News & Blogs Category: Guest Blog

There was something a little uncanny about my last trip to Chicago.

Let me explain: I’ve spent much of the last eight years planning and executing residential education programs as the Academic Director of the Yiddish Book Center. In these programs, different sorts of participants—high school students, college students, writers, media professionals, and, most recently, through a grant from the Jim Joseph Foundation, high school and middle school teachers—gather at the Center to learn Yiddish, study modern Jewish literature, and connect with one another.

Overseeing and teaching in dozens of these programs over the years, for more than eight hundred participants, I’ve figured out a lot about what makes them work.

So, what was unusual about my trip in August for a Jim Joseph Foundation gathering was not just that, for a change, I was in the role of participant rather than organizer (that happens, from time to time), but that all the other participants, themselves directors of Jewish professional development programs of one sort or another, have similar experiences to me. It’s funny to do an icebreaker when you know that all the people doing it are, like you, people whose job it is to lead icebreakers.

That, of course, was what ultimately made the gathering meaningful. As different as our organizations and programs are, so many of the issues we face on a regular basis are uncannily similar. All of us are trying, in one way or another, to educate Jewish educators. Both in the substance of what it means to do that—how do you help an educator to do their job more effectively?—and in the methods we use to accomplish our goals (retreats, seminars, websites, and so on), we found a whole lot to discuss and debate.

Rosov Consulting, which facilitated the convening, created many different kinds of opportunities for us to share challenges and experiences, and to brainstorm and be creative. One moment stands out to me in this regard in particular. I casually spoke with a couple of the other participants about an aspect of our work I always find challenging: connecting with program participants virtually, after a workshop or retreat has ended.

As we talked about this, someone raised the idea of holding regular e-conferences, using platforms like Zoom, GoToMeeting, or Google Hangouts. One of the participants responded emphatically: “Those really don’t work for us. No matter how we do them, and even if the technology cooperates, it’s just never really satisfying.”

That was important for me to hear because I also feel those platforms don’t fully work for the Yiddish Book Center’s programs either. I’ve always wondered why we don’t see stronger results when we try to use those with our participants. Were we doing something wrong, choosing the wrong platform, or not approaching an e-conference in the right way? Why was it that in-person gatherings were always so much more intense and meaningful, in so many of our programs? It’s certainly possible that we can still find ways to make this kind of post-program virtual meeting work for us; but it was, frankly, a relief for me to hear that it’s not just us who find that modality mostly lackluster. I began to feel less anxious about trying to make that particular approach to alumni engagement work, and it inspired me to put more energy into exploring other methods for connecting with our participants once they’re home.

And, of course, one of the most useful outcomes of this Chicago gathering was that I now have a diverse and enthusiastic group of program directors to whom I can turn with questions about what works for them, and what doesn’t.  This is exactly the type of community that will help support me as I pursue my goals and look to advance our alumni engagement in new and meaningful ways.

Josh Lambert is Academic Director at the Yiddish Book Center

The Foundation is pleased to share reflections from participants at its recent convening of directors of Jewish educator training programs.

Pulling up to The Publishing House Bed and Breakfast in what appeared to be an old, deserted part of Chicago’s near West Side did not particularly allay my trepidation about the upcoming couple of days with my fellow grantees of the Jim Joseph Foundation’s Professional Development Initiative (PDI).  I walked around the building trying to figure out how to enter, eventually found the B & B’s small door and went inside.  No one was in the small foyer to greet me and it took me a while to determine that I needed to call someone’s cell phone who would then come to take care of check-in.  As I waited, I couldn’t help but wonder what I had gotten myself into – an inauspicious beginning to be sure.

And then I met the inn keeper and climbed the stairs into a magnificent, refurbished space that embodied the elegance and beauty of 110 years ago while reflecting the comforts and innovations of 2018.  I soon learned (and experienced for myself) that the near West Side of Chicago is far from deserted.  Rather, it is a quickly growing hotspot for Gen Z and Millennials, with housing construction on every street, restaurants, fragrant coffee shops and more.

These initial impressions of The Publishing House are a fitting metaphor for the experience we shared.  The ten PDI project directors represented a broadly diverse group, both in terms of settings served, roles and ages.  When considered individually each one of these characteristics opens up a world of difference between the participants, whether it be in how we work, our independence within our respective organizations and our generational experience of the world around us.  Taken together, they might have led to an insurmountable stumbling block.

Thanks to outstanding framing by the event organizers from Rosov Consulting, early on in the proceedings I began to understand the import and power of the experience, both in building relationships with colleagues who are engaged in the same, yet different, work and in gaining insight into the nature of the field of Jewish education in 2018.  These two pieces are inextricably connected: the directors of the ten PDI projects are playing an important role in shaping the field in the image of their vision and aspirations for Jewish learning in our time and in the future.

As someone well into the second half of my career, I spend a great deal of time considering how the field is changing in response to our changing world and how I can best leverage my experience in service of the future (much like The Publishing House has seamlessly woven the past into the present and future).  Indeed, I often wonder how I might gain more understanding of and insight into the realities and dreams of the next generation.  And so, the gift of two days with colleagues from multiple generations and settings, allowed me (and all of us) to more deeply understand each other’s realities and the contours of the field of Jewish education as it is emerging. 

During the gathering, four project directors (myself included) presented their projects.  The presentations by Laynie Solomon of Svara: A Traditionally Radical Yeshiva and Dr. Josh Lambert of the Yiddish Book Center’s project crystalized in my mind the dramatic generational shifts in the field and the power of the learning and dialogue we were experiencing.  The PDI/Svara project seeks to raise up a generation of teachers who are “bold and courageous teachers, transformers, and transmitters of Jewish tradition.” while the Yiddish Book Center’s Great Books project uses 2018 technological capacities to bring literature of a very different time and place to a new generation of middle and high school teachers in Jewish day schools.  Robbie Gringras of Makom brought into focus in a particularly profound way the joys and challenges of marrying the ongoing work of Israel education with the world of Moishe House, serving young people in their 20’s.  Perhaps more than any project, Robbie is charged with adapting and shifting not only the nature of the learning to meet the needs of this age group but also the expectations of the fluid and often unpredictable engagement that typifies Millennials and Gen X.

