News & Blogs Category: Partners in the News

On a Friday evening in September, educators from three north suburban high schools were Shabbat dinner guests at a family home in Modi’in, an Israeli city between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Hosting the visitors was the owner of two successful start-up companies and his wife, an American who is an award-winning jeweler. Family members gathered at the table included a Holocaust survivor from Hungary and a teenage daughter who’d just completed her required duty with the Israel Defense Forces.

During the intimate family dinner, educators from Evanston, Skokie and Highland Park also heard from the host’s mother-in-law how she’d helped create a peace quilt that brought together Jewish and Muslim women in the next village.

The family gathering wasn’t your typical stop on a tourist’s itinerary — but nor were the other encounters with the Israeli people planned for the educators’ stay.

The iCenter for Israel Education, based in Northbrook, sponsored the trip for three world language directors whose public high schools offer Hebrew instruction. Making the trip was Todd Bowen, world language director for Niles Township High School District 219 in Skokie; Rachel Gressel, world language director for Evanston Township High School, and Elizabeth Robertson, former world language director at Deerfield High School and now principal at Highland Park High School.

“What I wanted them to realize was the diverse narratives of Israel’s people,” said Binnie Swislow, a consultant with the iCenter who works to strengthen and sustain Hebrew instruction in Chicago-area public high schools.

Bowen said he had seen Israel through the eyes of teenagers learning Hebrew when he accompanied Niles North High School students on a first-ever exchange visit last March. But this trip provided him a different perspective.

“Israel is a much more diverse place than we think of it,” Bowen said.

“There are thousands and thousands of people who live in harmony and wish to continue that,” he said. “The picture of strife and conflict exists, but it is not all over the place, the way we might think.”

Bowen was grateful for the opportunity to travel in areas where a tourist wouldn’t ordinarily go.

“We were in the Golan Heights looking over the Quneitra crossing point into Syria, knowing full well that ISIS was not very many miles away,” Bowen said. “Being in those places, seeing the life that is there versus the news stories, was very important to me,” Bowen said.

Gressel was fascinated to see how world language is taught at a school outside Haifa. Her Evanston high school offers eight language options.

“All students there take English, and their second language option — if they choose to take one — is Arabic. But it’s not conversational Arabic,” she said. “It is Arabic taught via literature.”

“In Israel, students don’t really have so many choices,” Gressel said. “Their focus is much more on STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) because that is where their country is at right now,” she said.

Gressel also took note of the immense pride Israelis have in their chosen country, which they are still helping to build.

The daughter of Cuban refugees who immigrated to the United States, Robertson grew up in a bilingual home, so speaking both Spanish and English came naturally.

But a brief introduction in conversational Hebrew, Robertson said, “almost brought me to my knees.”

“It put me in a position that I had never been in before,” said Robertson, noting the trip to Israel was her first outside the U.S. “I never took to heart what it meant to learn a language from scratch,” she said. “I realized, this is how my students feel.”

For Robertson, one of the most memorable experiences was speaking with a young Israeli man who lost part of a limb in an accident, became very distraught, but ultimately triumphed over his tragedy.

“Once he was able to muster the ability to move forward with his life, he became a motivational speaker and has won many awards as an athlete,” said Robertson, noting he also runs an Israeli vineyard that has been in his family for five generations.

Swislow said seven public high schools in the Chicago area, all in the north and northwest suburbs, offer Hebrew instruction. Two of those schools have struggled in recent years with staffing issues, Swislow said.

“The greatest challenge to keeping Hebrew in the public schools is the requirement that teachers be certified and licensed in the state of Illinois,” she said. “The Spanish teachers are doing it. The French teachers are doing it. But it is difficult to find Israelis who are certified and licensed.”

Highland Park and Deerfield high schools each have a Hebrew instructor and serve 105 and 99 students, respectively, across five course levels, according to District 113.

About 80 to 90 students typically are enrolled in Hebrew courses at Niles North High School, Bowen said. “We are trying to make sure it has a solid base and that our students understand that Hebrew extends beyond being Jewish,” said Bowen, noting the program does draw students from other backgrounds for a variety of reasons. “Hebrew is the modern language of an innovative people,” Bowen said.

The Hebrew program at Evanston Township High School has been shaky since a longtime teacher retired three years ago, Gressel said.

“For the last three years, it has been, ‘Do we have a teacher or do we not?’ up until the last minute,” Gressel said. Since ETHS has not been able to guarantee entry-level students four years of Hebrew course offerings, the school has encouraged students to select a language they can study for four years because that’s what many colleges prefer, she said.

For the past few years, the Niles North Hebrew teacher has taught classes at ETHS for two periods of the day, in addition to carrying a full load at the Skokie high school. However, that will not be an option starting in 2018-19, Gressel said.

Gressel said only 11 students signed up this year for Hebrew 1, compared to 43 for German 1, 39 for Japanese 1 and 24 for Chinese 1, which also are low-enrollment languages.

Having seen firsthand Israel’s intense focus on science, engineering and technology, Gressel believes there is an opportunity to draw more Hebrew students by emphasizing its relevance to technology.

“If I could find my ideal instructor, it would be someone who could teach Hebrew from an engineering and mathematics background,” said Gressel. “I think we could revamp the program in a different way and attract different students.”

Source: “Israel trip a revelation for high school educators,” Karen Berkowitz, Chicago Tribune, November 6, 2017

One hundred percent kosher. One hundred percent organic. Locally sourced. Meal options include gluten-free with dairy, gluten-free without dairy or “regular.”

Casey Yurow, the camp director at Eden Village West, couldn’t help but laugh as he described the kosher kitchen offerings the new Sonoma-based Jewish camp will have.

