Launched in early 2022, the Cohort-Based Experiences (CBE) Initiative – spearheaded by the Jim Joseph Foundation in collaboration with Maven Leadership Consulting – was developed based on the belief that cohort participation can lead to learning, connection, and enrichment that can ultimately contribute to employee retention within the Jewish communal sector. The Initiative was designed to: 1) unlock the power of cohort experiences; 2) understand the factors contributing to their success; and 3) explore ways to democratize and expand access to cohort experiences within the Jewish communal ecosystem.
The planning and implementation of the first phase of the Initiative (January 2022-July 2022), was documented by Meredith Woocher, PhD on behalf of Rosov Consulting. Documentation of the Aleph Cohorts demonstrated “the importance of momentum, trust, and reputation for cohorts to succeed.” Conversely, Woocher also observed that uncertainty about the future of the cohorts disrupted the momentum of trust and relationship building that contributes to the impact of the experience.
More than 120 Jewish professionals participated in 12 cohorts during the second phase of the initiative, which took place between October 2022 and May 2023. Based on lessons learned, the CBE team made several programmatic adjustments. A new model of recruitment was explored, which relied on crowdsourcing and self-identification. In addition, external facilitators were trained to lead the Bet Cohorts. The CBE team continued to support Aleph Cohorts’ professional development. Two Gimel Cohorts were also supported.
For the last four years, since soon after the launch of the Jim Joseph Foundation’s Professional Development Initiative (PDI), every 12 months Rosov Consulting has interviewed a sample of participants from each of the 10 grantee programs. These interviews have explored educators’ motivations for participating in the programs, what they experienced during the time they took part, what they gained from these experiences, and, finally, what program alumni perceive to have been the impact of these experiences on the trajectory of their professional careers.
Although the Professional Learning Community made up of participants in the PDI formally disbanded more than a year ago, the work of the evaluation team has continued. As planned, toward the end of 2021, the evaluation team returned for one last round of clinical interviews with alumni of the program, and over the last few months the team has continued to field the Shared Outcomes Survey to program participants, typically between two and six months after their programs concluded.
These deliverables show that the programs fulfilled their core goals:
Shared Outcomes Survey data indicate that, overall, the programs helped participants become much more knowledge about and more accomplished in performing the professional tasks for which they are responsible, what we called “ways of thinking and doing.”
Clinical interview data indicate that these professional outcomes have been quite durable, although with the passage of time interviewees found it increasingly difficult to draw causal links between what they know and can do today and what they gained from their programs.
Survey data also show that, taken together, the programs have socialized participants into professional communities that the participants very much value. Again, interview data depict how important these communities have been, especially since the start of the pandemic, and how, in the words of one interviewee, “relationships have become partnerships.”
Finally, survey data reveal the degree to which those program participants who started out with less intensive Jewish backgrounds have had an opportunity to grow and feel more confident as Jewish educators.
The evaluation work Rosov Consulting conducted has helped identify the features of high-quality professional development, both in conceptual terms and by means of thick accounts of how such features are formed and experienced (through five case studies).
Educator professional development initiatives are an integral part of the Jim Joseph Foundation’s strategic philanthropy. Following an open RFP in 2017 to create more professional development opportunities for educators, the Foundation invested in ten new programs. Since that initial investment, the Foundation has commissioned extensive research and evaluation conducted by Rosov Consulting to learn about these specific educator training programs and to more deeply understand other programs across the Foundation’s professional development initiatives portfolio.
Shared Outcomes Survey data indicate that, overall, the programs helped participants become much more knowledge about and more accomplished in performing the professional tasks for which they are responsible, what we called “ways of thinking and doing.”
Clinical interview data indicate that these professional outcomes have been quite durable, although with the passage of time interviewees found it increasingly difficult to draw causal links between what they know and can do today and what they gained from their programs.
Survey data also show that, taken together, the programs have socialized participants into professional communities that the participants very much value. Again, interview data depict how important these communities have been, especially since the start of the pandemic, and how, in the words of one interviewee, “relationships have become partnerships.”
Finally, survey data reveal the degree to which those program participants who started out with less intensive Jewish backgrounds have had an opportunity to grow and feel more confident as Jewish educators.
It has been more than ten years since the last systematic effort to collect data about the Jewish educator workforce; in some areas of Jewish education no large-scale data have ever been collected. The CASJE Career Trajectories of Jewish Educators Study was designed to provide usable knowledge about the recruitment, retention and development of Jewish educators. Beginning July 2021 CASJE released a series of reports and briefs highlighting findings from the study.