As the director of HUC-JIR’s Executive MA program in Jewish education, a hybrid online/face-to-face learning experience for Jewish educators working in all aspects of the field, I, along with my HUC-JIR colleagues, am continuously trying to understand the evolving nature of the field, the people whom we educate and the leaders we prepare.  As I listened to and experienced the work of my colleagues and engaged in sustained conversations with other project directors not mentioned here, I felt a profound shift in my grasp of the world Jewish educators and learners inhabit today and will inhabit in the years ahead.  During the time of the gathering, our current HUC-JIR Executive MA students were beginning a sequence of courses entitled Educational Practices. The sequence begins by asking students to delve into the question of “who are our learners.”  The next set of questions they will be addressing ask, “What matters to our learners?” and “What does learning look like today?”  The PDI gathering in Chicago, without question, brought home for me just how dramatically our field is changing and the consequent demands made upon current and future leaders to respond to these changes while remaining firmly rooted in an ancient tradition and the successes of our past which in turn will have an impact on the content and framing of the course sequence.

In the years ahead, as Jim Joseph Foundation PDI program directors continue to collaborate and learn from one another, and as the world around us continues to change at what some would say is a breakneck pace, my hope is that we will not only understand but also be able to articulate with greater clarity the nature and concrete work entailed in ensuring a vibrant and ever-evolving field of Jewish education

Dr. Lesley Litman is the Director of the Executive MA program in Jewish Education at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion

The Jim Joseph Foundation is pleased to share a series of reflections from beneficiaries of some of its newly-supported programs in leadership development and educator training. Rabbi Jeff Amshalem reflects on his experience working with educators as part of Ayeka’s Soulful Education program.

What will you be trying to do teshuvah for this year? Raise your hand if it is the same as last year. Raise the other hand if it was the same as the year before that. Raise the other hand if…

I don’t know about you, but I’ve got all my hands up. But was there anything you have succeeded in changing? Based on my own experience and my time as a teacher, I would guess that when real change happened, some combination of the following things was present for you: an emotional investment in changing, a deep and sustained process of reflection, and/or a personal model of the way you wanted to be.

Ayeka Soulful Education tries to provide these things for educators and the students they serve, so that education becomes not only about information but transformation. Most educators already share this goal; sometimes, however, our educational environments can do more to support this work as well. “Covering material,” for example, can take precedent over transformation. Reminiscent of Ramban’s famous claim that one can be “a scoundrel within the limits of the law,” a student can be a star without ever actually becoming one bit more of a mensch. Worse, they may not even realize that Jewish learning was supposed to be so much more. Is such a student really a success? Were his or her teachers?

At Ayeka, we like to think of our methodology as a paradigm shift. To achieve that shift, we began by offering intensive workshops for schools to help teachers create a classroom culture and facilitate lessons that would use the content being taught to inspire personal reflection and growth. We were moderately successful – teachers reported increased student engagement, more supportive student culture, and satisfaction in everyone knowing that the purpose of learning was to change and grow – but we did not achieve the paradigm shift we were looking for. Ayeka still felt like a technique, like something teachers did, not an approach, not something they were becoming.

We realized that we had skipped the most important step – the teacher’s own learning for growth. Like most (if not all) day school educators, our teachers were pressed for time, spent much of their development and teaching time alone, and approached the material by immediately asking what the students would take from it (which was usually answered in the form of content and skills). So now, when we partner with schools, whether in 18 month or 3 year programs, we devote our first three-day retreat and the entire first semester to helping the teachers reconnect to Torah themselves, as learners, as Jews with souls of their own that need nourishing, and not teachers. We build an intimate cohort of teachers and administrators from all the partner schools and create an environment built on honesty, openness, and room for failure. We stress seeing ourselves as works in progress, with Torah as a guide, and each other as fellows on the way. We give the gift of time and a supportive space that teachers generally lack, to reinvest in the kind of learning that attracted so many teachers to Jewish education in the first place. We learn together, asking just one simple question – what does this have to say to you, right now? It is staggering to hear teachers say, time and again, “Wow, I never get to learn like this anymore” (or even “I’ve never learned like this before”).

It’s only in the second semester that we begin bringing this methodology into the classroom, and only gradually, because the teachers have to be authentic models themselves of this kind of soulful learning if they hope to inspire their students to learn in the same way. The focus is still on the teacher, though, as we try to cultivate the necessary dispositions for this kind of teaching, such as humility, being a generous listener, and the willingness to be vulnerable. We also work on creating classroom environments that mirror the learning culture we create in our cohorts, so that students can feel supported, heard, and accepted. Only then do we move on to teaching techniques that will help move the learning from the brain down into the heart and out into students’ lives.

This is the place for me to stress that that learning is a key part of the Ayeka approach. Ayeka is not an add-on to content learning, and it certainly does not come to replace the learning of content and skills; as an approach to Jewish education that comes from lives spent in the beit midrash and that is based first and foremost on the teachings of Rav Kook, it would be heresy to suggest such a thing. On the contrary, we find that the more integrated the affective and content learning are, the more the learning spurs growth.

Perhaps I can best illustrate this with an example. Let’s return to teshuvah. How do you teach it? That’s easy, right? You could teach Rambam’s Four Steps. You could teach the story of King David, or Moses’ plea after Het haEigel. So far, though, we’re only talking about content – no matter how well the students learn this material, nothing is likely to change. So let’s make it relevant. We could ask them to identify something in their life they need to do teshuvah for; we could look for parallels between ourselves and King David, or ask what the big sin of today is. All good ideas, except that…still, nothing is likely to change, because it hasn’t moved out of their heads and into their hearts. And here’s where Ayeka comes in. We believe that if a young person is going to open up his or her heart to allow the Torah learning in, they have to feel emotionally safe and supported by their teacher and their classmates, they have to be given the time and the tools to reflect personally on what the learning has to say to them, and they need a model of what being a work in progress looks like. Providing these things is the real hard work of an Ayeka educator, and its what we educate towards in our own training. It takes a long time; it takes commitment; it takes guts. But we’ve seen, time and again, that when mentors, administrators, and teachers work together to provide them, the results are truly transformative.