“We are redefining camp food,” he said.

That “good for our bodies — good for the planet” approach to camp meals is part and parcel of the Eden Village West’s message of stewardship of the Earth as an integral part of a complete Jewish life. It’s a message the camp will be bringing to Northern California for the first time.

“It feels like such an incredible fit for the culture and values of the West Coast,” Yurow said.

Eden Village West is a branch of Eden Village Camp, which was founded eight years ago and is located in Putnam Valley, New York, about 50 miles north of Manhattan. Slogans such as “The innovative Jewish organic farm camp,” “Fun with deep roots” and “Get dirty. Eat organic. Make Shabbat a party” dot the camps’ websites.

The new West camp is scheduled to open its doors next summer in Sonoma, on the campus of Rio Lindo Adventist Academy, a private school in Healdsburg. The website lists three sessions, all for third- to ninth-graders, with the first beginning June 19.

Yurow said watching the Sonoma County fires come only miles away from the future Eden Village West site was hard, but staff was grateful that the facility was spared. “It was a nerve-wracking time for everybody,” he said.

Beyond delicious and thoughtful food, the new camp will focus on creativity through a culinary arts program, organic farming, handicrafts, herb knowledge and wilderness skills. Yurow said it’s about teaching children to become caretakers of the natural world.

“That Earth-based approach to Judaism allows kids to feel connected,” he said.

As a new camp, Eden Village West received a $1.5 million Specialty Camps Incubator grant through the Foundation for Jewish Camp, supported by the S.F.-based Jim Joseph Foundation and the Avi Chai Foundation. The grant will provide funding during planning, start-up and the first three years of operation.

The inaugural year of Eden Village West will include three two-week sessions with 50 campers each, and Yurow is looking forward to it.

“We really get to co-create the culture that we want to see,” Yurow said.

And that culture includes serving kids and families that range from secular to regular synagogue attendees. “We maintain a baseline observance while not assuming that a camper has any background in Jewish learning,” the website notes. Eden Village and Eden Village West are not affiliated with a denomination and they take a pluralistic approach that is integral to the camp’s mission.

“Just like in an ecosystem, the more diversity you have, the stronger that ecosystem is,” Yurow said.

Source: “Eco-friendly Jewish summer camp expands to California,” Maya Mirsky, J, October 31, 2017

A team of three educators from The Frisch School has won a micro-grant from the Tech for Learning Initiative, a program of The Jewish Education Project supported by the Jim Joseph Foundation, to develop an exciting new multidisciplinary project at Frisch during the 2017-18 academic year. The recipients of the grant are Frisch’s Director of Educational Technology Rabbi Tzvi Pittinsky, Hebrew faculty member Michal Levin, and history department Co-Chair Dr. Ethan Zadoff. Together, they will pilot a project in two classes, one in Hebrew and one in history, in which students will work collaboratively, and with the classroom teacher, to create a methodology of source/textual analysis that can be used across different disciplines, including both limudei kodesh and secular subjects.

The goal of the project, titled “The People of the Book Enter 21st Century Learning,” is to benefit Frisch students “by creating a student-centered learning environment that can be replicated in multiple learning contexts and classrooms at The Frisch School, and using various technology-assisted tools to transform how students collaboratively engage with text,” said Zadoff.

“Technology is one of the primary modes to put learning in the hands of the students,” said Pittinsky. “Students can manipulate text and mind maps themselves. They can research primary and secondary sources. All through the medium of technology. The role of the teacher changes from being the primary source of information to being a facilitator and guide to help students find and process information themselves, a vital skill to helping students become lifelong learners.”

At the beginning of the project, students will work in small, rotating groups to develop the initial scope, sequence and precision of questions to ask while reading different texts— questions to do with authorship, audience, content and meaning. In Zadoff’s history class, those texts will be historical primary and secondary sources. In Levin’s Hebrew class, the texts under study will be various Jewish prayers, in line with the school’s be’ur tefillah (understanding prayer) Hebrew language curriculum. In both subjects, students will examine the text not only from the perspective of the author or intended audience, but of someone else either from the time the text was written or from modern times.

Students will be able to create videos, podcasts, artwork and other interactive media to manifest alternative interpretations of text (including personal reflections on prayer, for Levin’s class). “The pilot classes will use existing technological tools, such as mind mapping applications, in order to record and create the processes of source/textual method development,” said Zadoff. “Following the creation and development of the textual analysis methodology, each class would then apply the method to an already extant annotation tool, for example Kami, in order to use with ease in interpreting a whole variety of sources.” As a capstone project, students will create an interactive website to showcase their process of learning to the greater community.

Levin noted that the project will enrich the experiences of students in all educational tracks at the school. “During the process of this project and in its conclusion we will be able to formulate, together with the students, some type of a methodology? that will be relevant to both the strong and weaker students,” she said.

The nature of the project highlights Frisch’s dynamic approach to learning. “Frisch is continuously committed to embracing the best of progressive education while appreciating traditional approaches, and this is a perfect example of that fusion,” said Frisch Principal Rabbi Eli Ciner.

The Tech for Learning Initiative’s goal is to help schools identify learning challenges and opportunities that can be addressed using technology. “All the work that Frisch has invested over the years, as well as the support of the administration, has made a foundation for a project like this,” said Gary Hartstein, director of The Jewish Education Project’s DigitalJLearning Network (for day schools and yeshivot), about the Frisch team’s model. “What is wonderful about this project is that it is something that can truly make a difference to how learning happens on that campus.”

