News & Blogs Category: Partners in the News

San Francisco, CA – As it marks its 10-year anniversary and completes a landmark merger, UpStart today announced its next phase in supporting communities advancing innovation in Jewish education and Jewish life. The organization has received new support from a coordinated group of funders, setting it on a path to elevate its place as a national intermediary supporting Jewish innovation nationwide.

“As we maintain the vibrancy of our current programs, we also look towards the future with deliberate and thoughtful planning to serve innovators as a one-stop shop for the tools, network, and resources they need to succeed,” says Aaron Katler, CEO of UpStart. “This is an exciting and critical moment – we must rise to the challenge by playing an expanded role in the creation of new and vibrant Jewish experiences.”

The collaborative of funders includes previous and new donors, such as the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, The Crown Family, The Diane P. and Guilford Glazer Fund of the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles, Jim Joseph Foundation, Joyce and Irving Goldman Family Foundation, Kaminer Family, Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah, Lisa and John Pritzker Family Foundation, Marcus Foundation, Natan Fund, SeaChange-Lodestar Fund for Nonprofit Collaboration, and the Walter and Elise Haas Fund.

The 18 months of funding supports the completion of the merger with Joshua Venture Group, Bikkurim, and the U.S. programs of PresenTense; critical planning processes; and the continuation of UpStart and the other merged organizations’ current programs. UpStart will continue working to fulfill its new and expanded vision:

• Expansion of programs to nurture innovation at every stage of organizational life;
• Increase in resources flowing into Jewish innovation, including more seed funding for innovative programs/initiatives;
• Investment in field-based research and evaluation of impact;
• Harnessing the power of a larger, more diverse innovation network; and
• Connecting a growing network of independent cities through regional hubs covering North America.

“UpStart has a record of success supporting individuals and leaders who have creative, dynamic visions for what Jewish life can be,” adds Barry Finestone, President and CEO of the Jim Joseph Foundation. “Along with our funding partners, we believe that the newly merged UpStart has even greater potential for impact. We want to provide them the space to engage in thoughtful future planning and to help position the organization to attract multi-year investment.”

UpStart will celebrate its 10-year anniversary with a community celebration honoring its founding CEO, Toby Rubin, on May 10th in San Francisco, where it was founded. Originally launched as an Accelerator for early-stage Jewish organizations bringing something fresh and relevant to Jewish life, UpStart later expanded its services to support long-standing institutions in opening up new pathways for impact.

With the merger, UpStart now has offices in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver, and New York. Collectively, UpStart hosts programs in 13 communities across the country, with plans for expansion. Since their inception, UpStart and its three merging organizations have fueled the impact of over 1,300 organizations and trained nearly 3,000 of the Jewish community’s most inspiring leaders. The collaborative of funders cumulatively awarded $3.2 million, a portion of which is allocated as matching grants designed to spur other giving.

Source: “At 10 Years, Newly Merged UpStart Embarks on Next Phase to Support Jewish Innovation,” eJewishPhilanthropy, May 5, 2017

By day, Liora Brosbe is the family engagement officer for the Jewish Federation of the East Bay in Berkeley, Calif., where she reaches out to the community with a menu of opportunities for “connecting to Jewish life and each other.”

But when she’s not at work, Brosbe’s main job is raising three kids, ages 2, 6 and 8. Their home? A laboratory for Jewish learning strategies.

“Yes, they’re little petri dishes,” their mom, who is also a psychotherapist, says with a laugh. “Like most families, screen time is a huge issue at our house, both for time and content. But I tell families it’s also an amazing opportunity for low-barrier Jewish engagement.”

With the avalanche of new technologies, many of them being tapped for Jewish learning, educators, funders and parents are often befuddled about where to invest their money and their kids’ or students’ time. A new report on the implications of the wave of educational technology and digital engagement is designed to guide the Jewish community through this complex space.

Sponsored by the Jim Joseph Foundation and the William Davidson Foundation, “Smart Money: Recommendations for an Educational Technology and Digital Engagement Investment Strategy” examines many of these innovations and provides suggestions for navigating the high-tech world.

