News & Blogs Category: Featured Partner

Jews of Color in the U.S. are a growing population but have been systematically undercounted in decades of American Jewish population studies, claims a new report by the Jews of Color Field Building Initiative, The Concentration in Education and Jewish Studies at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, and the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice at the University of San Francisco. Researchers of the report, Counting Inconsistencies: An Analysis of American Jewish Population Studies, with a Focus on Jews of Color, drew this conclusion after examining data from 25 national or local population studies, and the survey strategies deployed to collect it.

Given inconsistencies in how population studies have been conducted, researchers can, at best, make only an educated guess about the population of Jews of Color in the United States.

• Based on the three most comprehensive data sets available (the 2013–2019 American Jewish Population Project, the 2011 New York Community Study, and the 2017 San Francisco Bay Area Community Study) researchers estimate that Jews of Color represent at least 12-15% of American Jews, or about 1,000,000 of the United States’ 7,200,000 Jews.
• More younger people identify as nonwhite than older people do. With cohort replacement, this means that the future of American Jewry is racially diverse.
• Even with data that undercounts Jews of Color, as younger, more racially and ethnically diverse cohorts replace older, more homogeneous ones, our understanding of the basic racial and ethnic makeup of the American Jewish community will change.

Everyone in the Jewish community, but especially the community’s leaders and organizers, must understand the full and diverse picture of the American Jewish population today. Our community is changing and evolving in many ways, including its racial composition. This change should have a deep influence in how we think about resource allocation, programming, outreach efforts and more. – Ilana Kaufman,  Director of the Jews of Color Field Building Initiative.

Counting Inconsistencies notes that at a minimum, more than 20 percent of “Jewish households” include people who identify as nonwhite. If the population trends along the same lines as the U.S. Census, then some decades from now Jews of Color will become the majority of U.S. Jews. Yet, American Jewish Population Surveys have largely neglected to systematically and consistently ask about the racial and ethnic identities of U.S. Jews, resulting in a dearth of information about the composition and size of the population of Jews of Color. By extension, Jews of Color have been omitted from Jewish communal life, due in part to the socially constructed notion that the vast majority of American Jews identify as “white.”

There simply is no guiding principle that researchers used in these population studies with respect to accurately asking about and subsequently counting Jews of Color. As more American Jews identify as non-white, the survey inconsistencies and lack of clarity in this area becomes a more critical problem that needs to be appropriately addressed. – Dr. Ari Kelman of Stanford University and the lead researcher of Counting Inconsistencies.

Some previous Jewish population surveys did not ask about race or ethnicity at all. Other survey designs sampled respondents in ways that likely result in undercounting Jews of Color, including sampling “distinctive Jewish names,” relying heavily on Jewish community lists, and/or only including “Jews by religion.” And some survey questions inconsistently inquired about race and ethnicity. Sometimes, both questions and responses confuse family origin, racial, ethnic, national, and even denominational identities.

Even with past survey issues, we have a picture now of what the American Jewish community will look like over the next several decades. The simple fact is we will be more diverse than ever. How are we going to welcome in and engage people from different backgrounds, interests, and experiences? Those are the big questions facing our community. – Ilana Kaufman

Counting Inconsistencies includes a set of recommendations for future research to follow to ensure more accurate counting of Jews of Color, including using more racially inclusive, sensitive sampling strategies and frames that do not rely significantly on self-identified “Jews by Religion,” “Distinctive Jewish Names,” and/or community organization affiliations; partnering with other regions or organizations to, as teams, develop language for racial identity questions; and developing consistency across survey question language reflecting best practices and how Jews of Color identify rather than how researchers identify Jews of Color; among other recommendations.

Kaufman shared the findings in Washington, DC at the Religious Action Center 2019 Consultation on Conscience, and at the UJA-Federation of New York. She will share them June 6 at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, and June 26 via a webinar with Dr. Ari Kelman.

Along with Dr. Kelman, researchers included Dr. Aaron Hahn Tapper, University of San Francisco; Ms. Izabel Fonseca, Stanford University; and Dr. Aliya Saperstein, Stanford University.