Source: “Frisch Educators Win ‘Tech for Learning’ Microgrant,” Jewish Link of New Jersey, September 14, 2017

Danny Mishkin had just one question for the 14 teens and tweens in his Sababa Surf Camp in Malibu over Labor Day weekend: “What’s your sababa level?”

Sababa is Hebrew slang for “cool,” “all good,” “no worries.” At Sababa Surf Camp, a New York-based camp for tweens and teens combining surfing with Jewish spirituality, if a person’s sababa level is 1, it means they are chill, in the moment, embracing their surroundings. If a person’s sababa level is 10, it means that person is too stressed out, needs to stop thinking so much about schoolwork and social drama and just hang 10.

Hannah Baron, an 11th-grade student at de Toledo High School, came to the Sept. 3 camp, which continued on Sept. 4, not having been on a surfboard for two years. She was happy to get out and hit the waves at Malibu’s Zuma Beach.

This was the first time the New York-based camp came to Southern California after launching three years ago on the East Coast. The camp will return to the Los Angeles area in October and during Passover.

Mishkin said he and his co-director, Lynn Lancaster, worked with many partners in bringing the program to Southern California, including The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles’ L.A. Jewish Teen Initiative, the Jim Joseph Foundation and the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles.

Mishkin, 38, is the former director of the Waxman Hebrew High School and Teen Engagement program at Temple Israel of Great Neck, N.Y.  Lancaster is the educational director of the religious school at the Forest Hills Jewish Center, a Conservative institution in New York. Their goal is to provide young people with an alternative method of Jewish engagement.

“This is Jewish spirituality by connecting with nature,” Lancaster said.

Eva Chriqui, 11, whose family belongs to Shuvah Israel Torah Center in Pico-Robertson, said she decided to participate in the camp because, “I’ve always wanted to surf, and I felt like it would be a really good experience.”

Lian Ben-David, 10, said the camp altered her thinking about the beach and the ocean.

“Before I came here, I didn’t like the beach. And now I want to kiss the sand,” she said.

From left: Sababa Surf Camp co-directors Lynn Lancaster and Danny Mishkin. Photo by Ryan Torok

Mishkin and Lancaster arranged for transportation to pick up participants from locations in Pico-Robertson and the San Fernando Valley in the morning, in time for the 9:30 a.m. start. The camp usually begins with meditation, followed by surfing. The morning’s high tide provided the necessary wave breaks for the group of beginners to test their skills on long foam boards under the guidance of instructors from the Malibu Makos Surf Club.

“We’re always tide-dependant, we’re always wave-dependant,” Lancaster said.

After three hours of surfing, the camp broke for lunch, followed by meditation. Mishkin told group members to close their eyes and breathe. Life and surfing, he said, have a lot in common.

“The more crazy it is out there [in the ocean], the more calm you have to be. The worst thing you can do is panic,” he said. “Take deep breaths and capture the moment.”

While Mishkin spoke, he struggled to be heard over the roar of the waves and the buzz of surrounding beachgoers — it was Labor Day weekend, after all. As Lancaster watched, she commented that achieving the ultimate sababa level meant nothing if it didn’t come with challenges.

“That’s part of sababa,” she said. “We work with what we have.”

Farrah Zweig, a personal trainer and children’s wellness expert who signed up her daughter, Bryanna, for the camp, said it provided an important life lesson that you can’t be in control of everything. Bryanna is a competitive gymnast, spending 16 hours a week on the extracurricular activity.

“You can’t tell the ocean what to do,” Zweig said. “You have to let go of yourself.”

The campers eventually split into two groups, with half of the campers forming a circle with Lancaster on the wet sand during low tide. Lancaster distributed worksheets featuring quotes from Rabbi Ed Feinstein of Encino’s Valley Beth Shalom, about how prayer is not about asking God to change but about creating change within ourselves. There were references to Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, about how marching for social justice is like praying with one’s feet. And there was text  from Pirkei Avot (Ethics of Our Fathers) about how the person who is wise is one who learns from everybody. Lancaster asked each kid to pick a quote to adopt as a “mantra.”

Meanwhile, the other group continued guided meditation with Mishkin, before breaking off with Lancaster to pick mantras of their own.

When the groups came back together before the day concluded at 3 p.m., Mishkin checked in with each of the campers, again asking the only question that really mattered on this particular afternoon of surf, sand and spirituality.

“What’s your sababa level right now?”

“Two!” Baron said.

“Minus one thousand!” Ben-David answered.

Source: “Sababa Surf Camp connects kids with surfing, sand and Judaism,” Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, September 6, 2017

Judaism and lure of holy land fosters new relationships despite level of practice.

Tressa Levenson, 33, wanted to visit Israel as a teen, but her parents were hesitant. It wasn’t until she married Morgan White, 32, a Birthright Israel alum, that she embarked on a trip to the Holy Land.

Through her cousin’s Facebook pictures, Levenson was turned on to Honeymoon Israel, 2-year-old nonprofit organization that sends 20 couples at a time from the same city on subsidized nine-day trips to the country and functions as a community back home through social activities.

Honeymoon Israel started in Colorado and now sends groups from Atlanta and 13 other cities in the United States.

Nearly 1,000 couples have either gone on one of the 34 Honeymoon Israel trips conducted since 2015 or have been accepted on an upcoming trip through next May.

An immersive group trip to Israel creates lasting bonds among Honeymoon Israeli alumni.

Levenson had looked for her Jewish home for a while. After a year as a synagogue member, she remained unsatisfied.

“The thought of going to Israel with my husband and other couples in the same life stage sounded like a good opportunity,” she said.

Married just 15 months, the couple attended an information session for Honeymoon Israel and met all the requirements: at least one partner identifying as Jewish (both Levenson and White grew up in the Conservative movement); at least one between 25 and 40 at the time of the trip; married or life partners; and married less than five years.