The study’s recommendations include: using virtual and augmented reality—a user could, for example, experience the splitting of the Red Sea; creating games based on alternative scenarios for “Jewish futures,” such as rebuilding Jewish life after the Roman destruction of the Second Temple; offering opportunities for students to learn coding and other technological skills, which can foster connectedness among Jewish youths and introduce them to Israeli high-tech companies; and increasingly using video, music, podcasting and other platforms.

The report is garnering far more attention than expected, according to the sponsors.

“We did not originally intend for this to be a public report,” says Barry Finestone, president and CEO of the Jim Joseph Foundation. “But the substance of the findings and recommendations really challenge us, as funders, to think strategically, creatively and collaboratively about how we can utilize educational technology and digital engagement to advance our Jewish educational missions.”

For the report, Lewis J. Bernstein and Associates interviewed 50 experts, investors and educators from both the Jewish and secular worlds to create the recommendations.

“It’s a huge media marketplace out there and most Jews are exposed to the same information as the rest of the world,” says Lewis J. Bernstein, a former producer of Sesame Street and the report’s lead researcher. “Parents and educators have difficult choices to make, and Jewish learning and wisdom compete with the secular world.”

Regarding technology’s potential value to the Jewish world, the Jim Joseph Foundation has “certainly dipped our toe in, but we knew there was so much more to understand,” says the foundation’s chief program officer, Josh Miller.

“The report is giving us a roadmap for how to focus our efforts,” he says, adding, “Training a good educator doesn’t change but, as educational technology and digital platforms do, teachers and tech producers are working together to create educational opportunities.”

For example, as the number of Holocaust survivors dwindles, the Los Angeles-based USC Shoah Foundation recently initiated “New Dimensions in Testimony,” a program that uses artificial intelligence to answer students’ questions from a pool of 2,000 pre-recorded survivor responses.

“It looks and sounds like you’re talking one-on-one with the survivor,” says USC Shoah Foundation spokesman Rob Kuznia.

“The gigantic opportunity for the community is the new ways we can access Jewish wisdom,” says the Jim Joseph Foundation’s Miller. Ironically, he says, that means disconnecting once a week “because of our 4,000-year-old tradition called Shabbat, which reminds us that that life isn’t only about the little rush you get every time you get a text.”

Like all powerful forces, technology should be utilized in moderation, one observer notes.

“There is no question that high-tech, which is so much a part of the lives of young Jews, needs to be part of their Jewish educational experience as well,” says Brandeis University’s Dr. Jonathan Sarna, a leading expert on Jewish education and American Jewish history as a whole. “History suggests, however, that these new technologies will certainly not substitute for effective teaching. Now, as in the past, educators should look for modest gains from the introduction of new technologies, and should be wary of high costs and hype.”

Lisa Colton—who specializes in implementing digital strategies for synagogues, day schools and camps—agrees that technology alone is not the answer.

“Technical savvy is the easiest thing to find and hire, but smart design requires you to put yourself in your user’s shoes,” says Colton, chief learning officer for See3 Communications and founder of Darim Online. “But the [‘Smart Money’] report does give educators a new way to understand today’s audience, implications for innovative design, and the all-important relationship between content and technology.”

At the same time, there is already a growing field of Jewish organizations specializing in educational technology and digital engagement, including Sefaria, Reboot, BimBam and Let it Ripple.

“The report is the start of legitimizing the technical Jewish world and the practice of investing in it,” says Brett Lockspeiser, co-founder and chief technology officer of Sefaria, an online library of Jewish texts that welcomed 460,000 online users last year. “It’s helping everyone become more comfortable taking that risk.”

Back in Berkeley, Liora Brosbe recommends a four-minute Jewish 101 video on BimBam for first-time parents who are welcoming new babies. Meanwhile, as she cooks dinner in her own home, her children engage with Jewish music and content through the Spotify app.

“They’re going to have screen time anyway,” she says. “So why not Jewish ones?”

Source: “High-tech, low barriers: new study advances the digital future of Jewish learning,” Deborah Fineblum, JNS, May 2, 2017

Do the Innovative Communities of the Jewish Emergent Network Hold a Key to the Jewish Future?

