News & Blogs Category: Guest Blog

“How awesome is this place! This is nothing other than the House of God – this is the gate to heaven!” (Genesis 28:17)

So declares Jacob in this week’s parashah, when he wakes up from his dream of a ladder reaching up to heaven and realizes he is in a sacred place. 

In recent decades, American Jews have redefined their relationships with sacred spaces. Synagogues have moved from cities to suburbia – and some back again. Structures that used to be full are now sparsely attended. Younger Jews often gather in less conventional spaces, sometimes in informal and ad-hoc arrangements. The Covid pandemic disrupted these dynamics, but it also contributed powerful new ways of connecting online. The accessibility of Zoom has led many to wonder whether physical spaces are still worth the investment.  

The benefits of physical spaces for Jewish institutions of prayer, learning, and gathering are too great to ignore. A closer look at Jacob’s encounter offers two reasons why.

Physical Jewish spaces offer stability and connection. In one telling of Jacob’s story, its holiness was rooted in its past and its future. Rashi explains that this was actually the same site as the binding of Isaac, and it would later become the site of the Temple. In this view, Jacob had a meaningful experience because he could tap into the stability of a sacred past and future. To foster connection to the Jewish people, there have to be places to go that hold our story and the inspiration it has held for generations.

The challenge is to ensure that sacred space does not become static and stale. We know that the past significance of a place doesn’t speak to many American Jews. Just because a particular synagogue was sacred for my parents or grandparents doesn’t mean the place makes any claim on me now.  

Physical Jewish spaces are a container for ever-evolving, dynamic gathering. There’s another view that the site of Jacob’s dream had no sacred past at all. It was just a travelers’ way-station on his journey. His dream was actually a vision about the revelation at Sinai, which catalyzed the Jewish people’s relationship with a Torah that would accompany them wherever they went, beyond one mountain in the desert. When Jacob declares “How awesome is this place,” it has nothing to do with the past, rather, it’s about about the potential of what he could create:

“This is nothing other than a place fitting to become a sacred space…I only beheld this vision so that I could make it a place for God” (Radak on Genesis 28:17)

The place where Jacob slept only became sacred because he stretched his imagination of who the Jewish people could become and how this place could foster purposeful gathering. This offers a more dynamic model of sacred space rooted in imagination and potential. When we walk into a physical space where we know people show up with purpose, it creates a sense of anticipation and expectation that something meaningful will happen there, a taste of Jacob’s excitement about the potential that can emerge in a particular place. 

Physical spaces should serve your goals and your people, not become an end in and of themselves. As Jewish organizations, we must constantly ask ourselves: Do we have the space needed to offer stable access to community and connection with each other? Are our physical spaces placing too many constraints on the real work we want to do? 

I am proud to lead an organization, the Hadar Institute, that has prioritized investing in people, programs and content, while approaching physical space as a necessary conduit for these goals. Hadar has been long-term tenants of a synagogue since our inception in 2007. In Manhattan especially, synagogue landlords need tenants to help pay their bills, which allows weekday learning institutions to focus on their own work – without exclusive ownership over a building. We’ve pursued this arrangement because sharing space allows for more agility, freeing up resources to focus on the core purpose of the space.

Hadar moved to a new home this year in a new rebuilt synagogue on 93rd Street. The building was intentionally and thoughtfully designed to be shared with our new synagogue landlords, allowing us to create a home for Jewish prayer, learning, and community characterized by both stability and dynamism. The walls have already held the sounds of hundreds of voices, from dancing in a Sefer Torah to lively havruta (students aged twenty to eighty) to meditative song circles. 

The magic of what physical spaces can hold is critical to sacred work, but there is nothing sacred about any particular space – just ample sacred potential.

Jewish communities should continue to invest in physical spaces, so long as we don’t get distracted by placing too much value on the place itself. What matters are the people and the purpose contained within. When we gather with purpose, these spaces become stable containers for our values, inspiring us to keep dreaming up new potential.

Rabbi Aviva Richman is a Rosh Yeshiva at the Hadar Institute. 

Social connection is a fundamental, universal human need, encompassing the structure of our personal networks, the ways in which we rely on others for support and the quality of our relationships. Our connections to others help us build a sense of who we are and to whom we belong, and scientists have increasingly come to appreciate the ways in which social connectedness is a critical facet of our physical and emotional well-being.

In 2022, the Collaborative for Applied Studies in Jewish Education (CASJE), housed at George Washington University, was awarded a research grant from Templeton World Charity Foundation to study Shabbat dinner and social connectedness. The study, a research-practice partnership with OneTable and supported by additional funds from the Jim Joseph Foundation and Jewish Federations of North America’s BeWell initiative, seeks to learn how Jewish engagement activities can contribute to building belonging and mitigating loneliness.

CASJE was inspired to develop this project for several reasons: We wanted to work closely with partners to develop a more robust framework for conceptualizing and measuring the goals and outcomes of Jewish engagement activities; we wanted to test new ways of understanding Jewish practice that centered shared experiences rather than just individual perspectives; and we wanted to contribute to a larger national conversation about loneliness. We deliberately designed our study so that our findings can help other Jewish and civic organizations asking similar questions gain a clearer picture of the social worlds of their own constituents and better understand their needs.

To that end, with the quantitative phase of our data collection complete, we are happy to share the survey instrument we developed to help us understand and measure social connectedness, along with a short guide for nonprofit leaders that shares more about how the survey questions were developed and tested and how to think about adapting the survey instrument for use in other contexts.

We believe our survey instrument and similar tools can be adapted for use by Jewish engagement leaders to gain insight into connectedness, belonging and well-being in support of their program goals and constituent needs. In sharing these, we want to provide the field with a set of validated scales — some new, some adapted — to measure social connectedness, which we see as a key facet of Jewish engagement. We also want to share our own theories of what Jewish engagement is and what it is for, so they can be contested and improved. Finally, we want to contribute to a culture in which we share tools for measurement across organizations, and help non-specialists think about how to adapt existing tools for measuring their own goals.

read the full blog on eJewish Philanthropy

Arielle Levites is the managing director of the Collaborative for Applied Studies in Jewish Education (CASJE), housed at George Washington University.

Gage Gorsky is an interdisciplinary researcher and evaluator completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University.

Two and a half years ago, the Jim Joseph Foundation launched an initiative to test new models of connection, learning and leadership development for mid-career professionals within the Jewish community. It has now been a year since we last shared our efforts to design cohort-based professional development experiences (CBE) to be more accessible and affordable for this demographic. We’ve been intent on learning about what components help create the most effective experiences, with our ultimate aim to understand how we can expand this work.