Hannah Spinrad, the Atlanta director of community engagement for Honeymoon Israel, said the company encourages couples from diverse backgrounds, including LGBTQ people.

“Our community is changing. It doesn’t look the same as it did 20 or 30 years ago. We have different needs. We want people to see how they can opt in to Jewish life,” Spinrad said.

That’s exactly what Levenson and White did.

With a little seed money from their parents — Honeymoon Israel charges $1,800 per couple —they were on their way.

“I went on Birthright as a 27-year-old in 2012,” White said. “At that age, everyone is in different stages. People go different ways. I still keep up with a few people from the trip, but it’s mostly through Facebook.

“But that’s the difference between Honeymoon Israel and Birthright. Now we are looking for connection. I can see us maintaining stronger relationships than on Birthright. We built the relationships together with people we can lean on. In my 20s, going to Israel was more about being single and having fun.”

After traveling with 19 other couples, Levenson and White returned to Atlanta feeling renewed in their faith.

“There are many different ways to be Jewish. They’re all right. How we practice Judaism doesn’t have to be the same for everyone. Both of us were excited to marry someone Jewish, but we saw that it’s OK if you’re not married to a Jewish person,” Levenson said. “This is the future of Judaism. All these people are interfaith, but they are trying to figure it out.”

White said the trip “helped me better understand that being Jewish is not about following tradition; it’s a way of life. It’s about leaving the world in a better place than how you found it.”

Post-trip, Levenson and White gather with Honeymoon Israel alums to share meals, celebrate milestones and watch sports. Each Honeymoon Israel group uses an app called Telegram, similar to WhatsApp, to share selfies and birthday wishes.

“The fact that HMI has been around a short time and seen such success is an indicator that we’re fulfilling a need,” Spinrad said.

Eighty-five percent of couples say they feel a new sense of belonging to the Jewish community and a connection to Israel after the trip. Such effectiveness helped persuade the Jim Joseph Foundation recently to grant the organization $1.5 million over three years to expand to more cities and to do more to help trip alumni build their Jewish community back home.

“Because there’s a safe space, you skip niceties and get straight into real conversations,” Spinrad said. “There’s talk about the pain and struggles that couples have been through.”

In the end, they are still choosing Judaism.

Source: “Honeymoon Israel Helps Connect Couples,” Atlanta Jewish Times, September 5, 2017

NEW YORK – Emmy-nominated Film Studio Let It Ripple is pleased to present the fourth annual Character Day with an estimated 100,000 events around the globe in companies, schools, museums, and homes – wherever people already gather – all screening the same films and joining an interactive worldwide LiveCast Q&A featuring prominent thought leaders talking about the importance of developing character (qualities like curiosity, creativity, initiative, collaboration, and empathy), and how developing those strengths can lead to a life of meaning and purpose in today’s world. Scheduled for Wednesday, September 13, 2017, Character Day is an innovative global initiative that has proven successful since its inception in 2014, and last year oversaw 93,000 events in 125 countries and all 50 states.

Spearheaded by Tiffany Shlain, Emmy-nominated filmmaker, thought leader and founder of The Webby Awards, Character Day highlights recent breakthroughs in the social science and neuroscience behind character development, and provides the tools (films, discussion kits, online resources), for millions of people to engage and develop the character strengths needed to thrive in today’s world – for free.

On September 13th, groups around the world will join and connect through the following:

• Screen Let It Ripple’s global premiere of the brand-new short film “30,000 Days” that examines how people can live a life of meaning and purpose and explores the history of different philosophies around asking questions about living a good life.
  • Additional acclaimed short films are also available to screen, including: “The Adaptable Mind” (10 minutes), “The Science of Character” (8 minutes) and “The Making of Mensch,” which explores character education through the wonderful ancient Jewish teachings of Mussar (10 minutes).
• Use free printed discussion kits that include the poster of periodic table of character strengths – a scientific graph outlining character qualities.
• Tap into a 24-hour global LiveCast Q&A that links together the thousands of film screenings and discussions, and invites all participants to watch and ask questions to prominent leaders from extraordinarily diverse perspectives.

“Character Day is about bringing us all together to spend a day focusing on who we are, and who we want to be — for ourselves, our families, and the world,” said Tiffany Shlain, co-founder of Character Day and founder of the Webby Awards. “There’s so much science now to prove that we can develop who we are throughout our lives, and that doing so leads to more happiness, success, meaning, and purpose. Who doesn’t want that? We’re living in challenging days that require us to step up and ask these bigger questions in new ways.”

Over 20 thought leaders around character development will be participating in the Character Day Global LiveCast Q & A including Krista Tippet (Peabody Award winner, New York Times best-selling author), Angela Duckworth (MacArthur “genius” award, author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance), and The Dalai Lama Center, who will be contributing a special video message on Character Day. All participants can tap into this global Q&A that happens through Facebook Live and Google Hangouts to watch and ask questions throughout the day. The list of speakers will be continuously updated at www.characterday.org. To date, there are already more than 60,000 screenings scheduled in all 50 states and across 60 countries with events taking place at organizations spanning the top tech companies, museums, schools, universities and libraries – as well as homes around the world.

Everyone is encouraged to create their own distinctive event at any time of the day and in any place on Wednesday, September 13, 2017. 

Please join the worldwide conversation and initiative by signing up. It takes two minutes and is absolutely free thanks to the support of visionary foundations including The John Templeton Foundation, Jim Joseph Foundation, The Covenant Foundation, Righteous Persons Foundation, Lippman Kanfer Foundation, and Embrey Family Foundation.