On a summer Shabbat in 2009, Rabbi David Ingber stood under a chuppah (canopy) with his son at a synagogue on New York City’s Upper West Side. The celebration was not a wedding, however; it was a naming ceremony for the rabbi’s newborn. The baby was placed on a stack of prayer shawls inside the open Torah, and blessings were recited in a ceremony described by Rabbi Ingber as affirming that “each child—every human life—is as holy as one of the letters of the Torah.” This rite, blending traditional Jewish practice with creative elements, has become a staple of Rabbi Ingber’s community. His congregation, Romemu (meaning “elevated” in Hebrew), began in 2008 with 75 people. Today, it boasts 600 member families.

Read the entire story in the spring 2017 issue of Beacon, the magazine of the National Museum of American Jewish History,

You know iPhones, iPads and iTunes — now meet the iCenter.

Although the name could easily be that of a new Apple product, the “I” in iCenter stands for Israel.

The iCenter, a North American nonprofit based in Chicago, provides learning opportunities and tools for Jewish education professionals to enhance Israel education.

There are more than 150 iFellows across North America who participated in the iCenter fellowship, a yearlong master’s concentration program in Israel education.

The goal of the program is to fashion an approach to Israel education grounded in a complex understanding of modern-day Israel and its history, combined with an inventive educational methodology.

The program includes three intensive seminars in Chicago, the guidance of a mentor and a trip to Israel.

Anne Lanski, iCenter executive director, said the program provides learning materials to graduates to continue promoting education on the Jewish state, but sometimes the first thing they help graduates with is finding a job in Jewish day schools, synagogues or summer camps.

The iCenter approach to Israel education, she said, is relational.

“Excellent education is excellent Jewish and Israel education,” said Lanski, which she added ensures strong Jewish identities and a future for the Jewish people.

By equipping these fellows with the right tools and knowledge to teach Israel education, the iCenter makes Israel an organic part of children’s education and who they are, she said.

“In the days before the iCenter, you could go into a day school and say, ‘OK, if I register my children here, where is he going to learn about Israel?’ And normally, they would say, ‘11th grade, second semester.’ And Israel Independence Day and maybe one other place,” Lanski said. “As a result of our students, the learning that they’re doing, Israel is infused throughout everything in the school.”

Michael Soberman, iCenter senior educational consultant for Israel education, runs the iPods program, which determines how to integrate Israel education into different communities, or pods, across North America.

Two local iFellows, Terri Soifer and Ben Rotenberg, completed the iCenter fellowship and are doing just that in Philadelphia.

“Our belief is that the more people in the Jewish educational, communal world who understand our approach to Israel education will find a way to take what they’ve learned and apply it to their setting in a way that suits what that particular setting it,” Soberman added.

Soifer, community engager at Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel, used her studies with the iCenter to incorporate Israel education into workshops with the Center City Kehillah.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia awarded the Center City Kehillah a grant to do a series of professional development workshops last fall and winter.

As Soifer earned her master’s degree in Jewish education from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America while doing the iCenter concentration in Israel education, she thought the iCenter’s ideas would be a good fit.

“Israel is a much different subject” than what the Kehillah usually covers, she said, “so there was this uncertainty of how to move forward.”

But because she was familiar with the iCenter, she suggested using its resources to become a “community of practitioners and use this grant to use some of the iCenter’s ideas.”

She led two workshops in which the group talked about encounters between Israelis and non-Israelis as part of the Israel experience, as well as Israel from a personal standpoint.

People brought in a picture or an item that they associated with Israel and shared the stories behind them.

“It was a nice way for people to start to talk about Israel in this very relational, emotional approach where there’s not exactly right or wrong,” she noted.

“The biggest misconception is that everything needs to start with politics in Israel,” she continued, “and sometimes we don’t always take a moment to think of the educational best practice. We just jump right into what is the hot-button issue that we think people want to hear about. So what the iCenter is really great at doing is giving these tools and resources … to approach it in a space where people can share different perspectives.”

Rotenberg’s role with the iCenter differs from Soifer’s. His work takes a more direct approach: He is a Jewish studies teacher at Perelman Jewish Day School.

“[The iCenter is] not specific to one type of institution. It’s a broad approach,” he explained.