Today our efforts with the Jim Joseph Foundation, in partnership with Gather Consulting and Conscious Builders, are growing. We’re scaling our work to offer more opportunities for mid-career Jewish communal professionals to learn, grow, and support one another in trusted cohorts of colleagues.

Now called Chavurot: Expanding Professional Growth for Communal Leaders (Working Title), the initiative has been testing cohort models of connection, learning and leadership development to understand what makes these experiences so powerful and which design elements contribute to increased professional retention, support for career growth and feelings of connectedness and belonging.

Cohort members self-organize around who is in the group and the content they discuss, which varies from facilitation support (for facilitators and group practitioners), to event planning (for event planners), to personality/leadership assessments, to wellness and self-care needs. The initiative then helps them find facilitators or outside speakers to minimize the burden of scheduling and leading the professional development themselves. While the design is not as comprehensive as selective fellowship programs, we are finding they achieve many of the same outcomes and at a fraction of the cost. Cohort members are chosen based on roles (e.g., event planners, cohort practitioners), affinity (e.g., founders, solo consultants, etc.), or identity (e.g. race, gender, age, etc.), and are based a combination of factors: needs in the field, priorities of the funders, and demand for this kind of learning, connection, and nourishment. We’ve chosen cohorts based on an RFP model at one point, and will probably go that route again in the future.

We know cohort members have a hunger for connection, but they also value getting to choose for themselves how they want to learn, with whom and in what ways. They desire emergent content and are seeking a supportive container to be cared for and supported. We also see that there are not nearly enough cohort-based professional development experiences geared toward mid-career professionals rather than CEOs, that are bottom up, rather than top down.

Read the full piece at eJewish Philanthropy.

Seth Linden is the founder of Gather Consulting and Gamal J. Palmer is the founder of Conscious Builders. Together, they lead Chavurot: Expanding Professional Growth for Communal Leaders (Working Title).

An Update on the National BeWell Survey in Partnership with Stanford University

BeWell, the Jewish Federations of North America’s youth mental health and wellness initiative, is addressing this important issue within the Jewish world. BeWell recently led a landmark national research project—which was first conceptualized nearly three years ago—examining teen well-being, in partnership with Stanford University. Here’s why the leaders of this research say this is so important:

“The data from this groundbreaking research project will help us better understand how Jewish American teens are faring in this post-pandemic, post-October 7th era, and how we can best meet their needs. This study will provide insight into teens’ relationship with Jewish culture and tradition in relation to their peers, family and social supports. The aim is to pinpoint both their greatest sources of stress, and their strategies for thriving—so the Jewish community can best design opportunities to build resilience and support them when they need it,” says Kate Greene, a social worker and BeWell’s Director of the Resiliency Roundtable, which unites hundreds of professionals and clinicians from across the country for shared learnings, best practices, and other collaborations. Beyond that national network, 20 local communities have launched their own, local Resiliency Roundtables with BeWell support to meet Jewish well-being needs on the ground in their communities.

Dr. Ari Kelman, a professor at the Stanford University Graduate School of Education and Principal Investigator for the project, explains, “American teens are facing a series of crises on all sorts of levels. The research examines experiences among American Jewish teens with regard to pressures for achievement, the pressures of social media, antisemitism, and the war. At the heart of this project is an opportunity to look very closely at American Jewish teenagers and to see whether or not they are experiencing this moment in the same way as their peers.”

Dr. Laura Brady of the Stanford research team adds, “There’s no existing peer-reviewed study that provides the information that we are going to gather through this research. What we learn is going to be something that no one currently knows from an empirically validated standpoint. We don’t want a lack of information to be a reason why Jewish teens aren’t getting the support they need.”

The response to the survey was overwhelming. As the field leader, BeWell leveraged its deep relationships, and activated dozens of national Jewish organizations as well as local leaders, educators, clinicians, parents, grandparents, and other family members to share this with the young people in their lives. To ensure a diversity of backgrounds and experiences were captured, teens were also encouraged to share the survey widely with their friends and schoolmates. More than 4,000 teens from all 50 states, as well as Puerto Rico, completed the survey. The research team will analyze findings over the summer and results will be made publicly available later this year.

“The findings will be so important to national organizations and local communities alike. We are raising awareness and clarifying what Jewish teens are experiencing. We know this research will inspire solutions that most effectively promote teens’ well-being, drawing on Jewish life and resources,” adds Greene.

To learn more about this research, check out BeWell’s website and sign up to receive BeWell’s monthly newsletter and hear the findings as soon as they are released.

Sara Allen is Associate Vice President of Community & Jewish Life at JFNA. She is also the Executive Director of the Funder Collaborative, powered by Jewish Federations.

Last month, I was on a train coming home from the airport. A woman sitting next to me was wearing a Star of David necklace. We made eye contact and both smiled. Then she asked me if I was Jewish. I said, “Yes, I am.” She responded, “I feel safer now that you’re here and I am not alone.”

She shared with me that her daughter goes to public school and that since October 7, she has felt alone and isolated. She experienced some forms of antisemitism and, in light of this, will attend Jewish camp for the first time this summer.

“My daughter Sasha needs Jewish community. She needs Jewish camp.” Knowing that their daughter will have a safe space where she can be Jewish with other peers and counselor role models gives her family hope during this dark time.

This exchange underscored what we already know to be true: Jewish camp creates safe and nurturing communities in which campers and staff can explore their Jewish identities. The parents, who don’t even go to camp, feel good and positive about their children being in these spaces. And we need these spaces now more than ever, for all Jewish families.

Each year, the Foundation for Jewish Camp (FJC), where I am fortunate to be the first-ever chief program officer, supports more than 300 nonprofit Jewish day and overnight camps across North America. Our camps are diverse in geography, movement affiliation (or lack thereof), and Jewish practice. The common link is that they all enable their campers and staff to grow and develop each summer, building lifelong connections and friendships in safe and loving Jewish communities.

Camp Ramah in the Poconos, summer 2023.

While the camps support their campers and staff, FJC supports the camp professionals. Each year, we offer ongoing professional development opportunities for year-round and seasonal staff; cohort experiences; grants for capital improvements to become more accessible and inclusive; grants and trainings to help camps bolster staff recruitment and retention; resources for camps to hire mental health professionals; and more. In 2024, we will continue to provide all these resources as usual and help camps prepare for a summer in which the impact of October 7 will surely be felt throughout the entire field.

Central network organizations are always important and even more so during a crisis. The events of October 7 and these months of war have caused a collective trauma for the Jewish people. We are able to help camps meet this critical moment in our history by advocating, organizing, and fundraising on behalf of the entire field.