Sign up at CharacterDay.org. 

About Let It Ripple

Let It Ripple’s mission is to use film, technology, discussion materials, and live and virtual events to engage people in conversation and action around complicated subjects that are shaping our lives, and updating these topics through an engaging, accessible, 21^st-century lens. Over the past twelve years, the team has created and distributed 28 films, engaged more than 50 million people in dialogue, and created a new way of making films called “cloud filmmaking,” where films are made collaboratively with people from all over the world and organize global days of screening, conversation and action.

Helmed by Tiffany Shlain, Emmy-nominated filmmaker, thought leader and founder of The Webby Awards, Shlain has had four films premiere at Sundance, has won more than 85 awards and distinctions, and has had four of her films selected by The U.S. State Department to screen at embassies around the world to foster dialogue across borders. Find out more at http://www.letitripple.org.

Source: “Exploring the Science of Character, Meaning, and Purpose on the 4th Annual Character Day,” Boulder Jewish News, September 4, 2017

Honeymoon Israel, a national Jewish organization that subsidizes newly married couples with at least one Jewish partner to take part in group trips to Israel, recently received a $1.5 million grant from the Jim Joseph Foundation. Some of the grant money will help pay for Honeymoon Israel’s overall operations, while part will go toward the $600,000 invested in its local branch, said Michael D. Wise, co-CEO of Honeymoon Israel.

The 2-year-old organization works to help new couples build connections to local Jewish communities and encourages them to experience a deeper sense of Judaism by visiting Israel with other local couples.

“Seeing, touching and feeling Israel together as a newly married interfaith couple was a profound experience,” Diana and Karen Lovati, a couple from Los Angeles, said in a statement.

Whitney Kirk and her wife, Lindsey Arnold, of Playa del Rey, took Honeymoon Israel’s third trip, which left from Los Angeles in September 2016.

“Honeymoon Israel allowed my wife and me the opportunity to visit and experience the wonders of Israel as a couple, without the fear of being judged as a married, interfaith, lesbian couple,” Kirk said. “Before Honeymoon Israel, we were looking for a local Jewish community, and a year later, not only do we still stay in touch and spend time with the couples and staff we met on the trip, but our community continues to grow through couple-hosted events.”

In a statement, Barry Finestone, president and CEO of the Jim Joseph Foundation, said the future looks bright for Honeymoon Israel, which continues to grow and expand to more cities.

“The foundation is excited,” Finestone said, “to engage even more couples from a range of backgrounds in this powerful experience.”

— Julie Bien, Contributing Writer, August 31, 2017

This is the second article in a series examining Jewish groups engaging young professionals. Read the first part here.

NEW YORK (JTA) — As a college student, Jake Max assumed he would work in banking or consulting after graduation. That was the path favored by many of his classmates.

But after experiencing the 2016 presidential campaign his senior year at Emory University, Max was spurred to action and decided to apply for a yearlong social justice fellowship.

“I just saw how stratified the country was and how divisive the issues were, and I did not think we were headed in a good direction,” the 23-year-old said.

Max spent the next 12 months volunteering at food pantries and soup kitchens across Brooklyn, working as a soccer coach for disadvantaged kids and attending events by different nonprofit organizations.

He says doing a fellowship with the Jewish social justice group Repair the World has helped him gain a new perspective — he can no longer imagine taking a job that would be about “making rich people richer.” But the Baltimore native also found a connection to something else — Judaism, from whose religious practices he had long felt alienated.

Repair the World volunteers assisting with food preparation at Masbia Soup Kitchen in Brooklyn. (Alli Lesovoy)

“I’d become almost anti-religious because I hadn’t found a place like Repair the World,” said Max, who attended a Conservative day school through eighth grade.

“Repair the World is the perfect space for how I view religion. Going and doing shacharit every morning — that just had no meaning to me,” he said, referring to the daily morning prayer. “Keeping kosher had no meaning to me. But this social justice community, bringing people together — that means something to me. That’s something that I’m passionate about.”

Max is one of Repair the World NYC‘s nine full-time fellows, who volunteer and live together above the group’s headquarters — referred to as “the workshop” — in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. Fellows focus their volunteer work either on hunger relief or education, and organize events for the larger public, including Shabbat dinners with a social justice theme and happy hours, as well as volunteering opportunities.

Max isn’t alone in how he connects good works with his Jewish identity. The idea of giving back and improving society is an important part of Jewish-American identity, said Aaron Hahn Tapper, the founding director of the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice at the University of San Francisco.

Though different terms — such as service learning,  social justice and “tikkun olam” — have gained favor at different times to describe work done by groups such as Repair the World, “these ideas have been pretty central to Jewish-American identities for some time, for decades,” Tapper said.

What’s different are the expanding opportunities for doing this within a Jewish framework, said Rabbi Sid Schwarz, the author of the book “Judaism and Justice: The Jewish Passion to Repair the World.”

“For a lot of people in previous generations, their involvement —  whether it was the labor movement or the civil rights movement or the women’s movement or the environmental movement — they were acting on values they might have learned as Jews, but they didn’t identify in any way as Jews,” Schwarz said. “What’s new is that now you have all these organizations that didn’t exist 30-40 years ago where young Jews can do this work and get reaffirmed in their Jewish identity.”

Jake Max says working as a Repair the World fellow has allowed him to reconnect with his Jewish identity. (Josefin Dolsten)

Repair the World’s social justice focus attracts many millennial Jews who don’t necessarily feel drawn to the ritual practices of Judaism, said Cindy Greenberg, executive director of Repair the World NYC, which launched in the fall of 2015.