Outside of elementary school, Rotenberg often leads classes at synagogues. In the summers, he works at a Jewish summer camp in Massachusetts.

The iCenter’s philosophy on Israel education complements his teaching, he said.

“It’s a meta level at looking at Israel,” he said. “The iCenter is looking to develop the field not through products but through people.”

It’s not about creating content about Israel, but rather bringing together the best education about Israel by producing “thinkers without an objective in mind.”

“Perelman also is starting to talk about Israel education and re-examine what we do and how we teach Israel,” he added.

Before the iCenter, Rotenberg admitted that he had a hard time relating to Israel as a college student. He felt pressure to lean a certain way toward Israel and define himself by it, which forced him to “step back rather than step forward.”

“I don’t want my feelings or conversations about Israel with my friends or family to define who I am as a Jew,” he recalled of his initial feelings.

But the turning point was the iCenter. Through it and building connections with people, it helped him see the Jewish state differently.

“Israel is not just a place. It’s an idea and it’s a framework for building deep connections to community,” he said. “That’s a gift that the iCenter gave me, this new perspective and new framework to really think about Israel that way.”

Contact: [email protected]; 215-832-0737

Source: “iCenter Fellowship Encourages Broader Approach to Education About Israel,” Rachel Kurland, Philadelphia Jewish Exponent, April 26, 2017

By Dov Ben-Shimon and Stefanie Rhodes

Once you accept the role of CEO at a major American Jewish organization, there’s no road map for how to become a leader.

In theory, our past experiences had prepared us for new positions. No one prepared us, or our colleagues in Cohort One of the CEO Onboarding Program, for that first day walking through the door into our new roles.

We came in with so many questions. What are the obvious missteps to avoid? What are the quick victories that could set us up for success? Who’s rooting for us to succeed? What questions do we not even know to ask?

The North American Jewish communal “system” has an array of programs for new hires and mid-level managers. Until now, we’ve not had a framework that takes new CEOs of American Jewish organizations and gives them a peer network for guidance, mentorship, coaching opportunities and skills development.

We’ve been incredibly fortunate to have participated in Cohort One of the CEO Onboarding Program. The different levels of experience each cohort member brought to the group, along with their unique skills and expertise, transcended the size of each organization and the issues with which we work. We each learned from one another over the past year, and we know we’ll keep learning long past the last day of the program.

The past year also has been a journey in understanding how we bring our own personalities and strengths to our roles, and how these qualities play into our individual successes, now and in the future. As part of the program, our time at the Center for Creative Leadership provided an individualized picture of our personal leadership styles. The support of an Executive Coach helped us build on that piece of the onboarding puzzle. For many of us, the combination empowered us to bring our whole selves into our new roles in a way that could strengthen our impact and set us – and our organizations – up for success.

As this incredible journey draws to a close, we find we are all better CEOs for having had this opportunity (others can have this opportunity too by applying for cohort 2 now). Our organizations, and the Jewish world, are the ultimate benefactors of this incredible investment.

Here are some key insights from our year in this program.

1. Collaboration is key to success. Not only have we built meaningful relationships as a cohort, we’ve also used those connections to create new professional ties between our organizations. These ties reflect the vibrancy and diversity of our American Jewish life. At a time when so much in our community is fragmented and divisive, we’ve formed a group that has collaborated and cooperated on everything from funding to programming.

2. Size matters, but value matters more. One of us (Dov) is the CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ, one of the largest Jewish Federations in the country. The other (Stefanie) is the Executive Director of Slingshot, one of the smaller-sized Jewish nonprofits in terms of staffing. Many of the issues we face, however, are similar. Learning from each other, and drawing on our varying backgrounds, offered new ideas and solutions for each of us.

3. Expert coaching is a special opportunity. One of the major benefits of the program was having a coach assigned for personal time on a regular basis. Coaching provided us with powerful, confidential guidance about holding difficult conversations, hiring and firing, and budgeting and planning. Anyone fortunate be a part of Cohort Two will experience the same highly personalized, ongoing elite coaching that makes this program unique.