As a central organization we are providing critical funding, research, and information on trends and hot-button issues, and, perhaps most importantly, a sense of community for our camps.

Just as FJC did during the pandemic, we were able to quickly reach out to Jewish day and overnight camps across North America, administer a pulse survey to determine their most urgent needs and connect camp leaders to one another to remind them that they are not alone.

In fact, the very first thing FJC did in response to October 7 was to organize, host, and facilitate a virtual gathering so that our field could be together in their grief and shock. During this hour together they felt heard, held, and cared for. And in the months since then we have continued to gather our professionals to strategize the best path forward as a unified field, share best practices, and support each other.

Right now, the entire North American Jewish community needs spaces where they can heal, process emotions, and have potentially difficult conversations. Jewish camps provide those spaces, and FJC is partnering with them to make sure they have the tools and resources they need. To this end, we are:

• Bringing nearly 50 camp directors to Israel on educational trips to learn firsthand about the impacts of the war and how to bring what they learn back to their camps.
• Providing a training series on Israel education at camp and how to manage and navigate difficult conversations with different perspectives among campers and staff.
• Raising funds for camps to hire Israel educators (Israelis and Americans) to visit camps for one-week sessions or the whole summer who are artists, musicians, etc.
• Partnering with other organizations such as JAFI and Mosaic United to bring Israeli teens to our camps and ensure that those camps have the mental health and wellness professionals in place to support them.
• Raising funds to help camps hire more security personnel in light of rising antisemitism.
• Supporting camps to hire the best staff members possible, both domestically and from Jewish communities around the world.

There are 180,000 “Sashas” who will be at Jewish camp this summer. Many of them are returning campers, but all of them are coming to camp for the first time after October 7th rocked our community to the core. With well-trained staff and skilled educators to facilitate meaningful conversations, camp will provide campers with the Jewish identity, belonging, connection, and community that they always have— and that they need now more than ever. I am truly grateful that Jewish camp exists, and I can’t wait to visit our camps this summer. I know that Sasha and thousands of others will feel safe, seen, and connected, and will experience a summer filled with joy and hope.

Jamie Simon is chief program officer of Foundation for Jewish Camp.

originally published in the Jerusalem Post

In the course of developing “Our Next Generation” — the most recent strategic plan for our organization, Moving Traditions, released in 2022 — we learned that many teens didn’t feel they had permission to talk about Israel. They felt they weren’t sufficiently informed about the country’s deep and complicated history, or they were worried that they had an opinion that wasn’t the “right” opinion. As a result, we started asking ourselves and our stakeholders: How can we better support Jewish teens by making sure they can bring whatever is weighing on their hearts to Jewish spaces without fear? How can we do that in a way that also respects the very different mindsets their parents and educators might have?

Curricula evolution: First planned, then accelerated

Israel education has not always been at the center of Moving Traditions’ curricula. For many years, Moving Traditions has provided institutions and individuals with materials that merge social and emotional support with Jewish education. These often incorporate a gender lens, as sexuality, sex and gender are primary lenses through which preteens and teens see the world. We have vast experience in creating safe spaces for teens, teaching them how to feel a sense of wellbeing (shleimut) and caring connection (hesed) and build toward a more just world (tzedek).

With that focus, Moving Traditions’ curriculum previously touched upon Israel relatively lightly. We explored similarities and differences in experiences of homeland in the United States and Israel and issues of Jewish identity and peoplehood, and we incorporated quotes, poems and contemporary midrash by Israeli leaders and writers; but we didn’t delve deeply into Israel education as it wasn’t our primary issue. Not only that, but it was a complicated subject — one that might alienate participants, partners, parents and funders.

Yet even before Oct. 7, we were heading towards change. In November 2022, we invited our board into a conversation about leaning into Israel education, seeking their guidance and guardrails as we embarked on work that was new to us. But the war has accelerated that process. Now, we find ourselves investing significant resources to help teens respond to the war in Israel and Gaza. We have created curricula and webinars that have served 5,000-plus educators and parents since the start of the war. Like many others within the Jewish community and outside of it, we are also grappling with rising antisemitism that has been too prevalent in responses to the Oct. 7 massacre and the subsequent war in Gaza.

We are finding that teens do want to talk, learn and think. We know that as Jewish educators specializing in teens, we need to do more to support them and their parents in this moment and in the years to come. We are still figuring out how to fully navigate the new and complicated terrain. But one of our most important discoveries is that when it comes to teens and Israel, what might be needed most is making them feel safe and welcome in these difficult conversations.

The extent to which Israel is a part of teens lives

While some Jewish educators and parents can think of little else, teens are still consumed by the already overwhelming experiences of adolescence. In holding these conversations, we simultaneously understand that Israel is not the only thing occupying teens’ minds.

One of our most compelling anecdotes about this came from a leadership conference we held in early November for Kumi, our anti-oppression teen leadership initiative. Toward the beginning of the retreat, we did a standing thermometer exercise about what pressures teens were facing at that moment, on a scale of 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest). We invited teens to call out what was weighing on them. The first teen to speak called out “Israel,” and went to stand close to the end of the line at what would have been a 9.5. This was a teen who had recently returned from a trip to Israel and Poland. The other teens mostly congregated around 7 on the invisible thermometer. Then another teen called out “AP classes,” and the teens all rushed toward the “10” — one teen joked he would have burst through the wall to go farther if it was an option.

Teens who participate in Moving Traditions come from a variety of Jewish backgrounds, and the diversity of their day-to-day environments and social milieus were reflected in the stories they shared. Some who attend Jewish day schools talked about how it felt shocking not to hear any sympathy at all for Palestinian civilians; others who attend public and non-Jewish private schools talked about the challenge of making decisions about which teachers were safe to be open with about their experiences of antisemitism and which they felt would just stand by — or worse. In a conversation about race, a student spoke about how oppressive it felt to have to hide as a Jew in some spaces. At the same time, the student acknowledged the privilege of being able to pass as white, something the Jews of color at the retreat couldn’t do.

The teens were engaged and spoke with nuance. Overall, they expressed deep gratitude at the retreat that Israel came up organically, that the conversation was not “forced” on them, and that it felt safe to share how they were truly feeling.

In one of the curricular exercises we created shortly after Oct. 7, we encourage educators to go around the room and ask teens: When it comes to Israel, who and what are you most worried about right now? I recently posed this question to 40 teen leaders at a regional retreat for another leading youth organization, one of the most effusive and friendly groups of teens I’ve ever had the chance to speak with.