“For some young people, they’re not interested in being in a Jewish community that’s grounded in religious practice,” Greenberg told JTA.

“For many young people, what makes Judaism so exciting is that it helps them address the big questions in life of ‘Who am I?’ and ‘What is my responsibility to my neighbor and my responsibility for the world?’ So we empower the fellows to create a Jewish community that’s grounded in service and in values of justice and in real action in their community,” she said.

Others are looking to complement their current religious practice, Greenberg added.

To be sure, Repair the World events contain plenty of connections to Jewish tradition. All volunteer events feature a “Jewish lens” component in which participants learn how Jewish traditions relate to the issue at hand, such as food insecurity, affordable housing and racial justice.

Despite the Jewish focus, Repair the World attracts a diverse group of participants — about 40 percent of those attending events in New York are not Jewish, Greenberg said.

For some Jewish participants, the group serves a need traditionally filled by more traditional institutions.

Andrew Fretwell, a 32-year-old client executive at IBM, attends Repair the World events about once a month and serves on the group’s advisory board. The New Jersey native, who lives in Brooklyn with his wife, has not yet “found the right synagogue,” but says his involvement with the social justice group gives him some of the same benefits he would get from being a shul member.

“The closest I have to that is Repair the World — a regular point of contact with a community of other Jewish millennials and their friends who are like-minded, and we have a shared set of experiences that we continue to build on together,” he said.

In some ways, Fretwell finds the approach used by Repair the World preferable to ones used in traditional Jewish settings.

“Jewish millennials, the message that we’ve been getting through so many different programs and avenues is asking us to receive something, to receive our identity, they want us to be recipients of loving Israel or of understanding Jewish tradition,” he said.

Such an approach “lacks the boldness to actually ask of these same Jews, ‘What are you doing for the world?’ That’s exactly what Repair the World does,” Fretwell said.

Repair the World volunteering with the Bed-Stuy Campaign Against Hunger in Brooklyn. (Alli Lesovoy)

Repair the World decided to make Brooklyn its New York base after conducting research that showed that it was the fastest-growing Jewish community in the city but that millennial non-Orthodox Jews there remained underserved by Jewish groups, Greenberg said. Engagement has nearly  doubled since the New York launch about two years ago, from 5,500 participants attending events in its first 12 months of operation to 9,100 this academic year.

“It’s beyond what we could have imagined. We’re meeting a real need in the community,” Greenberg said. “I think that a Jewish community that’s hyper inclusive and that’s grounded in service is a very compelling community for young Jews.”

Repair the World NYC receives most of its funding from grants made to the national group by Jewish foundations such as the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, the Jim Joseph Foundation and the William Davidson Foundation, Greenberg said. It also recently received a grant from the local Brooklyn Community Foundation.

“It’s not a Jewish foundation, it’s a foundation that’s really about supporting those in need in Crown Heights, so for me it was a real affirmation of the community valuing the work that we’re doing here,” Greenberg said of the recent grant.

Jhena Vigrass, 23, applied to the Repair the World fellowship because she wanted to do social justice work, specifically with a focus on the environment. As a food justice fellow, she volunteers at urban farms in Brooklyn, helping with the farming work as well as recruiting volunteers.

Though Vigrass grew up attending Hebrew school through the end of high school, she was not involved in Jewish life during her studies at the University of Michigan. Becoming a Repair the World fellow changed that.

“I didn’t really have a connection with other Jews. I wasn’t used to having Jewish friends, or going to Friday night services and knowing people in that room and feeling comfortable in that space,” she told JTA.

Vigrass now attends Shabbat services once or twice a month at different synagogues or minyans in Brooklyn.

“I feel much more connected to [the Jewish community] than I did before starting the program,” she said.

Jhena Vigrass says her work with Repair the World, such as volunteering to do face painting at a Crown Heights festival, has helped her become more involved in the Jewish community. (Courtesy of Vigrass)

For Max, Repair the World serves as an alternative to religious Judaism — and the answer to the question of how to reach unengaged young Jews.

“It’s just way more progressive, it’s a more modern approach,” he said. “I think the way I was raised has become archaic.

“All of these Jewish organizations — synagogues, nonprofits — they keep talking about how it’s so difficult to reach our generation, and I think the real answer is you have to reach them where they are and they gotta change the tune of the song they’re singing if they really want to hit people.”

Source: “How volunteering becomes a way in for millennials distanced from the Jewish community,” JTA, July 28, 2017

Leading Edge, the Alliance for Excellence in Jewish Leadership, has announced the 14 participants in Cohort Two of its CEO Onboarding Program, a 12-month leadership development experience designed to help senior leaders of Jewish organizations confront the unique challenges and opportunities facing the American Jewish community.

These new cohort members represent a diverse swath of executive directors and CEOs from Jewish nonprofit organizations. Over the course of the CEO Onboarding Program, cohort members will forge connections with peers in the American Jewish community; learn with and from expert veterans in the field; collaborate with trained leadership coaches; hone their management skills at the preeminent Center for Creative Leadership; and participate in a one-of-a-kind, on-the-ground learning experience with the Shalom Hartman Institute and the Israel Institute.

“Tomorrow’s success depends on today’s leaders. As demographics shift in our society, the need to support CEOs transitioning into Jewish organizations is critical,” says Gali Cooks, Executive Director of Leading Edge. “Cohort Two of the CEO Onboarding Program is a key component of Leading Edge’s commitment to strengthening the leadership pipeline in the Jewish nonprofit sector. The Cohort will leverage the program to create lasting benefits for the participants, their organizations, and the Jewish community.”

