Learning & Resources Category: Research

An Experiment in Learning Two New Languages: JFNA’s Next Gen Jewish Federation 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.

“An Experiment in Learning Two New Languages: JFNA’s Next Gen Jewish Federation Fellowship,” Rosov Consulting, January 2021

 

Virtually Developing: Exploring the Potential and Pitfalls of Online Professional Development and Adult Learning

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.

“Virtually Developing: Exploring the Potential and Pitfalls of Online Professional Development and Adult Learning” (executive summary), Rosov Consulting, January 2021

“Virtually Developing: Exploring the Potential and Pitfalls of Online Professional Development and Adult Learning” (full report), Rosov Consulting, January 2021

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. 

Forged by Jewish Historical Experience: The Study of Jewish History as a Crucible for Jewish Professional Learning

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.

“Forged by Jewish Historical Experience: The Study of Jewish History as a Crucible for Jewish Professional Learning,” Rosov Consulting, October 2020

 

Facing the Future: Mapping the Marketplace of Jewish Education During COVID-19

The “Mapping the Market” (MTM) strand of CASJE’s study of Recruitment, Retention and Development of Jewish Educators (RRDoJE) was conceived with the goal of shedding light on the Jewish education marketplace. MTM planned to document what job opportunities exist in Jewish education, what skills and aptitudes employers across various sectors seek in the Jewish educators they hire, and the ways in which individuals who function as Jewish educators are prepared for and nurtured to work effectively in the field.

The early stages of work on MTM have provided an opportunity to learn how certain sectors of Jewish education have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Hiring practices serve as a barometer of institutional health, and this is certainly true at the present moment: they shed light on what employers seek to achieve at a given point in time, what demand they anticipate for their services and products, and what help they expect their staff will need in order to succeed.

During July and August 2020, Rosov Consulting conducted focus groups with 75 individuals responsible for hiring Jewish educators in sectors whose primary function is to provide either formal Jewish education or informal/experiential Jewish education (RRDoJE’s Sectors 1 and 2); the sample included heads of day schools, early childhood directors, educational directors at congregations, directors of overnight and day camps, JCC directors, directors of youth-serving organizations, and Hillel directors. Rosov Consulting also spoke with three informants well placed to observe the labor market in some of these sectors. During the course of these focus groups and interviews, the researchers explored the extent to which and the ways in which hiring needs and hiring practices had been impacted by COVID-19. Exploring the marketplace for Jewish educators, Rosov Consulting opened a window on the current state of the broader landscape of Jewish education. This interim report shares what was learned.

Facing the Future: Mapping the Marketplace of Jewish Education During COVID-19, CASJE and Rosov Consulting, November 2020

Insights from CASE and Rosov Consulting based on the research:

“A Beautiful Story of the Human Experience”: Two JoC Researchers Dive into the Community and Find Meaning in Multiplicity

This research recap was originally posted by the Jews of Color Initiative.

As a Jew of Color, have you ever felt you needed to affirm your Jewish identity or convince other people that you are, indeed, Jewish? Unfortunately, most JoCs have. A new research study, directed by two scholars who are themselves Jews of Color, is tackling these very issues, shining light on an under-researched phenomenon in our community. 

The researchers, Philip Pettis, a doctoral candidate at Vanderbilt University, and Dr. Elizabeth Webster, an independent scholar, are speaking with Jews of Color of different racial groups, age, gender, and method of arriving at a Jewish identity (such as birth or conversion).  

Pettis and Webster are focused on understanding how Jews of Color experience identity not only through internal understandings of oneself but in relation to other people. The social scientific term for this is reflected appraisals. “You can develop an identity yourself, or you can develop an identity in response to others’ perceptions of you,” Pettis said in defining the term.  

Reflected appraisals are not something only Jews of Color experience; as social beings, many use this process to make sense of who they are and how they relate to others. But there are unique experiences for Jews of Color, particularly when faced with such dominating assumptions about who Jews are and what Jews look like.  

