Modern Jewish families are shaped by social trends including increased cultural diversity, economic precarity, geographic mobility and political polarization, according to a new report by Crown Family Philanthropies, the Harold Grinspoon Foundation and the Jim Joseph Foundation.
“Understanding the Aspirations of Jewish Families Today and the Parenting Challenges They Face” paints a picture of the resilience and creativity of Jewish families as they strive to build meaningful Jewish lives amid these challenges and pressures.
Led by a research team at Rosov Consulting, the report presents findings from 40 focus groups and 40 one-on-one interviews with select focus group participants.
Read the full story in Jewish News Syndicate
The initiative, which is run by JFNA, JCC Association and URJ, comes to Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, Miami, Pittsburgh, Seattle and St. Louis
The early childhood education initiative ElevatEd is expanding to seven new cities beginning this school year with the goal of training hundreds more preschool teachers in the coming years, the organizations behind the project said this week.
The new cities are: Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, Miami, Pittsburgh, Seattle and St. Louis. The expansion to those cities is being supported by their local Jewish federations, as well as an anonymous private foundation.
Read the full story in eJewish Philanthropy
Jewish educators need to be on the ground in Israel, immersing themselves in the situation alongside their Israeli counterparts.
Over the course of only a few months since the start of 2024, our respective organizations—the iCenter and the Jewish Education Project—have facilitated educational travel experiences in Israel for more than 300 North American Jewish educators.
These educator experiences in Israel were led by The iCenter and The Jewish Education Project in partnership with M², UpStart and the Jewish Agency for Israel. Partner organizations included the Foundation for Jewish Camp, Prizmah, Upstart, RootOne and the Reform Jewish Educators’ Mission run by ARJE and the HUC-JIR School of Education. These experiences were generously funded by the Jim Joseph Foundation, the Maimonides Fund, the One8 Foundation and the UJA Federation of NY.
One of the accomplishments of this initiative has been the ability to bring together a diversity of educators who work in a broad range of settings. These include many aspects of the Jewish educational ecosystem: summer camps, day schools, youth movements, synagogues, JCCs, engagement organizations, academic institutions and Israel travel programs.
Read the full piece in Jewish News Syndicate.
Anne Lanski is CEO of The iCenter. David Bryfman is CEO of The Jewish Education Project.
The George Washington University’s Graduate School of Education and Human Development announced plans last month to open a new center for Jewish learning on its campus. Known as “The Collaboratory,” it is meant to further Jewish education and establish several priorities for the future of Jewish education at the school.
The creation of the Collaboratory is the result of several years’ worth of planning and preparation meant to expand the possibilities of Jewish education and increase efficiency in previous initiatives undertaken by three Jewish educational institutions at the school that have now come together to create this new program.
“The field of Jewish education is ready for an entity well-equipped to operate as a central address,” Dean Michael Feuer of GW’s Graduate School of Education and Human Development said in a statement. “The Collaboratory is positioned to lend vision, coherence, and rigor to a diverse and segmented field, and to explore the underlying dynamics that influence communal and individual decision-making, investment, and concern related to Jewish education.”
Read the full story in the Washington Jewish Week.
The Wexner Foundation, in partnership with the Jim Joseph Foundation, welcomes Class 8 of the Wexner Field Fellowship. Utilizing the diverse, cohort-based learning that is the hallmark of Foundation leadership initiatives, Field Fellows learn from experienced faculty and develop tools to enhance their leadership while address the pressing issues in the Jewish community. These fifteen professionals were selected from a competitive pool of applicants for this three-year intensive program. Class 8 of the Wexner Field Fellowship will be integrated into The Wexner Foundation’s network of 3,000 professional and volunteer leaders in North America and Israel, including 45 current Field Fellows and 85 Alumni.
“Today’s Jewish leaders need a reservoir of courage, a cadre of wise colleagues and a reimagined set of scenarios for a vibrant and secure Jewish People tomorrow,” said Rabbi B. Elka Abrahamson, President of The Wexner Foundation. “Our Field Fellows are blessed with a cohort of peers, a circle of proud and determined Jewish professionals each prepared to exercise leadership for a strengthened Jewish community even when it is hard to see around the corner. This is not a new reality in our history, but nonetheless a difficult one. The capacity to develop and support a new generation of Jewish professionals is one The Wexner Foundation cherishes more than ever. We are proud to introduce these newest Wexner Field Fellows, remarkable individuals our community needs more than ever.”
COMPLETE LIST OF CLASS 8 FELLOWS (More info about each Fellow, here.)