This research is the result of a partnership between The Jews of Color Field Building Initiative, The Concentration in Education and Jewish Studies at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, and the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice at the University of San Francisco. The Jews of Color Field Building Initiative is funded by the Leichtag Foundation, the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, the Jim Joseph Foundation, the One8 Foundation, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, and the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation. The study was supported by the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation.

Counting Inconsistencies is a meta-study that examined 15 local and community studies (Los Angeles 1997, Seattle 2000, Phoenix 2002, Atlanta 2006, Denver Boulder 2007, Philadelphia 2009, Chicago 2010, Cleveland 2011, New York 2011, Miami 2014, Boston 2015, Pittsburgh 2017, SF Bay Area 2017, and Washington DC 2017); seven national population studies (National Jewish Population Study (NJPS) 1970, NJPS 1990, National Survey of Religious Identity 1990, NJPS 2000, Heritage and Religious Identification 2002, Pew Research Center Survey of U.S. Jews 2013, and the American Jewish Population Project), and four population specific studies (Generation Now, Generation Next, Jewish Futures Project, and Hillel International Research on College Students.)

For individuals working in Jewish organizations in the U.S. and Canada, JPRO is the leading professional association working to ensure that the field attracts, develops, and retains the talent needed to thrive. JPRO Network maximizes the potential of the 80,000 professionals who are a part of this field, nurturing, sustaining, and developing them so that Jewish engagement and education efforts fieldwide are elevated. Every Jewish communal enterprise depends on highly motivated, well-trained professionals who feel valued and are positioned to do excellent work.

The JPRO WellAdvised program is an amazing opportunity to connect with a person who is thoughtful and dedicated to work in our field with a perspective different than that of the people with whom we directly work. The hour can jump-start a new idea or reinvigorate the energy dedicated to an existing endeavor.
– JPRO WellAdvised participant

This August, JPRO19: What Connects Us—the seminal conference for hundreds of Jewish communal professionals—will be a catalyst to connect and to reimagine what thriving Jewish institutions will look like, who will lead them, and what impact they will collectively have on the world in the 21st Century. Along with networking and learning opportunities, skill-building workshops and master classes, and immersive experiences throughout Detroit, JPRO19 will feature four themes of great relevance and interest to professionals in the field: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; Building Resilient Communities; Designing Workplaces for the Future; and Civil Discourse in Complex Times.

The session was incredibly insightful. It will help me change the way I manage both myself and my team; and thereby will help increase our effectiveness and impact. It was wonderful to be in a room with colleagues from across the Jewish organizational world. And the facilitator was herself so amazing; on top of the content she modeled some excellent facilitation techniques.
– Participant in JPRO Management course in New York

In the spirit of a network that shares knowledge, the conference’s Steal This Stage* (supported by The AVI CHAI Foundation and UpStart) will highlight some of the biggest ideas and boldest work coming from Jewish institutions and communities across North America. Each presenter will have up to 5 minutes to present their “big idea.” At the conclusion of the conference, all JPRO19 attendees will get access to the ideas so they can be “stolen” and implemented within their organizations or community. Do you have a big idea or innovation that you want to share with your colleagues? Tell JPRO about it here by May 17—you might be selected to share it on the Steal This Stage during JPRO19 in Detroit.  

Building on the network’s 120-year history, JPRO19 is indicative of its continued growth. Over the last 18 months, JPRO expanded programming and strengthened its organization. New programs such as WellAdvised and JPRO Master Classes exceeded projections and generated enthusiastic feedback. The number of JPRO affiliated organizations—those who have joined the network and thereby extended membership to their employees—has nearly tripled, from 95 to more than 250, and JPRO has surpassed 5,000 affiliated staff members. The future of Jewish communities relies on vibrant institutions — and on the talented, dedicated professionals who build and sustain them. JPRO is a key part of this support system, advancing connection across communities, organization sizes and types, professional roles, generations, and the diverse identities and backgrounds of professionals, strengthening the connective tissue of the sector as a whole.