Rabbi Jeff Amshalem is a Senior Ayeka Educator

The Jim Joseph Foundation is pleased to share a series of reflections from beneficiaries of some of its newly-supported programs in leadership development and educator training. Leili Davari reflects on her experience in the Selah Leadership Program for Jews of Color who are social justice leaders working in Jewish and secular organizations.

I’ve lost count to how many times people make assumptions about my ethnicity and what type of Jew I am. This is usually how it starts off: “Leili, that’s an interesting name, are you Hawaiian?”  “No, my name is Persian, my father is Iranian.” “Oh, that’s interesting. So he must be Jewish?” “Nope, he was born Muslim.” “Oh, so is your mother Jewish? “Nope, she is a Mexican Catholic.” “I converted to Judaism in my late 20s.”

Additionally, I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve been introduced as, “Leili, the Mexican/Iranian Jew,” which is not correct at all. I am not a Mexican Jew, I am not an Iranian Jew. I am all those truths: Mexican, Iranian and Jewish. And it has become exhausting to have to always educate people on what this means.

From there, the responses to me being Mexican, Iranian, and Jewish range from disbelief, to being exoticized. “Wow, you are so exotic – you’ve got a little bit of everything in you!”

Not to mention the countless questions I get about converting, particularly from Jews.  I am shocked at how much I have had to educate other Jews on conversion — answering the million dollar question, “What made you decide to be Jewish?” Some days I just want to respond, “None of your business!” But what kind of person would I be if I responded that way? So instead, with a smile, I answer all the questions about how I am Jewish, my parents, and finally, my personal identity politics.

Being the target of so many questions at Shabbat dinners stifles my willingness to participate fully in Jewish life. I’ve wondered to myself: If I were White, would I receive the same interrogation? Or would it be easier to pass as a White Ashkenazi Jew? The isolation I feel is painful and holds me back from reaching my full potential as a confident Jewish Woman of Color. This isolation stops me at times from building community within Jewish spaces. And without a doubt, this isolation shows up in my public life as a Jewish professional working in a particular Jewish community that is almost entirely White. I convinced myself that this isolation was my reality and nothing would change.

An opportunity that would turn out to be a life changing experience appeared in late 2017, when I was selected to be in Cohort 15 of the Selah Leadership Program, a cohort specifically for Jews of Color who are social justice leaders working in Jewish and secular organizations. I was excited to be a part of this community and unsure of what I would get out of this experience. This excitement I felt was rooted in the possibility of building relationships with fellow Jewish People of Color and finding support as I navigated difficult life and work circumstances.

Our opening retreat in January proved to be a transformative event. Meeting my fellow JOC ‘family’ was more than I anticipated. I can still remember our opening retreat activity — our facilitator, Yavilah McCoy, had us raise our arms in the air and say “I am powerful!” My arm was halfway up, my voice just barely over a whisper. I had a long way to go before I came fully into my power as a Jewish Woman of Color,  but I knew Selah was a step in the right direction.

Meeting and building relationships with other JOCs with both similar and different lived experiences was instrumental to my growth. I was able to share my stories of pain and challenges and receive comfort and validation from fellow JOCs. This validation was mind-blowing for me. It was the first time I could be fully vulnerable about both personal and work challenges in the majority White Jewish community. At our opening retreat, I realized that I had been holding myself back in my work because of my fear of not wanting to be the employee who causes conflict in the workplace. This realization of how much I was holding back at work, and how much my work was affected by this fear, led to me make a crucial decision. As we say in Spanish, “¡Basta!” Enough. Knowing that I had the support and validation from my JOC family was what I needed to lean into my full potential as a Jewish organizer and woman. Once I made this decision, “la vida dio muchas vueltas” — life took many turns.

After Selah’s opening retreat, it was clear that in order to come into my full-power Jewish Woman of Color self in my professional life, I actually needed to start with my personal life. This required that I take a deep look into my personal relationships and end those that were not emotionally nourishing to my development and growth. As heartbreaking as it has been, this was necessary in order for me to prioritize my livelihood and emotional well-being. Since then, I have learned how to live my life in a way that prioritizes myself and what it means to not only survive, but thrive as a Jewish Woman of Color. And thrive I have!

The next step I needed to take was to apply what I learned from Selah, my coming into my full power, into my professional life. This meant that I had to lean into difficult conversations with colleagues and other staff in positions of power. It meant that I needed to face my fears of being the dissenting voice in some conversations, and most importantly, of not allowing race and positions of power to intimidate me. While I can not say that I have yet fully reached the level of confidence to be the Jewish Professional I aspire to be, I know I have made significant progress and more lies ahead in my future.

In closing, the Selah Leadership Program proved to be a turning point both in my personal as well as professional life. I look back at the Leili I was two years ago when I first started working at Bend the Arc, and I don’t recognize that woman at all. After Selah, I feel more prepared at Shabbat dinners to call out when I feel I am being scrutinized with inappropriate “How are you Jewish?” questions. I feel better equipped with tools to handle challenges at work when my colleagues’ race and power dynamics are having negative impacts on me. And not to mention the confidence I feel at calling out White Jews who exoticize me for being Mexican and Iranian. The relationships I’ve made through Selah are ones that will last a lifetime — our commitment  to one another’s resilience and success as Jewish People of Color did not end at our closing retreat, but will continue throughout our lives. I am eternally grateful for the opportunity to have participated in Selah and look forward to the continuation of Jewish programs, including Selah, dedicating cohorts that are exclusive to Jewish People of Color. No doubt there are many more Jewish People of Color who want and need this fellowship in their lives. I know I did.