The 14 members of Cohort Two are:

• Ilana Aisen, JPRO Network
• Paul Bernstein, Prizmah: Center for Jewish Day Schools
• Jamie Allen Black, Jewish Women’s Foundation of New York
• Rachel Fishman Feddersen, The Forward
• Aaron Katler, UpStart
• David Katznelson, Reboot
• Howard Libit, Baltimore Jewish Council
• Arlene Miller, Jewish Federation & Family Services, Orange County
• Heather Moran, Sixth & I
• Todd Polikoff, Jewish Nevada
• Eric M. Robbins, Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta
• Rabbi David Rosenn, Hebrew Free Loan Society
• Avi Rubel, Honeymoon Israel
• Seth Vilensky, Montefiore

More information about Cohort Two, as well as the graduates of Cohort One and details of the Program, can be found by visiting: leadingedge.org/ceoonboarding/.

The CEO Onboarding Program is stewarded by TBF Consulting and funded by the Jim Joseph Foundation, the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, and the Helen Diller Family Foundation.

Source: “CEO Onboarding Program announces Second Cohort,” July 10, 2017, eJewishPhilanthropy

Imagine—what would it be like to have a child in a program that provided an educator who was dedicated to helping teachers deepen their reflective practice as well as their Jewish knowledge? And, what if this person worked as a concierge to engage young families in Jewish life in the broader community?

Actually, imagination is not necessary. Six years ago, the Early Childhood and Family Engagement Initiative (ECFE) in San Francisco filled this position for Jewish preschools. With generous funding from the Jim Joseph Foundation and the San Francisco Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund, the San Francisco Early Childhood Initiative began the Jewish Resource Specialist (JRS) program.

The program launched with five pilot sites and quickly became ECFE’s most recognized program. Each of these five sites had a designated classroom teacher who worked ten additional hours at their site with the dual goals of deepening Jewish learning and engaging families in Jewish life. The teachers were given a coach who supported their work and met with them each month. They also attended a retreat, six meetings of a JRS community of practice, and a day of learning at the end of each school year. This professional development helped to strengthen the work of the JRS at their schools, as each JRS brought their learning from these days back to their programs. Additionally, each preschool program also received professional development funding for their teachers to deepen their own Jewish learning programming and funding for Jewish parent and family programs.

What have been the results? Our program impact has been profound. On the leadership level, directors have discovered a partner in their JRS who helps them maintain a high quality of Judaic learning and programming while keeping the education at their school reflective of current practice. The teachers in JRS preschools approach the JRS in their programs with questions for peer-to-peer advice and support—a peer, not a supervisor. On the school level, the JRS program supports work on the school’s vision, each system developing their own goals in the areas of Jewish learning and engaging families in Jewish life. We know that embedded professional development works best, and the JRS system leverages that knowledge to move each school forward.

On the parent level, there are many examples of how these specialists have enabled teachers to articulate the work that they do in the classroom, and to share it with families in their care:

• hahnasat orhim (welcoming guests), where four-year-old children invited parents to an evening “restaurant” that the children had created;

• sharing a mishnah, where three-year-olds taught parents about the meaning of the statement: “Do not look at the jug, but rather what is inside it”;

• a “Sh’ma” walk in the Oakland Hills, during which families recited the Sh’ma, talked about its meaning, and walked through the woods with a new understanding of what Sh’ma (listen) implies.

Each of these experiences has actively involved parents in learning with the children.
In addition to engaging with their children in Jewish programming that is meaningful to them, connections with other parents are fostered, building a Jewish community. Switching from a “parent education” model to a “parent engagement” model is a subtle change, but one that moves from a deficit model to one that is strength-based. The JRS actively works with the parents to ask them how and where they like to learn, to engage them in the kinds of activities that they enjoy, and to provide a Jewish lens for the learning at these family engagement times. They work with one or two “JRS parents” who help them create meaningful Jewish programming, again, emphasizing family friendships and connection to the Jewish community.

The ECFE’s second cohort just had their siyyum, their closing celebration. As this current cohort ends, the third cohort of the JRS will begin in the fall of 2017. In the words of a parent, “I just can’t imagine what our school would be like without the JRS program.”

Denise Moyes-Schnur is a Jewish early childhood educator, and has been in the field for over 40 years. She has worked in both local and national Jewish early childhood programs, (including JTS’s own first cohort of JECELI, where she was the mentor coordinator). Denise specializes in creating programming, coaching, and mentoring Jewish early childhood centers. She is the director of the Jewish Resource Specialist program, and in July will become the associate director at the Early Childhood and Family Engagement Initiative at the San Francisco Jewish Community Federation.

Source: “Success in San Francisco: The Impact of Resource Specialists in Jewish Early Childhood Education,” by Denise Moyes-Schnur, Gleanings, July 6, 2017

NEW YORK — In my last column I identified a major challenge in Jewish teen engagement the stems from a disconnect in the values and traditions associated with bar/bat mitzvah. The ceremony that symbolizes a child’s commitment to live a Jewish life relies on an implicit notion that he or she will know how to do it.  This is not a judgment on Jewish education, nor the values and traditions imparted by families. It is a recognition of a challenge in preparing b’nai mitzvah students for their next chapter of their Jewish journey, one of self-exploration and solidifying a foundation of Jewish identity.

Imagine for a moment that you are a soon-to-be bar/bat mitzvah. Your primary connection to the Jewish community at this point has been one of formal Jewish education. Whether it is Jewish day school or Sunday school, you have spent many years learning customs, traditions and Hebrew that ultimately lead you to the bima for this coming of age ceremony. You may have participated in some informal experiences like Jewish summer camp but other than that you are unfamiliar with the rest of the community. When you participate in programs or at school, you are generally led by an adult and have little influence over what you learn or how you learn it. You are a participant or a learner.