Pettis said that the identity work of Jews of Color is further complicated by the fact that Jewishness is overall a highly contested category. “There is constant contestation over what it means to be a Jew, not just Jews of Color but among Jews more broadly,” he said, referencing debates over intermarriage or who should be “let in” to the community. He argued that this complicated social context may place even more pressure on Jews of Color to affirm their Jewish identity. 

Pettis and Webster have documented some of the ways Jews of Color work to affirm their Jewishness, including the use of Jewish symbols, and the way they encourage others to view Jewish peoplehood. Their research shows that Jews of Color may have heightened drive to use Jewish symbols, such as a Magen David (Star of David), to visually denote that they are Jews in a society that assumes Jews look like white Ashkenazim. Another way Jews of Color in their study are challenging dominant assumptions about who Jews are is through “recasting the Jewish narrative,” reminding others that Jews of Color are far from unusual at the global level.  

Perhaps another way that JoC identity is influenced by perceptions of others can be found in the terminology we use to describe the community. Pettis and Webster also have found among their participants—and indeed in their own experiences—that even the term “Jew of Color” does not resonate with all who are defined by this term.  

Pettis, who is self-described as an Afro-Caribbean American Jew shared, “I don’t identity myself as a Jew of Color. I identify myself as a Jew. And ‘Jew of Color’ is something that has been imposed on me as a response to difference.” He said that in the pursuit of this study, the voices of participants pushed him and Webster to constantly revisit the question about how to define the group we often call Jews of Color. “Is it ‘Jews of Color,’ or is it ‘racialized Jews’?” he asked. He explained that in some ways the term Jews of Color re-establishes whiteness as the “normal” way to be Jewish.  

Webster argued that the term Jews of Color also comes from the way whiteness is upheld among white Jews. She explained that to maintain standing within whiteness, white Jews affirm barriers between themselves and those who cannot fit into whiteness. Webster explained the train of thought that is used among white Jews: “If you’re not white, then what are you? You’re a Jew of Color.” The more that white Jews have been included in whiteness, the more they have been socially incentivized and rewarded—whether explicitly or implicitly—for holding up barriers between themselves and people of color, including other Jews.  

Webster also pointed out that the assumptions of who Jews are and what we look like have created a whole “community that has been shut out.” “We need to have a wider definition of who is a Jew, and that definition cannot be based on saying ‘you don’t look like a Jew’.” 

Both Pettis and Webster spoke to the need for a reimagining of who the Jewish people are that is not so tied to political and economic histories which (eventually) cast (white) Jews as white. Webster said that this reimagining is something the collective Jewish community, as a multiracial people, must claim. “We’re in a time and a place now where it’s time to start saying this is who we are. This is what it is to be Jewish. This is who Jewish is. This is what Jewish looks like. We’re just like every other sector of society. We come in all different shapes, sizes, and colors.”  

As Pettis and Webster continue their research, they are constantly reminded of the multitude of identities and experiences that can be found in the JoC community. “Not every Jew of Color has the same story,” Pettis said. While JoCs know this firsthand, Pettis is aware that this is a much-needed reminder to others.  

JoCs are too often expected to explain their identities or existence. “[The study] is a beautiful story of the human experience. People have been marginalized and oftentimes left out of spaces, and because they’ve been left out of spaces, they’re constantly engaging in these taxing fights to be recognized in the community that they consider to be their own,” Pettis asserted. 

But perhaps the most important reminders Pettis and Webster shared were those that spoke directly to JoCs.  

“It’s okay to be different,” Pettis stated. “It’s okay to have a multiplicity of identities without any of them having to be ‘right.’ It’s okay to be Dominican and Black and Jewish, without those having an order.”  

Webster shared similar sentiments, reminding JoCs that, even in the face of unequal standards, they are undoubtedly Jewish. “I would want to convey to all my brothers and sisters who are Jewish who happen to be people of color: it’s okay to just be. You don’t have to be fluent in Hebrew, you don’t have to know all the passages in the Torah, you don’t have to run back into the house to put on your Jewish symbols, you don’t have to speak Yiddish. You can just be Jewish and that’s okay. You’re Jewish no matter what, and it’s okay to just be. And that lifts an incredible burden off a lot of people in our community, I think.” 