Leili Davari is the Bay Area Regional Organizer of Bend the Arc. 

The Jim Joseph Foundation is pleased to share a series of reflections from beneficiaries of some of its newly-supported programs in leadership development and educator training. Rabbi Elie Weinstock offers reflections from earlier this year on his experience in the American Jewish World Service Global Justice Fellowship.

I’m writing from 7,640 feet above sea level in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. Yes, you read correctly. Here’s my hotel.

I’m here participating in the American Jewish World Service Global Justice Fellowship. I’m one of 13 rabbis in Guatemala to meet with and support advocates fighting for legal protections for human rights activists at risk of violence; midwives providing maternal health support for indigenous women; and members of an independent journalism collective seeking to expose abuses and corruption through a more open press.

It’s been quite an experience as I have encountered people, places, and issues that I really could never have imagined.

Presenting a certificate of appreciation to Bufete legal organization that represents victims of human rights violations.

Meeting in the home of a midwife in a very rural village on the outskirts of Salcaja. (It was up a steep hill in the middle of nowhere!)

We had the opportunity to discuss the state of affairs in Guatemala with a very receptive US Ambassador, Luis Arreaga. He noted that Americans, religious leaders, visiting Guatemala to encourage and support those trying to improve their own country represented what America is all about: sharing American values to improve the lives of those in need.

While spending hours on buses traversing winding mountainous roads, I’ve had the chance to ask myself, “Is there a Jewish lesson in all of this?”

In a word: Justice.

Justice is critical to society. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” We intuitively understand that society needs justice to function. Judaism also values justice. The Torah teaches (Devarim 16:20): “Tzedek tzedek tirdofe – Justice, justice shall you pursue.” This verse is often invoked as a call for Jewish participation in trying to address all sorts of injustice.

But what is justice and what is our role in pursuing it?

I believe the Torah repeats the word justice because there are many types of injustice that require our attention. Pick an issue, any issue. It may be something that challenges the Jewish community. Maybe it’s how Israel is treated at the UN. It may be the issue of racial or socioeconomic inequality or immigration in America. Or it may be corruption in Guatemala. There are, alas, many examples from which to choose.

There is a lot of tzedek needed today.

In addition to repeating the word “justice,” the Torah uses the word “tirdofe,” which literally means to run. The pursuit of a solution to injustice is a race we each need to run.

When it comes to running, people run at different paces and can run for different distances. The pursuit of justice is a different “race” for each issue and each person.

As long as everyone gets in the race.

Running isn’t always easy. It is strenuous, and it is sometimes cold outside. As the saying goes, “No pain, no gain.” There will be no justice unless WE run after it. It’s OK if it is hard or sometimes hurts. In a 1965 speech at Temple Israel in Hollywood, CA, Dr. King said, “We must always maintain a kind of divine discontent.”

There is justice to pursue everywhere. Whether in Guatemala or New York City, we need to be on the lookout for what is wrong and what we can do to make it right. The Torah doesn’t tell us to catch justice; we are commanded to pursue it and seek it even if we cannot achieve it.

It’s time for each of us to open our eyes, our minds, and our hearts, put on our justice shoes, and get in the race. The race for justice.

Rabbi Elie Weinstock is Rabbi of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun (KJ) in New York, NY. He was a AJWS Global Justice Fellow in 2017-2018.

One of us is a Jew. One of us is a Muslim. And this is our story of building a genuine friendship through Jewish Student Connection (JSC) at South High School in Denver – the only Denver Public School with a Newcomer Center serving refugee students who have limited or interrupted formal education.[1] We share our story not to be patted on the back, but to serve as a model of what happens when teens are empowered to lead and are given the space to learn and grow together.

One of us, Eliana Goldberg, started JSC at South during her freshman year (four years ago). At first, the club wasn’t in high demand. We had about six students coming to most of our meetings. We knew we needed a different strategy to build momentum and gather members.

And so we took a different route. We reached out to the Muslim Culture Club and invited them to start coming to our meetings. In fact, we invited anyone we could talk to about our meetings. Each meeting started with a simple exercise: we asked everyone who attended what they wanted to know about Judaism, and that served as our topic for the next meeting. An especially popular area was learning about Torah numerology.

The club became a popular place for many students of all backgrounds to learn about Jewish life, culture, and more. We welcomed all students with open arms because that’s what our generation does. If we want people to see our best selves, and our best Jewish selves – as people who are respectful and embrace diversity – we have to live it.

And so, every couple of weeks since the club’s founding, we’ve gathered to share stories, share food, and to learn together. Over time, the club grew to be a platform for exploring and learning in an open, safe environment. We have 72 nationalities represented at our high school – with all kinds of questions.

Last year, the other one of us, Marwan Nassr, an Iraqi Muslim refugee who fled to Syria and then to Turkey, walked into the club. Where Marwan came from was completely devoid of friendly interactions with Jewish people. Marwan was told things about Jewish people that gave a certain impression about who Jews are and what they believe in. And then he met Eliana. He was skeptical when she invited me to JSC. But she offered free pizza.

And so even though he was worried and thought he would feel like a stranger, Marwan went. He never felt so welcomed before in his life. Marwan felt that he was one person before JSC, and another person after. He got to ask questions and do something so simple: meet people.

We’re the largest club on campus now. 65 students strong. We put people in an environment where there’s no judgment and ideas aren’t pushed on people. Our club is a place to relax. We don’t dictate how to do or how to be Jewish, or what to believe. We frame conversations with “This is what I think” and “If you want to learn.” Teens live in a world where so much is dictated to us. We don’t need to impose that on each other. We connect with each other in fun ways and then also delve into serious issues and explore even real divisions that may exist. No question is off limits.

We are blessed to have a diverse culture at our high school. People have had struggles. But all people should be met with the same respect. And our differences and similarities should be explored freely.

Our club is part of our high school’s culture of developing young people ready to lead and create positive change. So we want to be part of creating that change.