- Sarah Allyn: Chief Operating Officer, The Jewish Community Center of Metropolitan Detroit, West Bloomfield, MI
- Matt Baram: Executive Director, Hillel 818, Northridge, CA
- Emily Bornstein: Chief of Staff, Jewish Federation of St. Louis, St. Louis, MO
- Leili Herlinda Davari: Director of Racial Equity and Inclusion, Jewish Social Justice Round Table, Remote
- Whitney Fisch: Executive Director, Hillel at Miami University, Oxford, OH
- Tzvi Haber: Executive Director, IMADI, Baltimore, MD
- Rachel Hillman: Associate Director, Northwestern Hillel, Evanston, IL
- Leah Kahn: Vice President of Education, Office of Innovation, New York, NY
- Rachel Libman: Chief Curator, Toronto Holocaust Museum (UJA Federation of Greater Toronto), Toronto, ON
- Arya Marvazy: Senior Director of Programs, Jews of Color Initiative, Oakland, CA
- Mark Pattis: Senior Director of Health and Wellness, Shalom Austin, Austin, TX
- Shanie Reichman: IPF Atid Director, Israel Policy Forum, New York, NY
- Julianne Schwartz: Director of Program Operations, Jewish Studio Project, Berkeley, CA
- Jordan Soffer: Head of School, Striar Hebrew Academy, Sharon, MA
- Jeremy Weisblatt: Campus Director, Kristol Center for Jewish Life (Hillel at The University of Delaware), Newark, DE
“Life changed irrevocably following October 7th and Jewish communities face unprecedented challenges right now,” adds Barry Finestone, President and CEO of the Jim Joseph Foundation. “We need leaders with the vision, talent, and dedication to navigate this current moment and to strengthen Jewish life in the future. Meaningful Jewish experiences provide people with immense support and profound learning throughout life’s highs and lows. The newest Wexner Field Fellows, along with past cohorts, are vital to this work that can lift up individuals and entire communities.”
As part of this three-year intensive professional development program, Wexner Field Fellows:
- Become part of a selective cohort of lifelong professional learners.
- Learn with amazing leadership teachers and Jewish educators.
- Receive one-on-one professional coaching and Jewish learning, along with access to funds toward customized professional development opportunities.
- Develop a nuanced appreciation for the diversity of the North American Jewish community.
- Focus on developing strengths in adaptive leadership, negotiation, difficult conversations, mindful communication, and other crucial leadership skills.
To learn more about the Wexner Field Fellowship, click here.
Crown Family Philanthropies, the Harold Grinspoon Foundation and the Jim Joseph Foundation funding the new investigation, which will be based largely on focus groups, qualitative data
With the Jewish family becoming increasingly diverse and Jewish identity increasingly fluid, a leading Jewish researcher is trying to figure out how the rich tapestry of family life is being woven today.
“There are lots of assumptions about, ‘This is what it’s like as a person of color in the Jewish community. This is what it’s like for somebody who is economically challenged in the Jewish community,’” Alex Pomson, principal and managing director of Rosov Consulting, told eJewishPhilanthropy.
Funded by Crown Family Philanthropies, the Harold Grinspoon Foundation and the Jim Joseph Foundation and conducted by Rosov Consulting, the new study of Jewish families is qualitative, looking at the experiences and needs of diverse families within the Jewish community.
Read the full story in eJewish Philanthropy, January 3, 2024.
(JTA) — Moving Traditions is a small Jewish organization with an unusual name and a mission that can be hard to describe on one foot. Working through synagogues, Hebrew schools and its own programs and curricula, it helps Jewish kids navigate their teen years in healthy, safe, appropriate and socially conscious ways.
When the Hamas attacks in Israel on Oct. 7 threw the Jewish world into crisis, Moving Traditions created curricula to help teachers and teens talk about the conflict. And its CEO, Shuli Karkowsky, ordered up a “worst-case scenario” plan in case some of her reliable funders decided to hold back on their support and direct more money to Israel.
“We need to be humble and realize that we are an organization that serves North American teams. And so I don’t think we can put ourselves out there as the people who are going to be solving the Middle East crisis,” she said earlier this week.
Read the full article: “American Jews are giving mightily to Israel. Is there enough left to go around?” JTA, November 12, 2024
New initiative, launched by JCCA, JFNA and URJ, will train over 400 early childhood Jewish education teachers nationwide in coming years
The JCC Association of North America, Jewish Federations of North America, and the Union for Reform Judaism are preparing to launch a major new initiative to train hundreds of new early childhood Jewish educators in the coming years, filling two key positions ahead of the program’s launch this fall.