Pettis made a point of clarifying that they are not trying to undo but rather expand definitions of our people. “We are not pushing back against definitions of Jewishness, but we are hoping to expand them so that people don’t have to feel like ‘I’m not Jewish unless I do this.’ I’m personally very religious so it’s not like I’m saying get rid of all the laws, it’s just opening the space for greater conversation.”  

Zooming Toward the Future: The Challenges, Strategies, and Opportunities of Distance Learning

To help the Jim Joseph Foundation and the field better understand how pivoting to distance learning has unfolded for Jewish education and professional development organizations, Rosov Consulting interviewed nine program providers from the Jim Joseph Foundation Professional Development Initiative (PDI) cohort, along with five other Foundation grantees that operate in overlapping fields. The interviews explored the initial choices organizations made and how those choices evolved over time. We investigated the challenges that programs faced when moving online, whether and how they were able to address those challenges, the positive “silver linings” of being forced to reimagine how they do their work, and which dimensions might continue once people can gather in person again.

This report synthesizes the key themes we heard in these conversations, categorized into the challenges programs have faced in the pivot to distance learning, the strategies to overcome them that have proved most effective, and the opportunities (both predictable and surprising) that have emerged from the crisis. We conclude by sharing organizational leaders’ perspectives on how they envision the “new normal” in a post-COVID world.

Zooming Toward the Future: The Challenges, Strategies, and Opportunities of Distance Learning, Rosov Consulting, September 2020

Virtual Engagement Research

Supported by the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Foundation and Jim Joseph Foundation, the Benenson Strategy Group surveyed 1,001 American Jews nationwide, ages 18-40, from June 29 – July 15, 2020. The research objectives of this projects were to:

  • Assess how Jewish young adults are responding to the ongoing pandemic and how they are engaging (or not engaging) with virtual programming from organizations right now.
  • Understand what kinds of virtual programming Jewish young adults are seeking out right now, and why: what appeals to them about certain programs and/or organizations, what kind of needs they fill, and what it is about a program that makes it worthwhile or meaningful.
  • Identify how organizations can enhance and expand virtual Jewish programming to best meet the needs of young Jews today.

Virtual Engagement Research, Benenson Strategy Group, August 2020

Access the data files to Virtual Engagement Research from the Berman Jewish Databank

Read Emotion Before Content: Evidence Based Recommendations for Designing Virtual Jewish Engagement, by Rella Kaplowitz, Stacie Cherner, and Lisa Narodick Colton, in eJewish Philanthropy

Has Remote Learning Set Back Jewish Day School Students?

In July 2020, 16 Jewish day high schools fielded a survey to their students about their experience of remote learning since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey was developed with support from the Government of Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs as part of work for Unit.Ed—a day school initiative in Europe and Latin America. It was originally fielded in Jewish communities such as Milan, Paris, and Buenos Aires. Subsequently, it was slightly modified for students in North America. North American data were collected and analyzed by Rosov Consulting with the support of the Foundation and in partnership with Prizmah: Center for Jewish Day Schools. After data analysis was complete, interviews were conducted with school leaders at the schools whose students had responded most positively in order to learn about their educational practices during this period.

This bulletin focuses on student responses to the question: “Do you feel that remote learning has set your education back in some way?” Possible responses, on a four-point scale, were: “Not at all,” “A little,” “Somewhat,” and “Very much.” Students were asked to explain their responses to this question in their own words; 1,112 did so.

In total, 1,383 students responded to the North American survey. All of these respondents were enrolled in 9th through 12th grade during the 2019–2020 academic year. Ten of the participating schools are Modern Orthodox; six are Community or Conservative high schools.