Because of JSC, we are now close friends. By taking time to meet and then to understand “the other,” we have built a wonderful friendship. We know we have differences, and we know what those differences are. And that’s great. We hope our experience can serve as an example during these times that feel incredibly divisive. Our goal is to show that it’s not hard to create these interpersonal connections. Start with a small connection or act of kindness to welcome people in and engage them. Give options, give freedom of choice, to learn and interact with people. Sharing beliefs builds genuine friendships.

The Jewish community has taken huge strides in breaking social stigmas, working with other cultures and really connecting. We think we can go even farther, to work with other people, and break down more barriers. If we can do this at our high school, we think it’s possible for everyone.

[1] The National Education Policy Center Schools of Opportunity Recognition Program has recognized the school as one of only eight in the nation creating remarkable learning opportunities for all students.

Eliana Goldberg is a senior at South High School in Denver. Marwan Nassr is a junior at South High School

Rose Community Foundation is helping JSC expand its presence in Greater Denver middle and high schools through support from the Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Initiative. The initiative – a partnership between Rose Community Foundation, Jim Joseph Foundation and other donors – is designed to engage more Jewish teens in innovative Jewish experiences. Denver/Boulder is one of ten communities that are a part of the Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative.

Source: originally posted in eJewishPhilanthropy

Editor’s Note: Since 2012, The Concentration in Education and Jewish Studies (EDJS) at the Stanford School of Education has been a home for the creation and enhancement of research that spans the social sciences, humanities, and education. The Concentration is led by Professor Ari Kelman. In this Guest Blog series, “Shaping the field of Jewish education,” we hear from three current students in the program pursuing their PhDs. 

During my time at Stanford I have been fortunate to work with a group of scholars who have sharpened my skills as a listener to music. Through working on social science research as an assistant to Dr. Ari Kelman, coursework in musicology, performance studies and Yiddish folklore, I have come to understand music both as a creative discipline and as a discursive tradition with the potential to expose unique insights into historical and social questions. Furthermore, studying music from an education standpoint has clarified for me the way the world of sound serves as a primary aspect of enculturation, both for performers and listeners.

In education literature, the sensory and non-verbal facets of experience are undervalued and underexplored resources in the construction and reproduction of culture. I am especially concerned with studying the intersection of musical experience and the process of enculturation.

I came to Stanford with a vague sense that I wanted to study transmission of musical culture and that I wanted to delve even more deeply into the cantorial music tradition I was involved with as a creative musician. As I began my research I was surprised and delighted to find that there was a cantorial music revival taking place in Brooklyn, just around the corner from where I used to live, both figuratively and literally.

The past two decades have seen a remarkable revival of early 20^th century cantorial styles among Chassidic Jewish singers. Chassidic Brooklyn is a conservative and inward-looking community that is marked by an ambivalent attitude towards the importation of “art” aesthetics into prayer practice. A young cohort of Chassidic cantorial singers is achieving star status in the world of Jewish music. For Chassidic cantors the bi-cultural sound of cantorial music, rooted in folk prayer practice and Euroclassical music, offers an opportunity for achievement in the realm of aesthetics and self-expression. My thesis, tentatively titled Golden Ages, explores how young Chassidic cantors in Brooklyn have claimed the music and culture of the “Golden Age” of cantorial music as a touchstone for the formation of their own aesthetics. The guiding research question around which my current research is organized is: How do musicians address the challenges faced in reviving a largely forgotten music genre to forge a successful path as a professional artist?

This question will be approached from the specific vantage point of Chassidic singers and will draw into focus the advantages their cultural background gives and the unique challenges they face. While my project is not framed as a comparative study, the learning and career formation issues faced by young Chassidic cantors bare a close relationship to issues faced by artists in other music revivals. Like the blues revival of the 1960s, or the current avante garde jazz scene, the cantorial revival is organized around a recorded music legacy genre that it seeks to extend into the present.

My central research question provides room for discussion of the ways in which the culturally syncretic history of cantorial music provides sonic and emotional resources that are resonant for contemporary Chassidic artists. The history of bi-cultural expression that is written into the cannon of cantorial music is pungently relevant for Chassidic singers whose home culture is organized around opposition to the dominant non-Jewish culture. For the artists I am writing about, genre revival of cantorial music offers a platform from which to speak about deeply felt issues including: aspirations for personal self-expression; theological and anti-theological probing of religious ideas and emotions; defining a sonic aesthetic that is emotionally and intellectually satisfying and relevant; expressing ethnic and class identity.

As I begin to transition from doing research and taking graduate seminars to teaching and writing my thesis, I look back on the journey I have undertaken at the Stanford Graduate School of Education Concentration in Jewish Studies with a great deal of excitement and satisfaction. I can see now that the tentative questions I began my research with have solidified into a stream of ideas and research concerns that I am thrilled to be engaged with and look forward to addressing over the coming years. These interests include exploring the relationship of history and creative musical careers, the interweaving of “folk” and “institutional” transmission of musical traditions, and the connections and disjunctions between group identities and the individual paths of artists.

Jeremiah Lockwood is a PhD candidate in the Concentration in Education and Jewish Studies at Stanford University. While engaged in his scholarship, Jeremiah continues to pursue a busy career as composer and performer in the bands The Sway Machinery and Book of J.

Read the first blogs in the series, here and here.

Editor’s Note: Since 2012, The Concentration in Education and Jewish Studies (EDJS) at the Stanford School of Education has been a home for the creation and enhancement of research that spans the social sciences, humanities, and education. The Concentration is led by Professor Ari Kelman. In this Guest Blog series, “Shaping the field of Jewish education,” we hear from three current students in the program pursuing their PhDs. 

My experience as a PhD student in the Concentration in Education and Jewish Studies at Stanford University is exceeding my expectations in every possible way. The interdisciplinary nature of the concentration has been especially valuable because I have been able to take classes in, and learn methodologies from, the fields of sociology and education policy. As a result, I examine American Jews and their experiences with Jewish education within the broader social context in which they live. Through my interdisciplinary training and collaborations with scholars outside of Jewish studies, I hope to advance the theoretical and methodological rigor in the Jewish education field.