Their answers spanned the spectrum: One teen spoke about a cousin who is serving in the IDF in a unit that lost 21 of its members in a single day when Hamas forces fired rocket-propelled grenades on buildings the soldiers were inside; her cousin was one of the lucky ones in the unit who survived. Another student spoke about how the war has changed every day of their lives, as they feared backlash or antisemitic responses to decisions they wouldn’t have previously thought twice about, like wearing an Israeli flag charm on their Crocs. A third teen shared their fears about kids their own age living in Gaza — were they being killed? Could they sleep at night when they hear rockets and gunfire nearby? Would they ever return to school?

These thoughtful and varied answers reflect our broader experience working with teens, particularly the ease with which a group of teens engages with “both/and” thinking — the ability to feel strongly connected to Israel and recognize the devastating costs of the current war on Israelis and on Palestinian civilian life. Most importantly, though, the question clearly communicates to teens that they and their worries will be held with compassion, and that every teen can participate in a conversation about Israel even if they are starting at very different places.

Shuli Karkowsky is CEO of Moving Traditions.

This blog originally appeared in eJewish Philanthropy. Photo courtesy of Moving Traditions: Teens participate in a Moving Traditions program for Rosh Hodesh.

To Do:

• Foster substantive and meaningful connections among parents.
• Learn Torah that speaks to pressing questions of our time.
• Empower parents with the same language and tools for Torah learning and relationship- building that their children are learning in school.
• Enable parents to give themselves the gift of Torah learning with a flexible structure that respects their busy lives.

It is a gratifying thing to pursue a program of meaningful Jewish learning that checks all the boxes. This was the experience of a pilot program that emerged organically from Pedagogy of Partnership’s (PoP) longtime partnerships with two Jewish day schools. For years, PoP, Powered by Hadar, has been working with teachers and leaders from Boston’s Jewish Community Day School and Schechter Boston to root PoP’s havruta^[1] -based method of “learning Jewishly” to meet their schools’ respective and unique visions for their students and faculty. Particularly after the disruption of covid, the time was ripe for weaving back together the many connections and relationships that make day school communities special: relationships among parents, connection of parents to the heart of their children’s Jewish learning experience, and a shared relationship to Torah for all members of the community.

The pilot program brought PoP’s orientation and tools for havruta learning together with Hadar’s Project Zug (PZ) course, To Share or Not to Share: The Torah of Social Media, and the personalized invitation and havruta matchmaking ability of each school’s educational leadership. Together, we formed the how, what, who, and where of this learning opportunity for the parents of each community. We hope that sharing this model is helpful to others designing programs meant to build relationships through Torah learning.

The basic structure of the program was simple. The schools sent out an invitation to parents to sign up for a four session havruta learning experience bookended by an in-person communal PoP introduction to havruta learning at the beginning, and a PoP siyum, closing celebration, at the end. Parents could choose to be matched with someone new or sign up with a friend, spouse, or someone they have always wanted to get to know better. After the group introductory session, each havruta pair arranged to meet together at a time, frequency, and location that worked for them as they charted their own course through the PZ learning materials.

In the opening session, we oriented parents to a shared understanding of havruta learning by introducing them to select PoP frameworks including, “The Havruta Triangle.”

Parents energetically unpacked the implications of this relational conception of Jewish learning by considering what it means for the text to be a partner; what it looks like to enter into a balanced give-and-take with another person and a text, and what dispositions we might need to call upon to enter into this kind of learning. Parents named such dispositions as “openness,” “curiosity,” “empathy,” “listening,” and “humility” as core attitudes that would animate this triangle in action.

A highlight of this discussion came from the parents’ children themselves!  Each school made a video of their students, who learn through PoP at school, reflecting on the very questions we asked parents to consider about the nature of havruta learning. The students offered practical advice for how to make the most of one’s learning. Parents were enchanted and took to heart their children’s sound advice:

You don’t always have to agree with [your havruta partner] and sometimes it is better if you disagree. If you disagree with your partner, you can end up learning more than you would have if you agreed.
– Seventh Grade PoP student

 

You should be caring and help each other. You should learn something, you should teach something…
– Third Grade PoP student

 

Adults studying in havruta should remember to look at the text a lot more than they think they need to
– Seventh Grade PoP student

 

You need to focus on what you are reading and understand it…actually understanding what does the text say but also making sure that you respect your partner.
– Third Grade PoP student

With this orienting framework, parents started to form their own havruta relationships with a “havruta warm-up” exercise to identify strengths and skills they could each bring to their learning. With a sense of shared purpose, tools, and compelling questions about the text itself, parents were ready to go on to study the rich course materials on their own until we gathered again a couple of months later to celebrate and share learning and reflections.

The content that parents studied together in the The Torah of Social Media PZ course, curated by Yitzhak Bronstein, constitutes a complex and multi-layered compilation of traditional Jewish sources that raise and address critical questions about how we talk about one another and to one another. Amplified exponentially by the onset of social media, ancient considerations about what constitutes gossip, how we balance the prohibition against gossip with the responsibilities to rebuke wrong-doing and also to judge one’s fellow favorably, reverberate in our present-day lives with heightened significance and consequence.

Parents commented on how the sources presented them with new ideas or extended how they thought about the unintended harms of talking or writing about others, such as the idea that gossip not only harms the object of gossip but the teller and the receiver of that gossip [Mishneh Torah, Hilchot De’ot 7:1,3]. Many parents shared stories about how their learning had an immediate impact on how they navigate everyday decisions about speech and sharing information.

The Power of Havruta to Build Relationships
Reflecting on their havruta experience as a whole, parents expressed deep gratitude for the meaningful and substance-rich connections they formed with their partners. Some commented on having made a brand-new connection with a fellow parent with whom they share much in common—and others shared that their new connections were refreshing precisely because of what they did not have in common! A parent with young children matched with a parent of older children appreciated the ways they could learn from one another and see themselves on a developmental pathway held by their respective journeys through the school. Participants reported having experienced firsthand what it is to get to know another person through the study of Torah—where the text serves as a mediator inviting two people to meet in conversation in a way they would not have otherwise.

Parents also reported that the PoP frameworks provided shared language and routines, and thereby helped to bring together those parents who were new to havruta learning with parents who have a lot of experience. One parent shared with us that she had always admired those who studied in havruta, and she prioritized a Jewish education for her own children to learn to develop those skills, but she had been too intimidated to try it herself until this pilot program. Having been paired with a very learned and experienced partner she was even more nervous until they sat down together, and using the PoP learning routine, created a flow of lively and fascinating Torah discussion. Both partners came away enriched with Torah and shared their appreciations for one another at the close of the course. In both school communities the siyum celebrations ended with a resounding request for more learning.

