Generation Now: Understanding and Engaging Jewish Teens Today

In 2013, the Jim Joseph Foundation commissioned the report Effective Strategies for Educating and Engaging Jewish Teens. In that report, nine key implications for strategic development regarding Jewish teen education and engagement emerged. These implications provided a good baseline for The Jewish Education Project’s understanding of necessary factors to build programs that engage more Jewish teens in meaningful Jewish life. Following the release of Effective Strategies, the Jim Joseph Foundation began to partner with funders in ten communities to significantly invest further in Jewish teen engagement. The Jewish Education Project has run the National Incubator that has been working closely with these communities, known collectively as the Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative, as they design their respective teen initiatives.

Generation Now: Understanding and Engaging Jewish Teens Today — commissioned by the Jim Joseph Foundation, Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah, and The Marcus Foundation—builds on the past and is the result of new research in Jewish teen education and engagement. Funders in the Teen Collaborative identified a need to define shared outcomes in order to pursue their common goals and to effectively aggregate and compare evaluation findings. While this research was intended only to lead to the development of outcomes in this space, it yielded insights that can guide and inform Jewish teen education and engagement more broadly, and can be used by those in the Collaborative as well as others. Generation Now details insights about Jewish teens—from their interests, to their fears, to what brings them meaning in life—along with shared outcomes, indicators, and measurement tools that will gauge Jewish education and engagement among teens participating in Jewish experiences.

Generation Now: Understanding and Engaging Jewish Teens Today, April 2016

Effective Strategies for Education and Engaging Jewish Teens, February 2013