A particularly helpful part of my studies at Stanford is my fellowship from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) (part of the GSE Center for Education Policy Analysis (CEPA)). The IES Interdisciplinary Doctoral Training Program in Quantitative Education Policy Analysis provides doctoral students with advanced training in state-of-the-art quantitative methods of discipline-based education policy analysis. Through this program, I am participating in an interdisciplinary core curriculum consisting of coursework in education policy, discipline-based theory, and applied quantitative research methods. I hope to significantly improve the way scholars, funders and practitioners of Jewish education think about evaluating the effectiveness of their work.  There are ample opportunities to conduct more rigorous research and evaluation studies by improving our standards for what counts as rigorous research, and by adapting quasi-experimental methods used by scholars of public education.

As I work towards completing my Certificate in Quantitative Research Methods through the CEPA IES Program, I am exploring the interaction of religion and education in three populations: families, adolescents, and emerging adults. I think it is quite misleading to study American Jews separately from their social environments. Thus, in most of my research, I examine Jews in the non-Jewish contexts they inhabit to illuminate how social contexts and sociological phenomenon influence their lives and choices about Jewish engagement and Jewish education. 

Currently, I am looking at how being religious affects how adolescents and college students from all religious denominations in the U.S. perform in school. Central to this work is my dissertation entitled, The Long Arm of God: How Religiousness Shapes Educational Outcomes. Based on secondary analyses of longitudinal surveys and interviews from the National Study of Youth and Religion, I find that more religious students consistently report better grades than their less religious peers, even after accounting for social class, gender, and race. I find that religious adolescents are more conscientious and agreeable, traits that are linked with academic success. Being religious helps adolescents in middle/high school because they are rewarded for being obedient, respectful, disciplined, and cooperative. Next, I will examine whether the traits that help religious adolescents in high school continue to help them in college.

As I progress in my studies, I look to further hone my interests, build relationships with colleagues, and continue exploring new areas of research. I am particularly excited about my collaboration with five Stanford scholars, including Abiya Ahmed, to conduct longitudinal surveys and interviews with 150 Muslim, Jewish, Mormon, and Christian college freshmen over their first year. Our goal is to understand how they form social networks and construct their identities from the time they set foot on campus. We focus on how identity construction occurs through social networks by building on earlier research I did with Dr. Ari Kelman and my colleagues to examine how American Jews construct, negotiate, and reaffirm their Jewishness through ongoing social interactions. This research serves as a counter narrative to literature that conceives of Jewish identity as something that inheres in individuals, and can be cultivated, strengthened, or enhanced. Two papers resulting from this study are published in Contemporary Jewry and Jewish Social Studies.

I also want to note two key opportunities that would help strengthen the Jewish education field. First, we would greatly benefit from stronger researcher-practitioner partnerships (although this is not a problem solely in the Jewish education field). It is a shame that scholars conduct research that never reaches the hands of our educators and decision-makers. And, it is a shame that Jewish organizations don’t have more opportunities to collaborate with researchers to build their knowledge and to improve their work. With help from The AVI CHAI Foundation, Jim Joseph Foundation, The Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life, and The Crown Family, among others, CASJE (whose Board I recently joined) is bringing together researchers, practitioners, and philanthropic leaders to strengthen our field.

Second, we need to do a better job designing studies to identify strategies and practices that predict learning and engagement. This means better evidence using regression techniques, which allow for deeper analysis and understanding of associations between variables. Our field needs to raise the standards for what counts as quality research and to incorporate decades of knowledge from the general education field. Of course, none of this can happen without stellar graduate programs to train future scholars.

Ilana M. Horwitz is a PhD Candidate in Sociology of Education & Jewish Studies at the Stanford School of Education

Read the first piece in the series from Abiya Ahmed.

Editor’s Note: Since 2012, The Concentration in Education and Jewish Studies (EDJS) at the Stanford School of Education has been a home for the creation and enhancement of research that spans the social sciences, humanities, and education. The Concentration is led by Professor Ari Kelman. In this Guest Blog series, “Shaping the field of Jewish education,” we hear from three current students in the program pursuing their PhDs. 

Before I started my Stanford doctoral program, I was a middle school English teacher at a Bay Area Islamic school. My experience there formed my research interests, which led me to a search for suitable doctoral programs that would allow me to research the intersection of religion and education. Few schools of education in the country offer such a program, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that Stanford had an Education and Jewish Studies (EDJS) concentration that could possibly fit my own academic pursuits. I met with Ari Kelman, the Jim Joseph Chair in Education and Jewish Studies, to indicate my research interests regarding Islamic and Jewish education specifically as well as religion and education broadly. He encouraged me to apply, and here I am three years later, a doctoral candidate now halfway through my program.

My experience thus far has exceeded my expectations in that I’ve been able to not only pursue my research interests but also expand them, while exploring opportunities I had not expected. I have learned significantly from being part of research teams and working on projects like exploring Jewish students’ experiences in relation to political activism on campus, or how people learn to be religious and develop religious commitments. For my own research, I have done long-term ethnography of an Islamic high school to explore what makes it Islamic, and I am currently developing my dissertation proposal around how Muslim college students negotiate traditional religious authority with their lived experience of being Muslim at various higher education institutions. In attempting to understand how Jewish students might navigate similar terrain, this is an important comparison case.

In terms of opportunities, being in this program at Stanford has exposed me via conferences to other academics and graduate students exploring issues of religion and education, as well as the chance to apply for related grants. This year, Ilana Horwitz (another Jim Joseph Foundation awardee and my colleague) and I received the IDEALS grant from Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC), through which we are examining the role of social class in students’ interfaith engagement. While all of these projects are distinct in some ways, they are also interconnected in ways that I had not imagined, drawing on sociological and anthropological literature related to religion, religious practices, belief, belonging, and associated issues of identity, power, authenticity, and authority.