This study is animated by the belief that research-based knowledge is a critical resource in tackling complex problems in Jewish education. Insights generated through research can inform planning strategies for the field, guide philanthropic investment, and frame the design of well-conceived programmatic interventions. In this case the focus is on increasing the capacity to support Jewish educators at all stages of their careers.
CASJE identified ten key findings that are explained in greater detail (along with other findings) in the research reports:
Jewish educators are mission driven, love Jewish learning, and share an abiding commitment to serving others. For many, especially those who participate in university-based pre-service programs, this sense of mission is a source of resilience in overcoming challenges they face in the field.
The perceived low status of Jewish educators, the perceived parochial nature of Jewish educational settings, and limited or outdated perspectives on the kinds of work Jewish educators do, are barriers to enticing entrants to careers in Jewish education.
Almost half of current Jewish educators report entering the field in response to a job opportunity rather than proactively choosing to enter the field; fewer than half of new educators have participated in formal pre-service preparation.
In many sectors of Jewish education there is no clear career ladder for educators; often the only pathway to advancement is in taking on administrative work.
Continuous and high-quality professional development opportunities that correlate with improved outcomes for educators are not accessible to enough Jewish educators.
Although Jewish educators tend to report good relationships with supervisors, mentorship and support for ongoing professional development are generally viewed as inadequate.
Most Jewish educators are dissatisfied with the compensation and benefits they receive. Female respondents are typically paid less than their male peers, and early childhood education lags in salary and benefits.
The popular narrative of a personnel crisis in Jewish education is fueled by trends in the supplementary-school labor market. Programs such as camping or social justice and innovation report a large pool of talented candidates from which to recruit educators, while day schools and early childhood programs face somewhat tougher supply-side challenges.
There is a lively and growing market for independent providers of professional learning, in part driven by employers who do not demand formal degree completion or certification. Independent providers generally emphasize the personal growth of the educator and relationship building skills; degree-granting university based programs emphasize professional knowledge and technical skills.
The number of educators enrolled in degree-granting programs has increased during the last thirty years, a trend driven by growth in specialty programs and dependent on availability of philanthropic support.
An Invitation to Action: Findings and Implications across the Career Trajectories of Jewish Educators Study An Invitation to Action weaves together learnings from the previous strands and draws on the learnings produced to address the questions that have animated this work from its start. Summaries of the main findings from each strand can be found in the reports and briefs previously released. Here, researchers bring these findings into conversation with one another.
Mapping the Market: An Analysis of the Preparation, Support, and Employment of Jewish Educators Mapping the Market looks at the labor market for Jewish education in the United States, analyzing both supply-side and demand-side data to understand what employers look for in Jewish educators and how pre-service and professional development programs prepare educators to meet the needs of the learners and communities they serve.
On the Journey On the Journey is designed to elucidate the career pathways of Jewish educators, including their professional growth, compensation, workplace conditions and lived experiences. In 2019 CASJE published the white paper On the Journey: Concepts That Support a Study of the Professional Trajectories of Jewish Educators, which lays out the framework and key questions that underlie this inquiry and serves as a companion to these research briefs. On the Journey will be published as four research briefs that address career paths, professional learning, workplace environments, and compensation.
Preparing for Entry: Fresh Perspectives on How and Why People Become Jewish Educators Preparing for Entry is designed to understand the pathways by which people enter the field of Jewish education and identify factors that advance or inhibit launching a career in Jewish education. In 2020 CASJE published the white paper Preparing for Entry: Concepts That Support a Study of What It Takes to Launch a Career in Jewish Education, which lays out the framework and key questions that underlie this inquiry and serves as a companion to this report.
The words in the image on the left—among them “community,” “supportive,” “Talmud,” “queer,” “learning,” “teaching,” and “practice”—are a distillation of SVARA’s Teaching Kollel, a two-year, cohort-based learning and teacher training fellowship. The word cloud was created by SVARA, which asked the Teaching Fellows to share their hopes and expectations for the Kollel experience and the community they would build together. At the center is “place”—not really itself a descriptor of the Kollel, but rather a container for the evocative concepts that surround it in the word cloud and follow it in the text that generated the graphic. As they shared with each other, Fellows wish the Kollel to be:
A place to experiment
A place to have fun
A place to build skills and confidence
A place of growth and stretch
A place to be held in learning
A place of reciprocity
A place of friendship
A place where I (we) can frolic in text
A place to develop long term relationships with colleagues
A place of deep curiosity and co-nerding
A place where each of us can bring questions, doubts, challenges to think about together
A place to support each other in cultivating/practicing liberatory pedagogy and support/hold one another accountable in that practice
A place where each of us can show up as exactly who we are, and that will be enough
There is a particular poignancy in the prominence of “place” in these aspirations given that, like nearly all such programs, the Teaching Kollel became entirely virtual with the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. While SVARA did offer some pre-pandemic online programming, one of the unique impacts of its signature programs has long been the opportunity for participants to gather together with so many queer co-learners, often for the first time ever, and the joyous energy that created. This cohort of the Teaching Kollel experienced this in their Year One retreat and anticipated the same for Year Two. Having this opportunity taken away so unexpectedly was a profound disruption and disappointment.