* The Steal This concept was “stolen” from 100Kin10, a network preparing 100,000 excellent science, tech, engineering, and math teachers in the US by 2021 and addressing the underlying reasons for the STEM teacher shortage.

The William Davidson Foundation is supporting this year’s conference. JPRO is partnering with the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit to bring JPRO19 to Detroit. The Jim Joseph Foundation, the Max and Marjorie Fisher Foundation, and many others are also supporting JPRO19.

Through a year-long learning training program from Makom, Moishe House residents and Moishe House Without Walls (MHWOW) hosts are bringing engaging Israel programing to their peers. Makom’s 4HQ program takes the penultimate line of Hatikvah—To Be | A People | Free | In Our Land—and adapts it to four question areas that address the ongoing creative tension between 1) security, 2) Jewish Peoplehood, 3) democracy, and 4) the Land of Israel. The result is that a topic, Israel, that once was avoided for programming at Moishe Houses, is now discussed, debated, and appreciated in its full complexity.

It feels like this whole approach to digging deeper into Israel programming, and having the hard conversations, could be applied to all our Moishe House programming.
– Member of 4HQ Cohort 1

The 4HQ cohort of residents and hosts engage in webinars, in-person gatherings, 1-on-1 mentoring sessions to dive deeper into what they’re learning, and one weeklong trip through Israel. All of these platforms are vehicles to explore the social, historical, and political landscape of Israel from a multitude of perspectives. The trip to Israel, for example, showcases the beauty of Israel, gives space to grapple with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, offers meetings with Palestinians and Jews living over the green line, enables discussions with ultra-Orthodox Jews, provides experiences in cutting-edge civil discourse initiatives, and more. This reflects Makom’s goal not just to teach Moishe House leaders how to engage others with Israel, but to teach these leaders Israel content as well. In the second cohort, scheduled to begin this summer, Makom will roll out a unique Israel 101 Quiz intended to help participants set learning goals, while learning more about the history and culture of Israel.

As the training progresses, cohort participants gain the knowledge, skills and confidence to create and facilitate meaningful, practical, real-life Moishe House programs about Israel with their peers—for which they receive microgrants from Makom.

A spoken-word performance, reflecting on the experience of engaging with Israel

Around the country, Moishe Houses and young adults are finding that Israel programming can inspire deep engagement, excitement, and interest. When approached through the 4HQ framework, young adults of various backgrounds and perspectives come together, respect each other, and dive into Israel. Based on the success of the first 4HQ Moishe House cohort, Moishe House and Makom have begun reviewing more applications for cohort 2. More program and application details are available here.

Take part in “The Makom Parallel Israeli Election” and access resources about the Israeli election at www.makomisrael.org. The parallel election is meant to engage Jews around the world in the Israeli election, encouraging them to learn about the salient issues in Israel today, and ultimately to strengthen the conversation between Jews around the world and Israelis.  

 Makom’s 4HQ training program for Moishe House received one of ten grants in educator training from the Jim Joseph Foundation, following an open RFP.

The United States, Russia, and China have all landed spacecrafts on the moon. Soon humanity will add a fourth country to that list: Israel.

On February 21, SpaceIL launched Beresheet, an unmanned spacecraft, onboard an American SpaceX rocket. It will be the first non-governmental spacecraft to land on the moon. As Beresheet launches into orbit, so does a new era of pride and wonder for the Jewish people and the world.

The iCenter—the North American educational partner of SpaceIL—released The Landing Page – An Educator’s Launch Kit to help people engage with this historic moment. The Launch Kit, designed for use by parents and educators, includes STEM activities, Hebrew materials, stories, videos, Moon Party Spotify playlists, and more. Join The iCenter for 30-minute webinars in March to become familiar with the resources and their potential uses. REGISTER HERE.

The story of SpaceIL is one that inspires. Meaningful Israel education is organic, exciting, and resonant. It emphasizes people and their interests. It is also global, setting Israel within a context of universal human narratives. Equally necessary are great stories and events that inspire and invite this generation to see themselves as part of the ongoing life of the land and people of Israel.