Has Remote Learning Set Back Jewish Day School Students?, Rosov Consulting, August 2020

Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative Case Study and Evaluation

Starting in 2013, when the Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative came into existence, the Jim Joseph Foundation along with 10 local funders and 4 national funders came together to make a noticeable difference to the outcomes achieved by Jewish teen education and engagement. Coinvesting with the  Foundation, each of the 10 communities crafted local initiatives, while the full group identified measures of success and hired an evaluation firm to assess the extent to which those measures were being achieved.

These two documents from Rosov Consulting—a case study of the Funder Collaborative and a cross-community evaluation report—offer deep insights and learnings about the structure, challenges, and successes of a Collaborative and about the efficacy of efforts in Jewish teen education and engagement.

  1. Signs Along the Way: A Funder Collaborative Assesses its Influence. This final case study covers a three-year period roughly from November 2016 through the end of 2019 and attempts to answer the questions posed by the final phase in the trajectory of a funder collaborative: How might the Funder Collaborative begin to assess its impact in the field of teen engagement and how, if at all, are ideas spreading between and beyond the work of the funders?
  2. Cross-Community Evaluation for the Funder Collaborative. The evaluation presents findings of work completed during the 2018–2019 program year and homes in on those findings most ripe for appreciation and action. There is a strong correlation between teens’ connection to Jewish values and the influence those values have on the lives teens choose to lead. Substantive Jewish content creates a sense of belonging, a desire to do good in the world, and a platform for teens to build friendships—these peer relationships also contribute to strong Jewish outcomes overall. The report concludes with recommendations applicable beyond the 10 community-based teen initiatives, informing any organization committed to effective teen programs, professional development for youth professionals, and affordability of programs for parents.

 

Let’s Stop Calling it “Hebrew School”: Rationales, Goals, and Practices of Hebrew Education in Part-time Jewish Schools

This CASJE-supported study investigated how Hebrew is taught and perceived at American part-time Jewish schools (also known as supplementary schools, religious schools, and Hebrew schools). Phase 1 consisted of a survey of 519 school directors around the United States, focusing on rationales, goals, teaching methods, curricula, and teacher selection. Phase 2 involved brief classroom observations at 12 schools and stakeholder surveys (376 total) at 8 schools with diverse approaches. These observations and stakeholder surveys were intended to determine how teachers teach, use, and discuss Hebrew; how students respond; how students, parents, clergy, and teachers perceive their program; and these constituencies’ rationales and goals for Hebrew education.

Here are some of the study’s key findings:

  • Most schools emphasize decoding (sounding out letters to form words) and recitation of Liturgical and Biblical Hebrew without comprehension for the purpose of ritual participation. Many schools also incorporate some Modern Hebrew, but only a small percentage teach Modern Hebrew conversation through immersive teaching techniques.
  • In addition, most schools practice Hebrew infusion—the incorporation of Hebrew words, songs, and signs into the primarily English environment. The (unstated) goal of infusion is to foster a metalinguistic community of Jews who value Hebrew. This is reflected in the high importance of affective goals—such as associating Hebrew with Jewishness and feeling personally connected to Hebrew—for all constituencies, especially school directors.
  • A major challenge in Hebrew education is the small number of “contact hours” that most schools have with their students. On average, schools spend 3.9 hours per week with 6th graders, including 1.7 hours on Hebrew. Multiple stakeholders consider this limited time the most significant challenge. Even schools on the high end of contact hours wish they had more time.
  • School directors, clergy, teachers, parents, and students have diverse rationales and goals for Hebrew education, which at times can create tensions. School directors believe parents are only or primarily interested in bar/bat mitzvah preparation. This is true for many parents, but some parents also have other goals for their children, including gaining conversational Hebrew skills. Parents and students value Hebrew for reasons besides bar/bat mitzvah more than school directors and clergy expect them to.
  • School directors express less interest in some Modern Hebrew-related goals than do parents and other constituents. Perhaps this reflects school directors’ more realistic sense of what is possible with limited contact hours.
  • Students generally express positive feelings about their school and learning Hebrew. Their responses suggest that schools are generally succeeding in affective goals more than school directors believe.
  • School directors are more likely to feel they are accomplishing goals that are important to them when certain factors are present: when they have been in their positions longer, when they have realistic goals based on the contact hours they have, when their schools do much of their Hebrew learning in small groups, and when their schools assign a small amount of homework.
  • Many schools have trouble finding teachers with sufficient Hebrew knowledge, as well as teachers with adequate pedagogical skills for teaching Hebrew.
  • Schools are making changes in opposite directions. Some schools are adding more Modern Hebrew instruction; others are shifting their focus solely to Textual Hebrew.
  • Hebrew Through Movement and other elements of #OnwardHebrew have become popular. Many school directors consider these approaches successful.
  • Online Hebrew learning is gaining some traction. Online options include gamified activities and one-on-one Skype/FaceTime tutoring sessions (this study was conducted prior to the COVID-19 pandemic). School directors generally feel that these individualized and technologically based approaches are effective.
  • Many school directors and teachers are not aware of the resources for Hebrew education in part-time Jewish schools.