In 2018, SVARA received funding along with nine other educator training programs from the Jim Joseph Foundation to create professional development opportunities. As part of the evaluation work for the initiative, Rosov Consulting is producing a series of case studies of the peak moments–some form of intensive, residential, or retreat component–of each program. This case study explores the aspirations and goals of SVARA’s Teaching Kollel, a two-year, cohort-based learning and teaching fellowship.
On a sunny morning in January 2020, the 19 participants in The Jewish Federations of North America’s Next Gen Jewish Federation Fellowship sit in a boardroom overlooking Leichtag Ranch just outside San Diego. They’re discussing the power and importance of productive conflict with their guest speaker, Chaya Gilboa. Gilboa deftly guides them through a Torah source to unpack the complexity and challenges of contemporary leadership in the Jewish world. Serendipitously, with the statement above, she illuminates both the ingenuity and complexity of the Next Gen program structure.
The Fellows, hailing from 17 Federations across North America, fill a variety of roles, typically intended to engage young adults like themselves in their local Federation communities. Most Fellows work in the areas of donor cultivation and relationship building. Others serve as direct engagement professionals, stewarding and encouraging their local Jewish community members to find and participate in Jewish experiences that make sense for them. The great majority have been Jewish communal professionals for more than five years and are participating in their first ever intensive cohort-based experience of professional development.
In 2018, JFNA received funding along with nine other educator training programs from the Jim Joseph Foundation to create professional development opportunities. As part of the evaluation work for the initiative, Rosov Consulting is producing a series of case studies of the peak moments–some form of intensive, residential, or retreat component–of each program. This fourth case study explores the Next Gen Fellowship, which was created to jumpstart innovation and leadership in the field of young adult Jewish engagement. The program functions as a kind of grand experiment. It is the first time JFNA has undertaken a professional development initiative of this scope, and its leaders have been ready to make mid-course corrections if needed, especially between one cohort and the next.
During summer and fall 2020, Rosov Consulting engaged in a multifaceted study of 13 Jewish adult learning and professional development programs that shifted their offerings online due to COVID-19 (nine are part of the Jim Joseph Foundation Professional Development Initiative, four are from other Jim Joseph Foundation grantees). In the first stage of our research, they interviewed program providers about the challenges they faced in moving to online learning, the positive “silver linings” of the virtual experience, and the longer-term impacts of reimagining how they do their work. In the second stage, they explored the experiences of and impacts on program participants through a survey of more than 1,600 participants and follow-up interviews with 14 of them.
The programs included both those specifically for educators and Jewish professionals as well as general adult Jewish learning open to all. Rosov Consulting sought to understand the personal and professional impacts of online learning; the strengths and limitations of the experience, particularly as compared to in-person learning; and what facilitates and impedes learning through virtual modalities.
View a webinar on these learnings hosted by Jewish Funders Network with Mark Horowitz of Jewish Community Centers of North America (JCCs), Meredith Woocher of Rosov Consulting, and Stacie Cherner of the Jim Joseph Foundation.
It’s May 2020. In North America, the COVID-19 pandemic has been wreaking havoc with people’s work and lives for almost three months. The participants in Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion’s Executive M.A. Program in Jewish Education are about to start a new course, the 10th in their two-year degree program. The program has a blended format, part online, part in person. This six-week course–XED 505 Jewish Historical Experience–is taught entirely online by Prof. Leah Hochman, an intellectual history professor at HUC-JIR who also teaches at the University of Southern California. As before every course, Hochman asks her students to complete a short survey about their prior experiences teaching or learning modern Jewish history. She checks what the students are curious about and whether they have any concerns about which they want her to be aware.
How this course–part academic exploration, part personal odyssey–touched the lives of its participants provokes questions about how Jewish educators might grow through academic and professional learning experiences, and toward what ends.