This achievement—8 years in the making—taps into our imagination, curiosity, and wonder—and blends STEM with Israel in a monumental way. And it does all of this in the context of an historic quest to reach for the stars.

The Wexner Foundation has more than 30 years of experience developing excellence in Jewish professionals and volunteer leaders in North America. To address the changing needs in the field of Jewish professional leadership, the Wexner Field Fellowship was created in 2013 in partnership with the Jim Joseph Foundation to focus on developing promising Jewish professionals’ leadership skills while enveloping them in a rich network of Jewish professionals. Wexner Field Fellows engage in a diverse, cohort-based leadership learning program. Through in-person, intensive conferences and virtual meetings, Wexner Field Fellows are exposed to Jewish educational and professional growth opportunities while addressing their unique needs of career and personal progress.

The Wexner Foundation is proud to announce its newest class of Wexner Field Fellows. Fellows were selected based on their past accomplishments, current motivation and engagement, and the exceptional attributes they will contribute to the cohort of 15 Jewish professionals of which they will be a part.

 

Having the opportunity through the Wexner Field Fellowship Institutes to learn in partnership with rising Jewish leaders from across North America has been invaluable to me. I have gained tremendous insights into my work, fresh perspectives and relationships that I expect will last a lifetime.
– Elana Wien (Class 2), Vice President, Center for Designed Philanthropy at the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles

As part of this three-year intensive professional development program, Wexner Field Fellows:

• Become part of a selective cohort of lifelong professional learners.
• Learn with amazing leadership teachers and Jewish educators.
• Receive one-on-one professional coaching and Jewish learning, along with access to funds toward customized professional development opportunities.
• Become part of The Wexner Foundation’s network of 3,000 professional and volunteer leaders in the North American Jewish Community and in Israel.
• Develop a nuanced appreciation for the diversity of the North American Jewish community.
• Focus on developing strengths in adaptive leadership, storytelling, difficult conversations, negotiation and other crucial leadership skills.

One of the best of many exceptional components of the Wexner field fellowship has been my one on one study with a stellar Jewish educator…I have become more confident in the depth of my own Jewish knowledge and understanding, and have been able to apply this in my own professional work at JTS, training leaders who serve in senior roles within Jewish education.
– Mark Young (Class 1) Managing Director, Leadership Commons, The William Davidson School of JTS

The Wexner Foundation, also in partnership with the Foundation, invests in Field Fellows for the rest of their careers through continuing interaction and alumni programming, including annual Alumni Institutes and a Mentorship program. As with the first two cohorts of Field Fellows, members of Class 3 are all dynamic Jewish professionals at pivotal moments in their careers. Fellows work in Jewish federations, summer camps, advocacy and social justice organizations, day and supplementary schools, national organizations and Jewish social start-ups across North America.

By investing in exceptional early-to-mid-career professionals, the Wexner Field Fellowship will help its participants to use Jewish knowledge to enhance their work, to think strategically about projects from conception to implementation and to finetune their leadership skills and ability to be powerful change agents in the communities they serve. Investing in leadership excellence is an investment in a thriving Jewish world.

Jewish day schools fundamentally strengthen the trajectory of Jewish knowledge, identity, community, and leadership. This is a core principle guiding Prizmah: Center for Jewish Day Schools as it begins to implement its new five-year strategic plan, B’Yachad: Towards a Vibrant Future for Jewish Day Schools. The plan—which builds on Prizmah’s past learnings, extensive stakeholder engagement, and a research deep-dive—details the organization’s vision of a thriving, passionate, engaged, and committed network of Jewish day schools that shape our community for generations to come. Prizmah will help unlock the potential of the North American Jewish day schools through strategic investment in four key areas: Deepen Talent, Catalyze Resources, Accelerate Innovation, and Network to Learn.

