Good Guys: Partnership & Positive Masculinity is a complement to the Strong Girls: Friendships, Relationships and Self-Esteem mini-curriculum. This 3-hour program helps pre-teen and teenage boys explore within a Jewish context issues of masculinity, power and control, violence, self-esteem, conflict resolution, coming of age, and the importance of partnership and equality in friendships and relationships.

• Session One: “Being a Man” in Culture and the Media addresses how the messages boys get from culture and the media exert pressure on them to “act like a man” and be tough, silent and emotionless.
• Session Two: Power & Relationships focuses on perceptions of power and status impacting thoughts and behavior, pressure to assert masculinity and gain power through aggression and violence, and the importance of partnership and equality of power in friendships and relationships.
• Session Three: Respect, Responsibility & Positive Masculinity discusses the empowering capabilities of emotional expression, the idea of manhood in Jewish thought and how it differs from popular cultural and media messages, the challenges that boys face in being the “good guy,” and redefining masculinity in a healthy, positive and constructive way.

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Thank you to our Boys' Programming Advisory Committee

Steven Botkin, Ed.D. Men's Resources International

Dr. Lawrence Cohen, psychologist

Jackson Katz, Ed.M. Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) Strategies

Paul Kivel, Violence Prevention Educator

Randy Parks, psychotherapist and facilitator of MENSCH (MEN for Shalom in the Community and Home)

Rabbi Loren Sykes, Camp Ramah Darom