In 2018, HUC-JIR received funding along with nine other educator training programs from the Jim Joseph Foundation to create professional development opportunities. As part of the evaluation work for the initiative, Rosov Consulting is producing a series of case studies of the peak moments–some form of intensive, residential, or retreat component–of each program. This third case study explores HUC-JIR’s program.
CASJE is in the midst of a multipronged project to study the Recruitment, Retention, and Development of Jewish Educators (RRDOJE) in the United States. For the purposes of this study, Jewish educators are defined as individuals who work for pay, either part time or full
time, in an institutional setting geared to Jewish educational outcomes. Or, they’re self-employed individuals intending to achieve the same outcomes. They design and/or deliver experiences for the purpose of facilitating Jewish learning, engagement, connection, and
meaning through direct contact with participants.
The Preparing for Entry strand of this inquiry addresses a set of questions that will shed light on what it takes to launch a career in Jewish education and, in turn, what interventions might encourage promising candidates to seek and take up employment as Jewish educators.
These questions include: What attracts people, after they have completed a college degree or its equivalent, to work in the field of Jewish education? What deters them from the field? What pathways into the field are most likely to yield committed and qualified educators? And what might make the field more attractive to promising candidates?
In this paper, Rosov Consulting explores the central terms in this inquiry: What is a career? How different is someone’s perception and experience of their work when it is seen as part of a career rather than a job? What factors and forces are salient in shaping the desire to pursue a career, and specifically a career in Jewish education? What experiences and resources are understood to prepare individuals psychologically and materially to enter a field of work? What do we mean by deterrents and obstacles to pursuing a career?
Since its launch in 2016, M²: The Institute for Experiential Jewish Education has worked to advance, professionalize, and elevate the field of experiential Jewish education.
Many of M²’s signature programs bring cohorts of professionals together for many months to explore such concepts, the best known being their Senior Educators Cohort. In 2018, M2 received funding along with nine other educator training programs from the Jim Joseph Foundation to create professional development around “deep dives” into specific conceptual frameworks. The first was a Relational Learning Circle, for educators seeking to put relationship-building at the center of their work. After seeing this program’s success at engaging educators in bringing theory to their practice, M² decided to develop a Circle that would explore the application of other conceptual frameworks to Jewish education, as well as reach educators who might not have the ability to commit to a year-long program.
The Design of Immersive Experiences Circle consisted of three five-day seminars in March, May, and September 2019, offered as stand-alone experiences or in combination. Each drew upon a different field of knowledge to explore how educators can create and implement powerful immersive experiences, which M² defines as a “deliberately crafted educational experience where participants leave their home environment for a period lasting from two days to two months.”
As part of the evaluation work for the initiative, Rosov Consulting is producing a series of case studies of the peak moments–some form of intensive, residential, or retreat component–of each program. The second case study explores M²’s work in “The Architecture of Immersive Experiences.”
On behalf of the Jim Joseph Foundation, the Center for Creative Leadership is conducting a cross-portfolio research study of leadership development in the American Jewish community to support Jewish learning experiences. The Foundation defines Jewish learning experiences broadly as “experiences that draw upon Jewish wisdom, values, practices, culture, traditions and history to engage people in activities that guide them towards living more connected, meaningful and purpose-filled lives.” The primary research questions guiding this study can be paraphrased as follows:
How have Jewish leaders developed through opportunities and learning experiences?
What are best practices for leadership development in the Jewish community?
How can understanding the learning journeys of Jewish leaders and state of the art practices in leadership development inform strategies to achieve greater impact through investment in leadership development in the Jewish community?
This literature review represents our first step to exploring these complex questions by researching the distinguishing features of Jewish leadership and highlighting the current day challenges faced by Jewish leaders.
In 2017, the Foundation simultaneously awarded three-year grants to ten different programs offering professional development of Jewish educators. Selected in the Foundation’s first ever competitive RFP process, these programs form a grantee cohort with a Professional Learning Community at its heart. The educators served by these programs include Federation professionals, early childhood directors, day school educators, Talmud teachers, and peer educators.
A team from Rosov Consulting is facilitating the Professional Learning Community and is also evaluating multiple dimensions of the professional development initiative. Rosov Consulting is examining who is being recruited to the 10 programs and their motivations for participation; the ways in which different programs work to develop their participants; and how participants grow professionally, and the outcomes of this growth for their respective fields.
As part of the evaluation work for the initiative, Rosov Consulting is producing a series of case studies of the peak moments–some form of intensive, residential, or retreat component–of each program. The first case study is of the JCC Association Sheva Center for Leadership Institute (SCLI), an initiative intended to build a pipeline in the field of early childhood education of prepared leadership.