With this investment, Jewish day schools will be part of a field in which:

• students graduate exceptionally well-equipped with the academic and social-emotional strengths that enable them to pursue their dreams;
• graduates’ Jewish identities are deeply enriched to last a lifetime;
• families are excited to enroll;
• talented individuals are drawn to the school’s career offerings; and
• schools have the sustainable resources they need to grow.

Core to Prizmah’s success—and the success of Jewish day schools, educators, leaders, and students—is the recognition that schools and communities are inherently linked. Together, they form a virtuous cycle, wherein investments in the key aspects of thriving Jewish day schools reinforce and embolden one another. Prizmah supports North American Jewish day schools and communities of all sizes and denominations to tackle the diverse needs and challenges of day schools on their path to success. This vision embraces the passion of schools’ leaders and educators, as well as the educational and philosophical differences of schools, which Prizmah serves according to their individual needs.

Leadership is a space filled with risk taking, vulnerabilities, and very often loneliness. Being part of Prizmah’s leadership training gave me a foundation that I know will propel me forward on my professional journey, as well as a community and support system I can rely on to work through any aspect of leadership.
– HEAD OF SCHOOL

While striving for vibrancy, Jewish day schools also face significant challenges. The changing academic, social, and technological needs of today’s youth create need and opportunity to re-think education—just as the demographics, dynamics, and institutions of Jewish communities are also changing. As the cost of education rises and many incomes stagnate, the struggle to provide an affordable Jewish education to all who want it grows, leading to challenges in enrollment. Prizmah creates the space and environments for days schools to explore these challenges and seek solutions together.

As a Head of School from a small community, it can be hard to take a moment to just…breathe. With the mounting pressures of finances, development, assessments, admissions, and H.R. how many moments do we get to learn and problem solve with our peers? Our time at Prizmah’s Small School Retreat and the continued connections after give us the tools for self-care and school-care. – HEAD OF SCHOOL

Prizmah believes that educating Jewish youth is the most important investment to make in their future—as Jews, and as active contributors to society—and in the future of the Jewish community. Vibrant Jewish day schools inspire and nurture young people, prepare them for remarkable and meaningful lives, and enable them to truly thrive. Prizmah works every day to support these schools and their leaders, laying the foundation so that the Jewish community will be empowered and fueled by stronger voices, identities, values, and leadership.

The Jim Joseph Foundation is one of many supporters of Prizmah.

Teens today are impacted by monumental sociological forces and challenges. With this understanding, and powered by research and data, the Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative develops, nurtures, and scales innovative new approaches to teen engagement. In this unprecedented collaboration of national and local funders, ten participating communities are united by a paradigm shift in the approach to this work that demands that teen educators and leaders now ask, “how can our work help this teen thrive as a human being in today’s complex and challenging world?”

The Funder Collaborative and its communities look to answer this question every day. They come together—virtually and in person—to share lessons learned with each other and to identify the most relevant lessons to share with others. Recently, 20 implementers and professional development professionals came together in Austin, TX for three days. They wanted to learn directly from that dynamic city, a hotbed of creativity and entrepreneurship. Participants had a private workshop with the founder of Storybar to learn what makes a great story and to learn how they can integrate storytelling into their work. The Collaborative also met with Shalom Austin to hear about Jewish life in Austin and to share highlights about the experiences of the ten communities, so that their learnings go beyond the Collaborative.

What I value most about the Implementer Convening’s is the opportunity to network with my fellow Implementers. The relationships, both personal and professional, we are forming because of the opportunities we are given to get together are crucial to the success of our work, in my opinion. Because of the convenings we are more than a group of implementers we are a community.  No matter the location, our time together always inspires and motivates me to take our learnings and try new strategies in San Diego. Out of all the learnings I took away from Austin, I am most excited to experiment with influencers and campaigns to drive traction and awareness to the awesome work we are doing!
– Rebecka Handler, Director of the San Diego Jewish Teen Initiative

While the communities each have unique characteristics and singular elements of their engagement efforts, certain trends are prevalent across all the initiatives and highlight their important work:

1. Communities put teens in the driver’s seat of their own experiences because today’s teens are comfortable finding and using their voice to make change. Funder Collaborative community initiatives enable teens to architect their own journeys in a variety ways: by creating programming for their peers, in reaching out to their friends to make sure they’re aware of opportunities, and even making decisions about major grants for teen programming.
2. Discovery is a critical part of engagement. Teens, parents and even Jewish professionals say it’s difficult to find out about local Jewish opportunities. By developing online portals and searchable digital databases, the communities are amplifying the marketing power of all local organizations who post their events, and creating genuine value for the community.
3. Success means building and nurturing an ecosystem. The Funder Collaborative communities see first-hand that a dynamic ecosystem surrounds the teens themselves: community partners, supervisors, lay leaders, professionals and parents all directly and indirectly impact teen engagement. Especially in their the early teen years, parents require targeted marketing and outreach. Critically, the teen initiatives recognize that parents themselves often seek a supportive community to support their parenting, and many of the initiatives now offer workshops and community-building activities for parents.
4. Creating lasting change requires skilled and capable educators. After uniting around a new paradigm of teen-centric engagement, the initiatives quickly understood that developing a cadre of knowledgeable and capable educators and youth professionals would be critical to achieving their desired outcomes.
5. Wellness is fundamental to achieving positive outcomes for teens. Focusing on the whole teen, including their mental health and overall wellness, is emerging as foundational to effective Jewish teen education and engagement. Several communities offer workshops or conferences on adolescent development and family systems, deeper understanding of the social forces impacting teens today, and specialized training for educators in youth mental health first aid. By addressing and elevating teen wellness, Funder Collaborative communities are pioneering a new, holistic view of engagement work, with healthy, balanced and resilient teens at the center.

More than five years ago, the ten communities and funders came together to co-invest in teen engagement efforts that would be informed by up-to-the-minute research and data. As the initiatives evolve and continue to be informed by learnings, the landscape of teen engagement continues to grow—and the outcomes are increasingly positive.

Want to learn how your community can get involved? Contact Sara Allen, Collaborative Director, [email protected].

The Jim Joseph Foundation is one of many funders invested in the Collaborative. 

Jewish day schools participating in UJA-Federation of New York’s Day School Challenge Fund (DSCF) initiative are in the final months of raising funds for endowments that are eligible to be matched — with the goal of helping to secure their long-term future and to make excellent day school education more accessible for more families.

The DSCF initiative already has changed communal norms around endowment giving, elevating its importance for a diverse cohort of several day schools and yeshivas in New York. Since its launch in 2014, the $51 million Communal Challenge Fund has matched distributions on endowment dollars that participating schools raise. And, through expert training and strategic consulting provided as part of the initiative, day school leaders are equipped with best in class strategies and approaches in endowment fundraising.

The Day School Challenge Fund has had a profoundly positive effect on the culture of our school, in two different ways: It has provided us with a sense of long-term security that has stimulated us to think more creatively than ever about the future of our school, and it has inspired our donors’ confidence in their own ability to have a truly transformative impact.
– Michael A. Kay, PhD, Head of School, Solomon Schechter School of Westchester

Annual endowment distributions provide a school with a predictable revenue source, which can transform a school’s dreams of financial stability, increased affordability, and educational excellence into everyday realities for years to come. The Day School Challenge Fund initiative offers the 23 participating Jewish day schools and yeshivot the tools and incentives to develop and grow endowments to support each school’s programs and activities.

When the fundraising part of the DSCF concludes on December 31, 2018, the initiative will have generated almost $100 million in new endowment dollars. The schools are working to finish their campaigns strong with four months left to go.

Our school has received three seven figure gifts – unprecedented in our history – due to the encouragement and match in funds from UJA-Federation of New York’s Day School Challenge Fund initiative. We look forward to continuing to make history for our school.
-Danny Karpf, Head of School, Rodeph Sholom School

Jewish day schools play a vital role in fostering a knowledgeable and engaged Jewish community, and inspiring the next generation of leaders. The New York Jewish Community is laying a strong foundation for the future of its day schools.