In this way, working on religion and education broadly, per the EDJS concentration’s approach, allows me to consider both universals and particulars within categories of religion and education and within their intersection. For instance, examining Jewish education / Jewish students highlights issues specific to the American Jewish experience, while exploring other traditions such as Islamic education / Muslim students, or examining other American religions and religious communities (including those who identfty as atheists, agnostics, or as religious Nones) allows for comparability across various traditions in terms of both historical trajectories and current realities. Additionally, bringing in other variables such as race, gender, and class and their intersection with religion nuances the research to offer perspectives that might not have been considered before.

Perhaps this is one of the most fruitful outcomes of being part of the EDJS concentration: acquiring the knowledge and skills to be able to examine a tradition or phenomenon in its own terms while also comparing it with significant others to draw nuanced conclusions and say something about each of those. My work has thus far been interdisciplinary cutting across sociology, anthropology, but also religious studies and education. In future I hope to continue researching and writing across these fields and exploring issues of religion and education, construing them both broadly in terms of institutional and non-institutional settings, and across various kinds of religious communities. Needless to say, I have come a long way from being a middle school English teacher: in that setting, my “on-the-ground” reality surely set the tone for my future work, but it’s only after exploring religion and education in terms of historical and contemporary factors and via various disciplinary lenses have I been able to better grasp those realities.

For all that I’ve been able to learn so far, I can say this with enthusiastic confidence: there’s so much more where that’s coming from, and I find myself at the cusp of more exciting personal opportunities as well as (hopefully) meaningful contributions to academia and practice.

Abiya Ahmed is a doctoral candidate at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, where she studies the intersection of religion and education from anthropological and sociological perspectives. Her work addresses various American religions and religious communities, with a focus on the American Jewish and the American Muslim experience. 

Against the backdrop of a nation strained by senseless race-based police killings and the most serious wave of racial injustice seen in fifty years, more and more Jewish community leaders have been awakened – moved to both wonder about their role in advancing racial justice, and to deeply reflect about how daily and institutional expressions of racism affect Jews, specifically Jews of Color who navigate the world in brown and black skin.

Out loud, leaders have begun to wonder about our lives – are we, Jews of Color safe? Do we feel welcome? Are we treated with fairness? Are we able to move though our Jewish community without obstacle – with comfort and ease? Do we feel valued? Are we seen? Are we heard? And beyond the immediate they wonder about our community network. How do we connect and plug-in to the community infrastructures in ways that are purposeful and powerful? Do we feel like this is our Jewish community, too?

To answer these questions, in September 2016, the Leichtag Foundation in partnership with other funders and organizational leaders convened 12 Jewish, African American community leaders for a two-day, bring your whole self, let’s get into proximity, then relationship, then problem-solving partnership for serious think tanking, strategic conversing, teaching, learning and ultimately activating!

The think-tank was not without its awkward and intensely uncomfortable moments. We barely made it through developing ground rules for the convening as “assume good will” fell flat when a Black colleague very gently explained that Black people in the United States have no reason to assume good will of White people given the institutionalized racism that is endured on a daily and pervasive basis – Jewish community most definitely included. And I think we were all uncertain if we’d make it to the end of the two days when, the funders were challenged to respond to questions about how racism plays out in Jewish funding efforts and decisions. However, what could have been a difficult and fruitless gathering did not go bust. Everyone involved met the awkwardness and discomfort with warmth, humor, an inquiry posture, (cautious) openness and optimism and collaboration. In fact, when the entire collective decided our experience together needed to be more like graduate school than a retreat, we developed mini-courses in real time on African American History, Jewish History, and the History of Jewish Philanthropy taught by the leaders in the room. We also had seminar-style discussions on topics like, What’s in the Way of Jewish Funders Funding Jews of Color? You can imagine the conversation was robust.

In retrospect, the gathering was such a gutsy thing for funders to initiate and for Jewish leaders of Color to say yes to. And it proved to be a watershed collaboration moment for both the Jews of Color and the Jewish Philanthropic leaders resulting in the nation’s first ever philanthropic fund and grant activity expressly dedicated to responding to racial injustice through helping further establish, fortify and build-out the Field for Jews of Color.

In Winter 2017, infused with pooled-resources from the Think-Tank anchors – the Leichtag Foundation, the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, and the Jim Joseph Foundation – the Fund for Jews of Color Field Building released an initial request for proposals. Six grants were awarded, and today the Fund for Jews of Color Field Building is excited to support:

• Bend the Arc, Seleh Cohort 15 a best-in-class leadership program for Jews of Color that provides training for leaders, new tools to enhance personal vision and facilitate organizational change, and the opportunity to learn with innovative and inspiring Jewish social change leaders.
• Dimensions, a national nonprofit training and consulting organization specializing in diversity and inclusion led by Yavilah McCoy, focusing on leadership development – facilitating a cohort of Jews of Color working at the intersection of critical conversations, racial justice and working with Allies.
• Courtney Parker, a national educational leader and program designer partnering with Dimensions to develop program modules supporting the training of a cohort of leaders who are Jews of Color.
• Jews in All Hues led by Founder and Executive Director Jared Jackson, focusing on organizational development.
• The Jewish Multiracial Network (JMN) represented by Board Chair Tamara Fish, bringing together more than 100 Jews of Color for the Second National Jews of Color Convening, with a focus on deepening leadership skills and building institutional capacity.
• The Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) with April Baskin, and their 2018 JewV’Nation Fellowship Jews of Color Cohort focused on a successful leadership development program for visionary Jewish leaders that includes educational seminars, cohort relationship building, individualized coaching, and intensive in-person retreats.

We are half-way through the current grant round, and it’s stunning to hear back from the grantees about their work and experience so far with the resources provided by the nascent Fund for Jews of Color Field Building. As a result of the six grants made, right this very moment there are three separate cohorts of Jews of Color Leaders being developed. By the fall, more than 100 Jews of Color connected to the Jewish organizational ecosystem will have gained new leadership skills and their organizations will have additional capacities developed. By the close of the grant round, vital organizations led by Jews of Color and their leaders will be stronger, and better positioned to continue and to amplify their already excellent work.

