32 | JUNE 11 • 2020 

W

ith schools closed, 
students of all ages 
have had to shift how 
they learn. Elementary students, 
especially, are struggling with 
productive engagement and the 
lack of the social connections.
However, Bloomfield Hills 
High School students Noah 
Yaker, 15, and Noah Roslin, 

16, devised a solution to help 

younger students and engage 
their peers in developing 
relationships. They call it Big 
Buddies of Bloomfield.
“The high school students 
were feeling lonely, so we 
couldn’
t imagine what it was 
like for the elementary school 
students,
” Roslin said. “This is a 
way to solve both problems and 

create a relationship between 
generations.
”
Big Buddies of Bloomfield 
pairs high school students with 
elementary school students to 
engage them in virtual educa-
tional activities, such as educ-
tional games, reading, home-
work, arts and crafts and more.
A majority of the “little bud-
dies” come from elementary 
schools through the Bloomfield 
school district, but their ser-
vices are open to any student in 
Michigan. Parents can register 
their children for a session 
by heading to Big Buddies of 
Bloomfield’
s website and filling 
out a registration form.
The form asks for basic infor-
mation about the parent, stu-
dent, the elementary school they 
attend, the student’
s learning tar-
gets and a space for information 
about the student’
s interests.
Roslin and Yaker pair up the 
students with a “big buddy” 
whom they feel would best con-
nect with the child. 

They currently serve 40-45 
little buddies and have rough-
ly 20-25 big buddies, who all 
attend Bloomfield Hills High. 
All sessions are conducted 
through Google Hangouts, via 
the parent’
s email. Parents can 
request a specific big buddy, if 
they either know the big buddy 
personally or feel a certain big 
buddy would be a good fit.
Big Buddies of Bloomfield 
sessions are free. Participants 
are encouraged to donate 
money to the United Way of 
Southeastern Michigan COVID-
19 Community Fund through 
the Big Buddies of Bloomfield 
website.
“We want everyone to be 
able to create a good dynamic 
and a lasting friendship, so that 
it continues long after the big 
buddy period ends,
” Yaker said. 
“
Additionally, we want students 
to continue to stay motivated 
during this time and make con-
nections.
” 

JEWISH LIVE continued from page 31

They describe jewishLIVE as 
“the Grand Central Station 
serving the new land of online 
Judaism.”
The portal, a digital Jewish 
Community Center of sorts, 
may remind some of the 
Jewish community’
s first portal 
on the internet when America 
Online (AOL) first launched 
with a Jewish community 
in cyberspace. jewishLIVE 
curates Zoom programming 
presented by organizations, 
summer camps, synagogues, 
JCCs, and youth groups, but 
it also offers Zoom rooms 
to individuals and organiza-
tions who want to produce 
live events but may not have 
enough Zoom capacity or the 
technical ability to do this on 
their own. 
“The website,” explained 
Libenson, “which we created 

very quickly, combines a cal-
endar of events with beaming 
from Star Trek because if you 
discover that something is hap-
pening right now, you can just 
go there in a single click.”
The group produces its own 
live events as well, working 
together with individuals 
and large organizations. 
“Thousands of people have 
participated in our programs,” 
Rofeberg said, “and we’
ve heard 
a great deal of feedback that 
we’
re helping people to learn 
and grow and connect during 
a time when so many of us are 
struggling to find meaning.”
While COVID-19 was the 
impetus for launching the 
website in March, Libenson 
and Rofeberg had envisioned 
the creation of a digital hub for 
Jewish programming for some 
time. “It had been more of a 

long-term vision, but a couple 
months ago, when COVID-19 
really ramped up and altered 
all of our lives, it became clear 
that it was imminent for some-
thing like that long-term vision 
to come to be much sooner 
than we had expected,” said 
Rofeberg.
The team has been pleased 
with the response to jewish-
LIVE so far and so have nation-
al leaders in the 
Jewish community. 
Rabbi Irwin Kula, 
president of Clal, 
an organization 
dedicated to bring-
ing Jewish wisdom 
to the public, said 
he applauds the jewishLIVE 
initiative because it is “aggre-
gating, curating and enabling 
access to high-quality live con-
tent on one trusted platform, 

which has long been necessary.”
As jewishLive continues to 
get funding to grow the website 
and add content, there’
s no 
doubt that it will live on once 
the Jewish community is able to 
return to a sense of normalcy. 
“What’
s clear to us is that the 
changes we have experienced 
are not going to be simply 
erased when social distancing 
wraps up,” Rofeberg said. “We 
are still going to need digital 
Jewish programming, and we 
are confident that many people 
who just found their way into 
the digital Jewish ecosystem for 
the first time will be excited to 
participate. Hopefully, many of 
them will create their own pro-
gramming.” 

Rabbi Jason Miller is a local educator 
and entrepreneur. He is president of 
Access Technology in West Bloomfield. 
Follow him on Twitter at @rabbijason.

Irwin Kula

COURTESY OF NOAH YAKER

Older teens and younger children pair up to provide 

students with social and educational tools.

CORRIE COLF STAFF WRITER

16, devised a solution to help
Noah Roslin and Noah Yaker, founders of Big Buddies of Bloomfield 

Big
Buddies
Bonding in
Bloomfield

Jews in the D

