Abigail Lieber is a graduate of the Civic Spirit program and of Central / Yeshiva High School for Girls (2019). She is spending the year studying in Israel and will be attending Hunter College in the Fall of 2020.
Decreased pride in our country has been rampant. Citizens of the United States are increasingly being less supportive and ungrateful to America.
I feel that this is the issue of most concern in our country, because wherever in the world you are living, you should show respect and be appreciative. America is an incredible country that grants an innumerable amount of rights and freedoms, and we should feel privileged to live here. In other nations, freedom of speech, religion, and expression are not a given. As a proud 4th generation American, coming from a family that escaped religious persecution, I am forever grateful to the incredible country we live in.
For this reason, I am working with an organization called Civic Spirit. Civic Spirit is a coalition of Yeshiva day schools and private Catholic schools with the goal of increasing civic education and awareness. In our respective schools, we ran programming that fostered more understanding about our country and why we should be grateful to live here. In addition, all the schools gathered together on Civic Spirit Day to work on projects relating to current civic problems in America. I could see that after working with Civic Spirit, my peers and I had a whole new outlook on what it means to be an American. I believe that if more students are educated about the reasons to have pride in America this will cultivate a more united country in our future.