The 23 DSCF participating schools represent the spectrum of North American Day Schools and Yeshivas:

Abraham Joshua Heschel School, Barkai Yeshivah, Carmel Academy, Hannah Senesh Community Day School, Hebrew Academy of Long Beach, Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway, Hebrew Academy of Nassau County, Manhattan Day School, Magen David Yeshivah, Mazel Day School, North Shore Hebrew Academy, Ramaz, Rodeph Sholom School, SAR Academy, Schechter School of Long Island, Solomon Schechter School of Manhattan, Solomon Schechter School of Queens, Solomon Schechter School of Westchester, The Shefa School, Westchester Day School, Yeshiva Darchei Torah, Yeshivah of Flatbush, Yeshiva of South Shore

The Jim Joseph Foundation is one of a group of foundations and philanthropists, including UJA-Federation of New York, that have contributed to UJA-Federation of New York’s Day School Challenge Fund, totaling $51 million in matching funds that will be part of a total endowment of nearly $100 million.

Jewish Community Centers (JCC) throughout North America offer rich, welcoming environments for families with young children to engage in meaningful Jewish life and learning. The JCC Association of North America’s new Sheva Center Leadership Institute for Early Childhood Professionals—an initiative of The Sheva Center for Innovation in Early Childhood Jewish Education and Engagement—is a three-year fellowship experience that will help increase the number and quality of educators who create and lead these formative experiences.

A cohort of new early childhood education (ECE) directors, administrators, and classroom educators study together and in tracks at retreats and at virtual learning sessions. They focus on experiences they face with learners and with parents, and how they approach their work and overcome challenges.

At the last retreat we found ourselves saying that “we’ve spent 20 days of our lives together,” but [the other Fellows] feel closer to me than people who have been in my life for years. We are able to relate to our work, to struggle over our situation together.
– Sarah Koffler, Participant in Sheva Covenant ECE Directors Fellowship, the pilot program funded by the Covenant Foundation that preceded the Sheva Center Leadership Institute

The Sheva Center is committed to connecting these educators, who are on the front line of ECE work, to each other for peer support and to inspire them to grow their practice, mindful of the best and latest research in the field. The foundation of the institute is the Sheva framework, which outlines a dynamic vision of excellence in early childhood Jewish education using seven Jewish lenses and seven core elements.

At the first retreat earlier this summer, educators built relationships with each other. As a group, they explored an early 19th century vision of Zionism through study and walking in the footsteps of Mordechai Manuel Noah. They studied the natural disaster of Love Canal and the natural beauty and wonder of Niagara Falls. They examined the threads between these subjects and how they might influence our understanding of leadership, Jewish life, and spirituality.

Faculty engages with each fellow throughout the fellowship, and different scholars-in-residence join the group at retreats. Each fellow also has a Sheva Faculty Mentor with whom she or he works for their entire three-year fellowship, including through monthly virtual meetings and two in-person site visits.

For me that’s the biggest piece: having people to reflect with and grow with and to talk to when you’re struggling, keeping those chavruta learning partnerships going, feeling that that connection is still going on, continuing to push each other and reminding each other of our strengths, and providing support for each other as a group.
– Tracy Labrosse, Participant in Sheva Covenant ECE Directors Fellowship

JCC Association creates leadership teams within the home JCC community to bridge the gap between the cohort in the institute and the JCC at large. These working relationships are crucial to the success of the fellow and the growth of the school within the greater JCC community. As the fellowship continues, JCC Association looks for new ways to develop and support leaders and educators. The upcoming second retreat in Boulder, Colorado will include scholar in residence Dr. Assael Romanelli, a certified family and couple therapist, facilitator and trainer, who grew up in Israel and the United States. Now living in Jerusalem, Dr. Romanelli is the artistic advisor and conductor for Or Chozer Playback Theater Ensemble and incorporates psychodrama and action methods in his workshops. Fellows also will spend time at the Boulder Journey School as a window into the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood.