This landscape completely changes in high school. Programming and experiences take on a new shape as one of the hallmarks for teen engagement involves the inclusion of teen input and leadership. Opportunities become available within institutions that were not previously accessible and independent groups take shape around coffee shops and high school clubs. Specialized programs create new intersections for teens with different interests and allow for varying types of expression.

What does this look like in San Diego? If you are a(n):

Surfer – You can join Rabbi Zevi New’s Resurf program where you can enjoy the ocean and do some good for at-risk youth.

Athlete – You can join the JCC Maccabi team and play in the “Jewish Olympics” against other Jewish athletes from across the country.

Musician – You can join the Kavannah Rock Band at Temple Solel or simply go to one of the Jam nights.

Traveler – You can join Mitzvah Corp and travel around the world to see new lands and perform acts of loving kindness.

Entrepreneur – You can join Eitnamim and develop innovative solutions and technologies to solve real world challenges while connecting to Israel and learning about Israeli social innovation.

These are just a few examples of how teens can choose to continue to explore their Jewish identity and find an individualized resonance.

The study I referenced last week, Effective Strategies for Educating and Engaging Teens emphasizes the importance of this particular window of identity formation for adolescence:

“Efforts to engage teens are predicated on the fundamental recognition of the importance of this life stage. Developmental psychologist Erik Erikson famously conceptualized adolescence as a significant period when individuals struggle to define their identity in the face of role confusion. During this particularly malleable stage, religion can potentially play a positive role in teens’ lives.” (2013, Jim Joseph Foundation. Effective Strategies for Educating and Engaging Teens)

During this period of time, motivators begin to change as a product of environment and spheres of influence:

“Adolescence presents a unique opportunity for the Jewish community. Unlike emerging adulthood (a life stage that is typically characterized by years of transience), adolescence more often occurs in a single locale. School, where teens spend most of their waking hours, strongly dominates teens’ daily lives. Consequently, adolescence is a time “when children move out from the primary sway of their families to the influence of peer groups,” according to Sylvia Barack Fishman. Yet teens’ lives also remain strongly influenced by their parents and the other adult role models with whom they connect through school, summer programs, extracurriculars and family.” (2013, Jim Joseph Foundation. Effective Strategies for Educating and Engaging Teens)

An ancient African proverb touts that “It takes a village to raise a child.” However, I once heard somebody say “Yet we hardly ever ask what it takes to create the village.” During such pivotal moment in time where identity formation is highly malleable, how do we as a “village” help teens navigate the diverse landscape of Jewish teen opportunities?

The question becomes incredibly complicated and cumbersome when looking at how our Jewish community is structured. Is it the job of synagogue educators and rabbis to make sure teen’s find connection anywhere within the Jewish community or should they dedicate their limited resources to ensuring teens find connection within their walls? The former requires a significant investment in fact finding and staying informed while the latter depends on creating engagement opportunities that can attract teens with diverse needs and interests – an extremely difficult if not impossible task.

As we learned from the quote above, parents still have significant influence as do peer groups. What resources or tools do they have to serve as effective guides? Unfortunately, we see both sets of influencers are impaired by not knowing what they don’t know. This is largely due to a significant shift in the number of opportunities for high school teens that are not available in middle school. There are no community orientations that allow families to see all that is available. If parents and peers do know about specific opportunities it is generally connected to organizations they are associated with independently of their children or benefiting from an older sibling/child.

This is the first major challenge the San Diego Jewish Teen Initiative will be taking on for the coming school year. We believe that it is our responsibility to create the “village” that serves Jewish teens. This summer we are building a website that will allow our community to connect teens to meaningful experiences based on their interests. It will connect them based on their interest in areas like sports, travel, entrepreneurship, volunteerism etc. It will give the community an opportunity to see a calendar of opportunities as well as access to special scholarships and internships. We will be actively working to eliminate “I didn’t know” as an excuse for not being involved and by doing so, truly understanding the value and relevance of our community’s teen offerings.

Stay tuned for the new website. To be placed on the notification list for the launch of this platform, please email me at [email protected].
*

Darren Schwartz, now attending a conference in New York, is the director of the San Diego Jewish Teen Initiative. To contact Darren about opportunities for Jewish teens or in response to this article, please email [email protected].*

Source: “Jewish teens: Finding activities after bar/bat mitzvah,” Darren Schwartz, San Diego Jewish World, June 21, 2017

The formation of the Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative was the result of a process begun by the Jim Joseph Foundation in 2013. At that time, in an effort to spawn innovative, locally sustainable teen engagement programs, the Jim Joseph Foundation brought together an array of funders to explore various approaches. The first 24 months of this deliberate process in which ten local and five national funders undertook to educate themselves, build relationships and co-invest in community-based Jewish teen education and engagement initiatives was thoughtfully documented in a case study issued in January 2015 by Informing Change, entitled, Finding New Paths for Teen Engagement and Learning: A Funder Collaborative Leads the Way.

The first case study highlighted several important achievements of the collaborative in its early years:* Strong leadership from the convening funder which enabled old and new colleagues to engage in open discussions about possible collaborations;* Early commitment of significant financial resources;* Provision of operational and substantive support by an array of consultants;* Development of mutual expectations and articulating shared measures of success.

This case study by Rosov Consulting documents the next stage of the Funder Collaborative’s development, roughly the 21-month period from January 2015 through October 2016 and reflects the Collaborative’s commitment to share its process with others who may choose to embark on their own co-funding endeavor.

Source: “Preparing to Deepen Action: A Funder Collaborative Finds its Way,” IssueLab, June 2017