to their immediate community, they can also stay connected with friends from youth group or camp who live in different cities or states.

“I think being connected on social media helps you to feel like you know what’s going on, even when you’re not there,” Adina said.

 Adina’s older sister, Hannah, was living in Israel for a year, but while Hannah was there, their family was able to use technology to uphold their Jewish family traditions.

“We have a family group chat, so on Friday nights, we text ‘Shabbat Shalom,’ and on Rosh Hashanah we texted Hannah ‘L’shanah Tovah’ and we told each other about our services,” Adina said.

Since the events of the summer in lsrael, Jews all across the world want to be informed of what’s going on. Jews can use a free smartphone app called “Red Alert: Israel” to get alerts on their phone when dangerous situations arise in Israel. More than 600,000 people in Israel currently use the app, and more than 100,000 Americans have downloaded the app.

Dana Rosenblum, a junior at Marquette High `School, downloaded the app in order to stay informed.

“Israel is the Jewish homeland, so by getting alerts about Israel, I feel like I’m still connected to my homeland and to the history of Judaism,” Dana said.

Social media constitutes a large portion of technology that teens use, so it is no surprise that Jewish-specific forms of social media have been created. Two platforms, “JSwipe,” an adapted form of the app Tinder, and “JDate,” the Jewish equivalent of match.com, allow for Jewish teens and young adults to identify other Jewish singles in their area.

“I think they’re a great opportunity to meet other Jewish people. Most Jewish people want to end up marrying other Jews, so these are a good way to meet them,” Dana said.

Adina, however, partially disagrees about the sincerity of these platforms.

“I think JSwipe is more for laughs,” Adina said.

She went on to say that though she does not use these particular forms of Jewish social media, she uses apps like PocketTorah that provide the user with the weekly Torah and Haftorah portion and reads an Israeli newspaper on her Newsstand app.

“I think that things like this are effective in helping Jewish teens get more involved in their religion. Everything on social media is basically a click away, so it’s so much easier than it used to be,” Adina said.