And this work really matters. By 2042 the United States will be at least half people of color. And 71% of non-Orthodox Jews marry non-Jews. And that’s within a context in which we know that way back in 2003 the US-based Jewish community was somewhere between 13%-20% Jews of Color. The next generation of baby Jews is going hued.

Racial diversity is all around us. And US-based Jewish racial diversity is not a dilemma or a challenge to be solved. It’s simply a fact. The challenge to be solved is how to successfully build the bridges, pathways and highways needed to more meaningfully, purposefully and effectively connect together the diversity of our community. The Fund for Jews of Color Field Building is taking on some of that challenge. Inspired by a team of racially diverse Jewish community leaders, and anchored by the voices and experience of Jews of Color, The Fund is one example of partnership-based, equity and reality-informed philanthropic activity that is strengthening our Jewish community for today, and building and reinforcing our community for tomorrow.

Ilana Kaufman is a Berkeley-based community relations professional. She is a Schusterman Fellow, public speaker, occasional author, strategic designer, planner and problem solver. Ilana works with Jewish organizations and philanthropic entities navigating the intersection of Jewish community, Jewish identity and racial justice.

originally posted in eJewishPhilanthropy

A new program is knocking down hurdles to Jewish teen engagement.

No matter your organization, mission or audience, there are hurdles to teen engagement, and success in today’s world requires new models of engagement to confront obstacles facing teens, including overextended schedules, academic pressure, the feeling of not fitting into existing programs, and a lack of relevance of the Jewish community and its teachings.

We know that effective Jewish programming needs to engage teens through their interests and speak to their passions. Teen program providers should recognize the obstacles to participation while offering a range of ways for teens to connect and stay connected within the Jewish community.

With this in mind, a new platform has been conceived by the Atlanta Jewish Teen Initiative, the ninth city in the Jewish Teen Education & Engagement Funder Collaborative. This bold experiment targets Jewish teens not fully engaged in Jewish life through a new program, JumpSpark, which offers interest-based intensives for Jewish teens during school breaks.

Teens have diverse interests and talents, so there cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach. The goal and methodology of JumpSpark addresses the gap between the pursuit of areas of interest and Jewish involvement.

The innovation in our platform is adaptable and can be replicated in any community across the country with four guiding principles:

• Don’t make teens choose.

We know students’ lives are complex and busy. Successful teen models will find topics that students are already interested in and meet them there. Jewish values are part of our everyday lives, and, as educators, it’s our role to help build those bridges for our teens.

As an example, our pilot intensive, JumpSpark Sports, will run from Jan. 2 to 5, the final week of the holiday break for many Atlanta school districts, and will engage students through a behind-the-scenes look at the sports industry.

This intensive program offers stadium tours, speakers, hands-on skill-building clinics and exposure to the business of sports. The intensive will couch those experiences in the language of Jewish wisdom and learning.

A trip to the College Football Hall of Fame will culminate in a discussion of Jewish models of heroes and how those values translate to modern sports heroes in a partnership with Beit Hatfutsot. A clinic with associate director of referee development for the NBA, Scott Bolnick, will be a lesson in tochecha, the Jewish laws of giving rebuke, with a larger focus on giving and receiving feedback.

• Help teens build their résumé of life.

Teens prioritize activities that they feel are valuable, engaging and exceptional and are more likely to participate in activities that they think will help them get into college or assist their career path.

Every JumpSpark intensive will bring together a small cohort of teens who will use the unique features and people of Atlanta to learn, work and give back to the community together. Our participants will increase their knowledge, develop skills, clarify values, build Jewish identity and develop the capacity to contribute to the Jewish community and the world at large.

• Partnership, partnership, partnership.

From its inception, the Atlanta Jewish Teen Initiative is rooted in collaboration. We cultivate partnerships with community professionals, educational institutions and other organizations, enabling us to use Atlanta as our classroom. However, AJTI is also the first programmatic partnership among the Marcus JCC, the Federation of Greater Atlanta and the Atlanta Rabbinical Association.

• Meet teens where they are and show them how their interests are meaningful using a Jewish lens.

Programs need to be offered during a time that works for students today. The Atlanta Jewish Teen Initiative’s educational vision is to engage Jewish teens in growth opportunities through exceptional educational, community-building programs.

Motivated by the words of Isaac Luria, the 16th century master of Kabbalah, who said, “There is no sphere of existence that is not full of holy sparks,” the Atlanta Jewish Teen Initiative will guide teens to uncover meaning in their areas of interest and empower them to lift those “sparks” through engagement with Jewish wisdom, texts and values in accessible and relevant ways.

JumpSpark was inspired by a Brandeis University study, “Engaging Jewish Teens: A Study of New York Teens, Parents and Practitioners,” which said: “Virtually every teen is engaged in at least one extracurricular activity and over half hold at least one leadership position. Sports appear at the top of the list and Jewish activities at the bottom. The main reasons teens choose these activities are that they are fun and give them opportunities to learn new things and develop skills.”

Students should not have to choose between extracurriculars and Jewish involvement. Our goal, thus, is to ignite a spark in teens and to lower at least one hurdle to engagement. In the months ahead, JumpSpark will offer intensives on culinary arts, music, esports, dramatic arts, fashion, and writing and publishing, just to name a few. We are planning a weeklong program discussing civil rights in collaboration with the National Center for Civil and Human Rights and Etgar 36.

When electricity jumps across a gap, a spark, called a jump-spark, is produced. This is the inspiration behind our program name and reflects our mission to help ignite sparks within individual teens and within the Jewish teen community.

To learn more about our teen program and to join our mailing list, visit JumpSparkATL.org. Registration for JumpSpark programs is open. Contact [email protected] for more information.

Hope Chernak is the executive director of the Atlanta Jewish Teen Initiative. Kelly Cohen is the education director of the Atlanta Jewish Teen Initiative. 

Originally published in Atlanta Jewish Times