The PoP-PZ-School partnership pilot happily checked a lot of boxes from a programmatic standpoint. More important, however, is the uplift, connection, and Torah-insights that participants within this program framework were able to create on their own for one another by bringing themselves to their havruta learning with openness, curiosity, humility and desire to learn. Parents were able to demonstrate for themselves the PoP idea that, “If all the havruta partners work together, we will come to learning and insights that we would not have come to on our own, in the same way, or with a different set of partners” (Cook & Kent, 2018. Exploring the Partnership Stance).

Allison Cook and Dr. Orit Kent and the Founders and Co-Directors of Pedagogy of Partnership, Powered by Hadar. PoP offers trainings, coaching, and resources for Jewish educators, school leaders, adults and families. To hear from PoP students directly about the power of learning in havruta, click here!

^[1] Havruta refers to the traditional Jewish social learning practice in which two learners study texts together as a pair. The term havruta can also refer to one’s study partner, as in, “I am learning with my havruta.”

Gathering and supporting those on the frontlines of change is more and more vital as the world becomes increasingly complex and intertwined.  It is one of the surest bets to make lasting systemic change.

A great example of this important work was recently highlighted by Jenna Hanauer at the Jim Joseph Foundation, in her reflections on the Prizmah Conference that brought together leaders, experts, and funders, among others, to engage, discuss, and collaborate on the future of Jewish day schools. Her piece highlights the great benefit–and desperate need–of these field-wide convenings to bring people together to address systemic challenges and opportunities.

We must equally support and accelerate those professionals who make this critical work happen: the leaders of vibrant network organizations. There is no readily available course or easily accessible way to learn the skills needed to lead these organizations effectively. In my role as executive director of the Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative, powered by Jewish Federations of North America, I know the challenges and bandwidth required to maintain relationships with members of network organizations, to understand the through-lines among the members’ work, and to capitalize on the opportunities for collective impact. It also can be lonely to head a network organization – it’s a role not easily understood; and, while we foster relationships, we must maintain boundaries. I often think how beneficial it would be to have a “network of networks,” which would be a place to share the necessary tools needed to do this work effectively. Moreover, by supporting the network leaders themselves though education, training and resources, we can vastly accelerate field-wide change.

At the heart of some of the most sophisticated, large-scale solutions to social problems are some of the most accomplished leaders you’ve never heard of: network entrepreneurs.
– Stanford Social Innovation Review

This quote embodies a philosophy that has defined my career. As the head of the Funder Collaborative, it has become clear to me that weaving effective networks, and planning thoughtful convenings, are an essential step towards galvanizing a field.

I’ve witnessed first-hand the ripple effects of weaving individuals, each working on similar and related topics–and building a culture of trust and cooperation. This is the act of field-building.  The Funder Collaborative has been so successful in this work because we see the world as interconnected. We believe that solutions–and the bold new ideas that make lasting change–come from the community. A critical first step is convening: an immersive learning and transformative experience which weaves a community. Done well, actions ring clear and people are purposefully engaged and empowered to achieve a vision for change. It also serves to amplify the voices of those who hold the most imaginative solutions to our most pressing challenges – the people who are closest to the work on the ground.

At each convening of this network, we take the time to ask questions, listen closely, nurture learning and inspire action. From my experience, the power of effective convenings exist outside the bounds of time: a well-designed user experience begins long before the gathering opens, and a well-crafted agenda sets the stage for efforts that continue long after the participants pack up.

There are countless creative and impactful ways to maintain communities year-round. Weaving amongst individuals, AI-powered networking, smaller virtual or in-person gatherings, continued education, frequent relevant communication, and lifting stories from the field infuse energy in the group over various touchpoints. By elevating and championing community voices, we reinforce commitment to work on the ground.

This “playbook” for community-building–gleaned from years heading the Funder Collaborative–has applications for any network or community. Steps like first identifying potential community members, earning these members’ trust as both a leader and in the idea of the network, and fueling participation by finding and providing value were fundamental building blocks of BeWell, the Jewish community’s coordinated response to the youth mental health crisis. BeWell’s national Resiliency Roundtable–the only forum that brings together education and engagement professionals with clinicians in Jewish settings to reach and support Jewish youth–meets monthly to share best practices, problem-solve, and collaborate. It is a model being replicated in nearly 20 communities across the country. Participating organizations and individuals are stronger as a result of the network leadership best practices that are infused in day to day work, education, and convenings.

There are many other issue areas to which these and other steps can be applied. I welcome the opportunity to share concrete skills that may be useful to other network leaders. Please also reach out if you lead a network and are interested in connecting with me and others – [email protected]. As a driver of social change, I have spent years honing and championing this approach, and I am always inspired by its impact. I applaud the tireless efforts of network entrepreneurs and organizations, as well as the funders for recognizing their long-term benefits.

Sara Allen is Executive Director of the Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative, powered by JFNA.

This piece from Jakir Manela, CEO of Hazon & Pearlstone, with contributions from Rabbi Zelig Golden, Executive Director of Wilderness Torah, and Adam Weisberg, Executive Director of Urban Adamah, shares lessons learned from JOFEE leadership during the recently completed three-year period of the Jim Joseph Foundation’s general operating grant to Hazon, as well as lessons learned over the last ten years of the Foundation’s support to the field.

At Hazon and Pearlstone, we believe in the centrality of adam and adamah, people and planet. Our mission is to cultivate vibrant Jewish life in deep connection with the earth, catalyzing culture change and systemic change through immersive retreats, Jewish environmental education, and climate action.

The parallel issues of declining Jewish affiliation and the global climate crisis are not unrelated. Climate grief and anxiety are now diagnosable mental health crises that impact young people across the Jewish world. Young Jews tend to care more about climate and sustainability than older generations, and they are also less likely than older generations to affiliate with Jewish institutions. For many, what keeps them up at night is not Jewish survival, but human survival.

It was almost 10 years ago that the term JOFEE (Jewish Outdoor, Food, Farming, and Environmental Education) was coined by a group of funders. Collectively, the Jim Joseph Foundation, Leichtag Foundation, The Morningstar Foundation, Rose Community Foundation, Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, and UJA – Federation of New York invested in the Seeds of Opportunity JOFEE report. They discovered—through robust third-party research—a movement that was making a significant impact across the Jewish world. Since then, the Jim Joseph Foundation investments focused on supporting the four largest JOFEE organizations — Hazon, Pearlstone Center, Urban Adamah, and Wilderness Torah—and launching the JOFEE Fellowship in order to both professionalize and expand career opportunities across the field.

Over four years, the JOFEE Fellowship trained more than 60 young adults as educators, placing them at Jewish organizations including JCCs, federations, summer camps, and more. For fellows, the chance to create change by bridging their environmental concerns with their Jewish identities was a key motivation for joining the program:

“I was sick of being Jewish for the sake of being Jewish,” one wrote. “I’m here because I think being Jewish really matters in the world.”

