We built Yid Lit Club to tackle two urgent needs:
1) As long-time educators, we've watched the decline in higher-level literacy among young people up close and in real time. We've been especially worried about it for the past 10 years. In July 2026, The Atlantic published a long-form essay, The End of Reading by Rose Horowitch, that covers the data and what's at stake; it's a comprehensive assessment that is well-worth reading. Horowitch mentions a research study out of Kansas about English majors trying to parse passages from Dickens' Bleak House: that study, published in 2024, was the direct inspiration for us to begin developing online courses that teach teens to read and enjoy non-contemporary, complex novels, using a structured, step-by-step process that uses creative writing and a text-based community experience as key pedagogical strategies. We piloted those courses in 2025, were thrilled with the results, and now offer them at niftylitclub.com.
2) As long-time (and deeply grateful) PJ Library parents, we've been tossing ideas around for years about what kind of programming could begin where PJ Our Way ends: how geographically-scattered, heterogeneous Jewish teens could be connected to great Jewish literature - and community - post-b'nei mitzvah, pre-college. The teen years can be a time of disconnection from Jewish community for the many Jewish teenagers who are not members of synagogue communities, do not live near a JCC, do not attend day school or camp, and/or do not have many Jewish peers locally. This disconnection occurs right when young people are particularly vulnerable to peer, media and social pressures.
In May 2025, we heard Dan Senor's State of World Jewry address, and we were inspired to put 1) and 2) together and figure out how we can be part of making substantive, meaningful Jewish programming accessible to kids who might otherwise slip through the cracks and lack connection with Jewish culture and community during the critical teen years.
Yid Lit Club is the result. Our unique courses offer a tight-knit cohort experience that connects young people to Jewish literature and to each other. No video chats, no selfies - our cohorts are text-based, so students actively write to connect, joke, share and collaborate. The course format, as well as our structured writing curriculum, increases student writing capacity; discussing each week's reading with peers helps students get through challenging books they might otherwise abandon partway through. Each book and each piece of writing builds confidence, capacity, skills and attention span for the next. And with each book, students gain cultural literacy, historical knowledge, and above all, the capacity to engage with complex texts directly - rather than relying on videos, summaries, and other online content for information, narrative, and perspective. We believe those skills are absolutely crucial now and in the years ahead. At a time when the average junior high school student spends 4.5 hours a day on social media, our students graduate as full and capable participants in the great literary conversation across time and space: as engaged readers, and as a new generation of writers, with published work and impressive portfolios.
We are especially committed to welcoming Jewish teens from rural areas, from interfaith or non-religious families, who lack local community, or who don't have the financial resources to access summer camp or other programming. We welcome any student who knows themselves to be Jewish. No student is turned away from Yid Lit Club courses for lack of funds; for students who cannot pay tuition, we are pleased to offer the Almagor scholarship. This scholarship is provided in honor of Darren's parents, Mike and Rina Alexander, of blessed memory. More information can be found in our course listings.
Thank you for taking the time to learn about Yid Lit Club. Take a look at our courses, learn about why we are uniquely suited to this work, and if you have any questions, please write to us at yidlitclub@gmail.com, and we'll get back to you shortly.
-Darren and Suzanne Alexander