Learning with my cohort has impacted how I want to start reflective learning for my staff and how to foster that in them, so that they’re continually thinking about their own journey as a teacher, to be reflective of their own practice. Before then it was just about imparting information. I need to reformat my staff learning and think how to help educators look at themselves and their practice, and make it similar to how the retreats were coordinated.
– Tracy Labrosse

The Jim Joseph Foundation supports the Sheva Center Leadership Institute.

Avodah is special because it is welcoming of people who have different levels of Jewish education and people with different levels of different experiences with social justice…by being in Avodah, I realized that not only do I belong in the Jewish community and that I have a right to be there, but that I can actually be a leader there and that has inspired me to be more of a leader following Avodah
– Ursula Wagner, Avodah Chicago Justice Fellowship ‘17.

Ursula Wagner is a clinical social worker and union leader at Heartland Alliance where she works with individuals experiencing homelessness. She is just one of many young adults engaging in Jewish community and learning through Avodah and their passion for social justice.

With a central tenet that justice is a Jewish value, Avodah trains and supports Jewish leaders so they have the skills to advance social justice and have a deep understanding about how their values connect to their Jewish identities.

Avodah’s training, tools, and the intellectual, spiritual and communal framework sustains the work of Jewish leaders and their  lifelong commitment to social justice. Through its national Jewish Service Corps and Justice Fellowship programs, Avodah provides the gateway for new generations of leaders to find meaning and inspiration in their Judaism to create a better world.

When I finished college, I really wanted to continue down my path of social justice and I also really wanted to re engage with Judaism as an adult. Avodah offered both of those things exactly
– Danny Brown Avodah Jewish Service Corps Member DC ‘18, Danny Brown is currently spending his Avodah year as a digital literacy instructor at Byte Back, a nonprofit in DC that offers computer and tech training to adults entering or reentering the workforce.

Through Avodah, young Jewish leaders learn to connect their Jewish values to the most pressing issues today.

The Jim Joseph Foundation supports Avodah’s service leadership programs.

The Shalom Hartman Institute of North America cultivates the next generation of great thinkers who will grapple with and lead on the big questions impacting the Jewish future. Last year, the Institute launched a North American cohort of David Hartman Center Fellows, already an established fellowship in Israel, as an incubator of emerging talent that educates top academic scholars to apply their own research and scholarship to the big questions facing Jewish life today. These scholars are then encouraged to share that thinking with the broader Jewish community.

The inaugural cohort of seven top academic scholars from across the country represent diverse scholarly disciplines—rabbinic, modern Jewish thought, Biblical commentary, Judaism and Islam, legal theory, and philosophy—and diverse engagement in the Jewish community, including teaching in schools, adult education, and a Jewish printing house. Fellows are trained in a style of thought leadership enabling them to conceptualize and frame challenging issues of the day and equipping them to be change agents who will shape Jewish life.

Together with senior Hartman research fellows, the Fellows explore areas such as Talmud as Thought Leadership; American Jewish Spirituality; and the American-Jewish relationship to Israel.

What makes this program unique is both an uncompromising commitment to rigorous scholarship, and a commitment to use that scholarship to heal fractures in the Jewish community.
– Sara Labaton, David Hartman Center Fellow

As the first year of the program concludes, the Cohort has developed a network and ongoing relationships with each other as well as renowned scholars at Hartman. And, they will spend July at the Institute in Jerusalem, meeting with their counterparts in the David Hartman Center in Israel to better understand the transatlantic influence of thought leadership, and challenges and opportunities in the relationship between American Jews and Israeli Jews from a new perspective.  The second year of the program will include year-long collaborative research, culminating in a series of public lectures, writing, and projects.

As we think about the challenges facing Jewish life in North America, we know we need a stronger pipeline of leaders who will confront these challenges; and we need a stronger set of ideas that have been, and always will be, the currency with which the Jewish people travel through history. The David Hartman Center Fellows are a source of optimism and inspiration for thinking about the vitality, relevancy, and moral character of Judaism in the 21st century.
– Yehuda Kurtzer, President, Shalom Hartman Institute of North America