In 2019, the Jim Joseph Foundation further invested in these organizations for an additional three years. Over these years, we learned lessons and gathered insights as our field grew and evolved.

The Growth and Diversification of the Community of People Engaging in JOFEE
As the pandemic unfolded, Jewish outdoor education quickly became a go-to for communities. Programs have grown both in the number and type of participants they’re engaging—including wider age ranges, geographies, and affiliation levels. Both the accelerated adoption of virtual programming, and the desire of people to re-engage in in-person programming as the world reopens, means that we have so far maintained new program growth, and expect to continue to do so into the future. As a result, JOFEE now reaches a broader audience.

Reflecting this growth, Wilderness Torah and Camp Newman will create the Center for Earth Based Judaism, a learning center for all segments of the community, and focus on earth care and climate resiliency. As Wilderness Torah builds regionally, it also is scaling nationally with programs such as Neshama (Soul) Quest and Jewish backpacking trips. And while its festivals are transformational, the organization has identified a need for smaller bite-sized programs across urban areas to increase participation: after going to two to three small programs, people begin to attend larger events.

As for Hazon and Pearlstone, in 2023 the two organizations are merging into the largest Jewish environmental non-profit outside of Israel. Our two retreat centers (Isabella Freedman in CT, and Pearlstone Center in MD) were hit hard by the pandemic, but we also saw tremendous growth in our programmatic impact. In the words of one parent whose child was in a weekly program: “While the children are busy feeling free and happy and honing their favorite skills, our parental spirits are soaring because we know [they’re being guided] toward full aliveness, sensitivity, and responsibility to the world around them.”

Nature is a Profound Driver of Reconnection to Jewish Life
In this age of digital overload and hesitancy surrounding indoor gatherings, a nature-connected, outdoor Judaism speaks directly to what we need in mind and body, heart and soul. Despite myriad online opportunities, people continue to seek the authentic sense of purpose and connection that can be found through engaging with the more-than-human world.

A Wilderness Torah participant commented:

“I experienced a profound healing in the part of my soul that has been searching for a tribe and embodied Jewish community. My Jewish heart and connection to my ancestors has opened. I have found my home as a Jew.”

We have also witnessed JOFEE’s ability to connect youth to wider Jewish communal life. If we provide meaningful experiences, youth can and do stay engaged. We need to ask ourselves: How do we authentically connect with who we are at our rooted core, to the obligations and responsibilities of what it means to be a human on planet earth?

Jewish Youth and Young Adults are Seeking Opportunities to Lead on Environmental Issues – Whether in the Jewish Community or Not
Perhaps one of the biggest lessons learned over the past years is the growing demand from and for Jewish youth to be empowered as their own leaders and educators in environmental work and action. Hazon’s Jewish Youth Climate Movement (JYCM) was launched in 2020 and in just over two years blossomed into over 44 Kvutzot (chapters) nationwide, each with 10-30 members — a strong indicator of the need for these kinds of outlets. Efforts run by the teens themselves reach about 10,000 more people each year. These chapters are not just powerful Jewish engagement opportunities; they are also a safe space for young people who may not feel accepted with their full Jewish identities amid some elements of anti-Zionism and antisemitism in the secular climate justice movement.

One teen commented:

“Previous to my engagement in JYCM, I was in a youth-led movement that…taught me a lot about the climate crisis and how to organize…However, at times it felt as if I had to choose between my Jewish identity and organizing as the movement had been involved in some anti-Semitic activity and my specific chapter was unwilling to publicly condemn it.”

We see college campuses as an area of critical growth on the horizon, as Hillels have been among the most active participants in Hazon’s climate action and sustainability programs to date. As young adults seek ways to get involved, many look for hands-on experiences. For example, Urban Adamah runs an alternative spring break experience combining sustainable agriculture and Jewish community building.

A theme among these programs is participants’ desire to make a difference in the world overall, not just within the Jewish world. As such, JOFEE programs are increasingly welcoming young adults’ non-Jewish friends and family members. This helps to foster participation and widens the tents of involvement and belonging for those wishing to become active in community building and organizing.

Jewish Communal Interest and Action on Sustainability is Growing, Presenting New Opportunities for Collaboration within the Wider Jewish World
For many of the JOFEE field’s participants, the climate crisis is an overarching emotional and spiritual theme, present in their daily lives. And Jewish tradition has a direct, powerful, and unique response to these concerns.  For over 20 years, we have unpacked Jewish ecological wisdom to connect people with their own inspiration, and an empowered community of peers to build with. Moving forward, we aim to interweave Hazon and Pearlstone’s programs in order to facilitate greater networking, collaboration, and leadership among participants.

Hazon’s growing national portfolio of virtual and in-person programs provide options for pop-up collaborations. At the same time, Jewish youth are increasingly seeking leadership opportunities within JOFEE — a useful avenue for them to create meaningful experiences while also building a network of peers. We approach the end of 2022 with a new and diverse set of programs and participants, including a network of hundreds of Jewish teen activists across the country via JYCM; a newly launched Jewish Climate Leadership Coalition with over 120 Jewish organizations, three major national community hubs engaging tens of thousands of people a year in Baltimore, New York/Connecticut, and Detroit; and a programmatic framework that enables seamless online and in-person fusions. With Wilderness Torah and Urban Adamah also scaling programs to a national level, as well as increasing their regional impact, it is increasingly possible for young Jewish individuals to find their place in a Jewish community that shares their environmental values.

As we expand our ability to engage youth and young adults on the issues that matter most to them, we also renew Jewish communal life by empowering them to build their own communities of meaning, purpose, and connection.

Jakir Manela is CEO of Hazon & Pearlstone, which cultivates a vibrant Jewish life in deep connection with the earth. Rabbi Zelig Golden is Executive Director of Wilderness Torah, which promotes healing, belonging, and resilience by awakening and celebrating earth-based Jewish traditions. Adam Weisberg is Executive Director of Urban Adamah, an educational farm and community center in Berkeley, California that integrates the practices of Jewish tradition, mindfulness, sustainable agriculture, and social action.

As a social entrepreneur support organization, how will we better define and measure our success and our direct and indirect impact? How can we inspire and incubate more social enterprises and/or nonprofits with more promising and robust earned revenue streams? How will we build diversity, equity, inclusion and justice (DEIJ) into our strategy, metrics, culture and operations as we grow?

These were just some of the questions we asked ourselves as we launched a new strategic planning process nearly a year ago. As our previous strategic plan came to a close, UpStart’s future was becoming clearer than ever before. At its heart, UpStart is a learning organization, and we always find it clarifying to reflect on the past to see how far we’ve come and how far we’re poised to go.