The $12 million program goes by the working title of Project-412, a reference to a passage from Pirkei Avot 4:12 about education, though this is likely to change before the official launch in September.
Read the full story in eJewish Philanthropy.
Atra is also trying to understand where the gaps are in training, especially for more experienced rabbis who are not recent seminary graduates.
While some rabbis are still associated with the traditional pulpit leadership model, serving in established synagogues or at educational institutions, today’s spiritual leaders serve various roles within their communities, across denominations and contexts. From fiery sermonizers to innovative educators, from community advisors to emergent community founders, the changing appearance of the rabbinate creates a need for Jewish spiritual leaders to receive additional investment and training — to meet contemporary communal needs and build a stronger national network of rabbis.
Launched more than six years ago as the Center for Rabbinic Innovation – a small, incubated program in the Office of Innovation, which is fiscally sponsored by Hillel International – Atra, as the organization is now known, trains and supports rabbinic leaders from all backgrounds to adapt their practice for the real world, to help them grow professionally and propel their leadership. During the pandemic, the organization also received a Jewish Community Response and Impact Fund grant to support the Rabbinic (re)Design Lab, which empowered clergy to imagine and pilot new approaches to engaging communities during the High Holy Days.
Read the full story: “Atra—formerly the Center for Rabbinic Innovation—seeks to support rabbis in a changing world,” eJewish Philanthropy, March 1, 2023
Subscriptions to impala’s database of foundations and nonprofits — numbering in the millions — will be available free of charge to JFN members and their grantees
Shahar Brukner was a student at the Harvard Kennedy School, getting his master’s degree in public policy analysis, when he started his own nonprofit, a fellowship that aimed to bring financial resources to Israeli students studying in the U.S. But in order to do that, Brukner had to raise the money.
“Right from the beginning, there’s so many difficulties that fundraisers face in this world around basic questions,” Brukner told eJewishPhilanthropy last week. “Like, ‘What funders care about what I’m doing? How could I get to know about them? How can I connect with them? Are there any other nonprofits that are doing what I’m doing? Maybe I can collaborate with them?’ Answering these questions took a lot of time. It was extremely hard and [there was] nothing [in terms of] really centralized data in one place.”
Read the full story: “Jewish Funders Network, impala to Launch Database Partnership,” eJewish Philanthropy, February 6, 2023
When Jon Cohen was in college a decade ago studying biology and chemistry with plans for medical school, he knew he wanted to make a difference in the world beyond the Florida State University campus in Tallahassee.
So he and some friends decided to launch a community project teaching science to children from low-income households living nearby. Every Friday, they’d conduct experiments with the kids designed to spark excitement and curiosity about the world around them in a way that would leave an impact on them beyond school.
The idea of service was something Cohen had grown up with in his more affluent Miami suburb, and he wanted to take some time off between college and medical school to devote to it. When, as a college senior, Cohen saw an email about a Jewish service fellowship with Repair the World, he applied.
“I was really interested in seeing what justice-minded Judaism was like,” Cohen recalls.
Janu Mendel, the Southeast regional director of Repair the World, tends to vegetation at a local community farm in Miami. (Courtesy of Repair the World)
Volunteers paint and restore a community space during MLK Weekend of service in New York. (Shulamit Photo + Video)
This story in JTA was sponsored by and produced in collaboration with Repair the World, which mobilizes Jews and their communities to take action to pursue a just world, igniting a lifelong commitment to service. This story was produced by JTA’s native content team.
In its 14 years, Yeshivat Maharat has produced nearly 60 strong, passionate graduates who are using their Maharat training to serve approximately 35 communities across the world in Orthodox pulpits, as educators and administrators at Jewish day schools, in hospitals as chaplains and in other Jewish communal leadership positions. This success came with strategic hard work by our faculty, our students and our partnerships in the larger community. This year, we have 33 new students enrolled across our three rabbinic ordination and preparatory programs, in which their education will be modeled on traditional yeshivot but grounded in preparing them to be 21st-century leaders. Enrollment is up, philanthropy dollars are being directed to bolster this field and there is a communal appetite to employ female clergy. What lessons can we learn about the present and future of Orthodox female clergy from the history of Maharat so far?
Rabba Sara Hurwitz is co-founder and president of Yeshivat Maharat in Riverdale, N.Y.
Read the full article “How Yeshivat Maharat is building a field of women Orthodox rabbis,” eJewishPhilanthropy