Based on these findings, researchers recommend several actions for schools to take:

  • Initiate a comprehensive process of collaborative visioning regarding rationales, goals, and practices involving teachers, clergy, parents, and students.
  • Make explicit the primacy of affective goals and expand Hebrew infusion practices to accomplish those goals.
  • To teach decoding, spend less class time in large groups and more time in one-on-one and small-group configurations.
  • With parent buy-in, offer a small amount of gamified homework.
  • Offer multiple tracks or an enrichment option for families interested in conversational Hebrew.
  • Change the informal nomenclature to stop using the misnomer “Hebrew school,” except where Hebrew language proficiency is the primary focus.

View the full report, Let’s Stop Calling it “Hebrew School”: Rationales, Goals, and Practices of Hebrew Education in Part-time Jewish Schools and an infographic on the key findings.

Preparing for Entry: Concepts That Support a Study of What It Takes to Launch a Career in Jewish Education

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?

Preparing for Entry: Concepts That Support a Study of What It Takes to Launch a Career in Jewish Education, Prepared by Rosov Consulting; Principal Investigator Michael J. Feuer, Dean, Graduate School of Education and Human Development, The George Washington University; CASJE June 2020

 

Unlocking the Future of Jewish Engagement

Research on the American Jewish population in recent years has measured everything from educational attainment to religious composition, attitudes toward the elderly, views on Israel, geographic dispersal, and political persuasion. Yet, studies to date have not deeply explored the nation’s Jewish young adult population.

Increasingly, young American Jews are being recognized as an independent group within the larger American Jewish community—one that engages with being Jewish in ways that differ from previous generations. Approaches to research, however, have not been updated to reflect that this cohort engages with being Jewish differently. As a result, young American Jews’ attitudes and behaviors are not adequately reflected in research that is based on more long-standing metrics related to ritual and religion. Just what these young people make of their Jewish upbringing and values, and how they self-identify, requires further exploration.

Seeking to fill these gaps and to provide a comprehensive and multi-faceted view of Jewish young adults, a consortium of Jewish philanthropies commissioned Atlantic 57 to conduct a rigorous study of Jewish young adults across the United States. For the purposes of this research, young adults were included in the study if they self-identified as Jewish in any way. By focusing on self-prescribed definitions of being Jewish rather than external measures of such identification, this study allows for a nuanced approach to understanding Jewish engagement. It also challenges definitions of what it means to be Jewish today.

The aim of this research is to provide practitioners and philanthropies with rich context on what being Jewish means to these young adults and on how they engage or aspire to engage in Jewish life. This research does not aim to assess the effectiveness of specific programs on Jewish engagement or to make a value judgment about right and wrong ways to be Jewish.

This research was funded by the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, Genesis Philanthropy Group, Jim Joseph Foundation, and Maimonides Fund.

Unlocking the Future of Jewish Engagement, Atlantic 57, March 2020 

Access the data files to Unlocking the Future of Jewish Engagement from the Berman Jewish Databank.