Looking back to look forward

More than five years ago, four organizations merged to create a one-stop shop to support the needs of the organizations and individuals driving Jewish social innovation and engagement. Under the UpStart umbrella, our vision has been to deliver a comprehensive, streamlined suite of high-quality services to those making change within North American Jewish communities and all those pursuing Jewish innovation.

At the center of UpStart’s model was an implicit mandate for growth. Our strategies were aimed at helping to solve all the problems — from helping communal leaders navigate resistance to change to getting early-stage ventures off the ground — not just the problems within our historic areas of expertise.

But as the merger itself moved further in the rear-view mirror — and the field of “Jewish entrepreneurship” continued to evolve — we recognized a need to evolve as well. UpStart needed to align and clarify the strategies that would allow us to stay agile and have the most impact. In short, we needed a new plan forward.

We knew that the way we created the new plan would be just as important as the end result. In keeping with our growing commitments to diversity, equity, inclusion and justice, we wanted to develop our plan with a collaborative, inclusive process that reflected input from all of our stakeholders: program and grantee alumni, funders, organizational partners and others.

The process wasn’t easy. The consultant we hired was unafraid to expose our blind spots and biases; conducting the interviews and meetings over Zoom with new staff created a steep learning curve; and asking the hard questions and making tough decisions required deep trust and careful communication.

Centering the work of social entrepreneurs

Now, after a nine-month process that engaged our staff, board and stakeholders, we’ve shared our plan publicly. Building on our past success and learning, the plan affirms some of what we knew and charts a bold path forward with the focus and urgency this moment demands.

This new plan crystalizes our central mandate: to put social entrepreneurs at the center of our work. From now on, everything we do will be in service of sourcing, seeding and supporting existing and emerging leaders and ventures focused on designing the future of Jewish life.

This strategy centers and elevates the greatest lever for change for the Jewish future — Jewish social entrepreneurship. We will do this by:

• Sourcing and catalyzing support for high-impact Jewish social entrepreneurship
• Redefining and amplifying the impact of our network
• Measuring and telling a clear story of our impact and that of our network
• Building an enabling environment for Jewish social entrepreneurship to thrive
• Advancing experimentation with new models for the sector, including adapting revenue models and legal structures from the for-profit/social enterprise sector.

Just as we’ve clarified what strategies we’re elevating in the plan, we’ve also honed in on what work we will phase out and ultimately eliminate: consulting engagements and intrapreneur programming. By focusing more of our attention on what we do best, we can grant more attention, resources and funding to our network and adapt our work to better meet their needs.

Bittersweet transitions

For our team at UpStart, it wasn’t easy to arrive at a decision point that led to cutting certain programs and services. The decisions resulted in a reallocation of existing resources, sacrificing 10% of our current revenue and restructuring our organizational chart. As an organization built on helping others to be agile, innovative and impact-oriented, we knew that this was a moment for us to take our own advice.

Organizational growth done right can include minimizing or even eliminating certain areas of focus to instead put more resources into what the organization does best and yields the most impact. This was something that we, our board and other stakeholders had to digest and ultimately we’ve come to celebrate.

The new plan offers concrete ways to pursue this more focused strategy, and will serve as our strategic compass for the next five years. A compass, importantly, is not a roadmap. Part of what makes UpStart unique is our agility to engage entrepreneurs and support them in specific contexts and moments, including those that unexpectedly arise.

We are more nimble when we’re not spreading ourselves and our services too thin. By design, our emphasis on agility positions us to support the solutions to the big and urgent problems. The largest of those problems is what drives us every day: that too many people still opt out of Jewish life and are unable to find a community that reflects who they are or who they want to be.

Moving forward with a solid foundation

As we tackle these new challenges, we’re equipping our team with the infrastructure, resources and processes we need to execute. One key learning from the plan was the importance of strengthening team members’ sense of belonging. A great plan with an uninspired and disconnected team will never succeed.

Like others, UpStart faced challenges over the last two-plus years in this area. We need to cultivate a team environment able to withstand distance and different working styles. To deliver on our promise to our network, funders and partners, we must connect everyone on the team to each other and to our mission.

Part of our foundation will be frameworks that focus on metrics, evaluation and learning to support our whole team in measuring outcomes, telling the story of our network and influencing the trajectory of Jewish life. Nearly all of us in the field experienced the power of collaborations over the last two-plus years. Organizational leaders looked for opportunities to work together so more people could bring their expertise to the table.

As we move forward, UpStart will continue facilitating deeper collaborations and partnerships within and on behalf of our expanding network. Mutual collaboration between our network and the Jewish community’s institutions are essential to create a more just, vibrant and inclusive Jewish future.

This future can be, and must be, created now. There’s what I call a “patient urgency” reflected in the plan, while also being mindful that we need time, space and a solid foundation for intentional growth. This plan and the tactics within reflect the combination of radical impatience for impact and sensible patience for growth.

With this renewed clarity of purpose and urgency, we know that the ideas of more and better are intricately connected. The need to invest more resources in the social entrepreneurs who are changing Jewish life everyday — and the people who will follow in their footsteps — will yield a greater number and diversity of people participating in Jewish life and will enhance the enduring vitality of Jewish life for generations to come.

Aaron Katler is the CEO of UpStart.

originally published in eJewish Philanthropy.

In 2014, Rose Community Foundation and Jim Joseph Foundation partnered to create the Denver and Boulder Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Initiative, one of 10 community-based efforts across the country in the Teen Funder Collaborative (now housed at The Jewish Federations of North America). Our initiative, like others, was designed to cultivate new Jewish teen offerings, increase teen engagement and involve teens who come from diverse Jewish backgrounds.

Each initiative had a critical component in parallel to these external efforts: independent evaluation. Over the course of the initiative, our evaluator, Informing Change, provided us with findings, data and analyses showing progress toward our desirable outcomes. And, if we weren’t making progress, we gained an understanding of the reasons why. The final report, based on seven years of data collection and evaluation, is a valuable knowledge-base for professionals and institutions — both locally and nationally — seeking to engage Jewish teens and their families.

Beyond looking back at the initiative’s outcomes, we plan to utilize the data from this report to inform a variety of approaches moving forward — from considering potential investments in teen engagement, elevating the needs of Jewish-teen-serving professionals, cultivating collaboration and developing a cohesive community vision around teen programming. To that end, our organization has identified key takeaways where the collected data can meaningfully inform our future investments in the Jewish community.

For example, the teen programs themselves were described by stakeholders as high quality, responsive to teen interests and needs and effective in engaging teens from a variety of backgrounds. Yet, despite the quality of the programs, there remain opportunities for cultivating a more collaborative and sustainable Jewish teen ecosystem in Greater Denver. We plan to leverage this report to catalyze a shared community vision that prioritizes Jewish teens — not organizations — and elevates shared opportunities in which programs, communal professionals, parents and lay leaders all support them as they navigate emerging into young adulthood.  

Additionally, though Jewish-teen-serving professionals and group leaders are generally well-trained, we learned about gaps in staff talent development, retention and pipeline. We need to ensure that professionals see room for career advancement within their organizations, as teen-facing positions often are viewed as early career roles with high turnover rates. Training and professional development of program leaders will further the Initiative’s progress on the diversity and quality of Jewish teen programming. While professionals affiliated with national Jewish organizations have access to national training events and networks, local educational programs and training offerings are critical supports for professionals in smaller stand-alone organizations. Professional development also helps program leaders feel valued by their organization and by the broader Jewish community and contributes to longer tenure in their positions. Because of this, our organization is committed to supporting innovations and investments that attract and retain a talented crop of Jewish teen professionals.

Going forward, we also must develop strategies to ensure that the two Jewish communities involved in the Initiative, Denver and Boulder, continue to offer a mix of diverse and high-quality programs that appeal to teens. Maintaining this quality will require ongoing monitoring of the Jewish teen ecosystems. We need to find ways for each community to stay informed about available teen programs and opportunities, keep an eye on program quality, and increase awareness of parent and teen satisfaction with the existing programs. Providing low barriers to entry to Jewish teen programs is important in all communities, but especially so where there are smaller populations of Jewish youth or where Jewish families are geographically dispersed.

As a foundation serving the Greater Denver community, committed since 1995 to grantmaking in support of the region’s Jewish community, the Jewish Teen Initiative and subsequent evaluations provide us with valuable insights. We better understand how we’re doing our work, how we connect with grantees and partners, and the results of these efforts. Over the course of the Initiative, thousands of Greater Denver teens participated in immersive experiences, one-time events, in-school clubs and more.

We are ready to build on this success. By embracing learning as an organization-wide priority, Rose Community Foundation plans to make space to keep listening to our grantee partners, peer organizations, and others. We’ve asked grantees what they need — resources, training, technical assistance — to strengthen their capacity and evaluate their work in ways that nourish and sustain Jewish life in our community.

As our region and communities across the country consider future models and innovations for improving Jewish programming and increasing engagement, we hope the report and the data findings serve as a helpful resource. Through our grant making efforts in the Jewish community, we encourage a dynamic and inclusive Jewish ecosystem, which embraces myriad ways to be Jewish and builds enduring community infrastructure to sustain it. We know other foundations and grantee organizations around the county share this vision and approach. Thankfully, many learnings from the final report extend beyond the teen ecosystem and may apply to broader engagement efforts within the Jewish community. These learnings can help contribute to a roadmap for the future of Greater Denver’s Jewish teen programming and other communities around the country interested in creating and sustaining meaningful Jewish experiences.

Vanessa Bernier (she/her/hers) is program officer, Jewish life, at Rose Community Foundation.

originally posted in eJewish Philanthropy

On any given educational project, it is not unusual to be challenged by deeper societal issues than the project directly aims to address. What is unusual is being given the opportunity to pivot to address these deeper issues as part of the same grant from a funder of the project. Yet this is exactly what we were enabled to do as we launched the Israel education 4HQ program, part of a three-year community of practice called the Professional Development Initiative (PDI) supported by the Jim Joseph Foundation.

The originally planned project was designed to empower Moishe House programmers to engage their communities in stretching conversations about Israel. Working with The Jewish Agency for Israel Makom’s cognitive and pedagogical toolbox, we began making progress toward our goals. All evaluation pointed towards a successful embrace of complexity and courageous programming. Yet, at the same time, we felt we were reaching a limiting factor—a deeper societal issue, unrelated to Israel specifically—that affected the outcomes of the program.

We heard and saw that many program participants were extremely uncomfortable in discussions that led to disagreement. In exploring further, it was clear that this dynamic was not limited to Israel. Moishe House is an environment that aims to provide inclusion and comfort to people looking for a sense of community and fellowship. As such, it seems that the costs of disagreement, and being socially judged for one’s opinion, are too risky. Folks were far more comfortable skirting around issues, reserving judgment, and happily sitting on numerous fences, for the sake of maintaining a sense of community.

While this made a lot of social sense, it also made for stilted educational engagement. We began to realize that adult education about Israel effectively lives in the argument. Without argument—passionate disagreement—Israel and its issues remain theoretical, detached, and even somewhat illicit.

Although not a specifically “Israel-related” issue, this social imperative to avoid disagreement on most issues was a powerful impediment to achieving our Israel education aims.

And then came COVID-19. As significant funds went unused, the Jim Joseph Foundation expanded the scope of the grant to enable us to pivot towards this broader issue: arguments.

The literature on arguments is both abundant and limited. Much has been written and implemented about debating, the disagreement into which one enters in order to correct the opinion of others. Even more wisdom has been gained in the field of “problem-solving,” or “conflict transformation,” where one develops skills in diffusing disputes and making creative decisions. It turns out that far less has been shared, however, about disagreement for the sake of learning, about argument for the sake of identity development.

It is into this vast and challenging space that we were able to stumble and begin to thrive. Not only were we able to pivot within the original project, strengthening the project itself, but we were also able to develop an entire new direction based on our “on the job” discovery.

In January we will publish—Stories for the Sake of Argument—a source book and a training manual for educational arguments about Israel. Together with the stories, we are now running many “argument circles” for educational organizations. Soon we also will embark on a U.S.-wide training program for 500 educators to “teach from the argument.” And a more detailed “Pedagogy of Argument” is being written, which should be ready for Pesach 2022.

Many invigorating questions remain: Are there any elements of Israel that should not be “open to argument?” What is the place for passion in a healthy argument, and how does one manage it? When is the developmentally appropriate age to begin teaching through argument? What kind of educational support can and should be offered to families who buy and work with the book?

We look forward to addressing them as we move forward.

Robbie Gringras, formerly the creative director for the Jewish Agency for Israel’s Makom, is a performer, writer, educator, and co-creator of For the Sake of Argument. Abi Dauber Sterne, the previous director of the Jewish Agency for Israel’s Makom, is an educational consultant and co-creator of For the Sake of Argument. Learn more at forthesakeofargument.org.

Read a previous blog about another program in the PDI by Kiva Rabinsky, Chief Program Officer at M²: The Institute for Experiential Jewish Education.