4. Follow the wise. We were blessed to have meetings and discussions with great leaders of the American Jewish scene. They gave advice and perspective, and guided us through the process. In general, we don’t have enough opportunities to hear from those who came before us in our roles, and this was a well-needed resource.

5. The role goes with you, wherever you are. There were so many “real-time” learnings during the year. One that especially sticks with us occurred in Jerusalem. Outgoing U.S. Ambassador Dan Shapiro was briefing us on U.S.-Israel relations and their impact on the American Jewish community. At the very same time, we watched several colleagues deal with bomb threats to their institutions in real time. The lesson was clear: Our role as leaders never ceases.

We know it will be a challenging and enlightening year ahead for us, as we step away from the CEO Onboarding Program and continue to establish ourselves as CEOs of our organizations. We want to live up to the ideals of Jewish communal service and to set an example for those who come after us.

We’re grateful for the vision of Leading Edge and the generous support of the Jim Joseph Foundation, the Weinberg Foundation, the Schusterman Foundation, the Diller Foundation, and other generous funders. We’re thankful for our leadership and boards for supporting us and validating our participation.

Most importantly, we’re inspired by the message this program sends: The funders of the American Jewish community are committed to our future – and to the role of Jewish communal CEOs in getting us there.

Dov Ben-Shimon is Chief Executive Officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ.
Stefanie Rhodes is Executive Director of Slingshot.

Learn more about Cohort Two of the CEO Onboarding Program. Applications are open.

Source: “The Value of the CEO Onboarding Program,” by Dov Ben-Shimon and Stefanie Rhodes, eJewishPhilanthropy,  April 25, 2017

Yair Dalal plays blues-inspired Iraqi tunes on the oud. Ibrahim Miari whirls like a Sufi dervish while wearing a gas mask from the Gulf War.

Raafat Hattab lip-syncs as his alter ego, the Bride of Palestine; Elad Schechter’s dancers throw bananas at their audiences in Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda market; and Iris Zaki films herself washing Arab and Jewish women’s hair in a Haifa salon.

This is the face of Israeli culture today, as expressed by a group of Jewish and Muslim artists, musicians, dancers and filmmakers brought to the East Bay this week for a three-day conference hosted by the Berkeley Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies.

The April 5-7 conference, which featured panel discussions as well as performances, examined how the arts express and influence critical topics in Israeli society today — faith, sexuality, politics and technology — while breaking down barriers between cultural and religious groups, celebrating an Israeli identity that is as multi-faceted as the country’s people.

“For many years, there was a focus on creating a collective idea of what Israeli art is,” said Sharon Aronson Lehavi, a professor of theater and performance studies at Tel Aviv University who spoke on one of the panels. “One of the things that is happening is an unmasking of hegemony within Israeli culture.”

Dalal, a master of the oud and the violin whose performances highlight his Iraqi-Jewish heritage as well as his interest in jazz, blues and other music styles, says the days of cultural assimilation in Israel are over.

“When we grew up in Israel, everyone told us [we had] to be part of the melting pot,” he said. “But then you realize this melting pot doesn’t have any taste because it has no roots.

“It took years to break this melting pot. Now in Israel, everyone is trying to connect to his own culture that we left behind. This generation, they do it without any fear. When we did it, there was a lot of fear about what they would think of us. Nowadays, no one is afraid any more, and I think it’s because of something that has changed in the culture of Israeli society.”

Artists at the conference say they and their peers don’t hesitate to emphasize issues of gender or national identity, allowing them to create new artistic collaborations such as between Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews.

Miari, born in Acco to a Jewish Israeli mother and Palestinian Muslim father, not only illustrates that collaboration in his own biology, but makes it the focus of his autobiographical one-man theater piece.

“As a child, I thought everyone grew up with two cultures,” he told the audience after his April 6 performance. “Only later, when people began to ask me who I am, did I have to find my own identity. Theater helped me do that.”

One panel focused on Israeli artists grappling with questions of religion, gender and sexuality. Several talked about their use of the human body in light of their faith’s modesty traditions.

Schechter’s Jerusalem-based dance troupe performs in the open-air Machane Yehuda market, as well as other neighborhoods including the ultra-religious Mea Shearim, using energetic, often provocative movements to explore the importance of touch — literal and figurative — in human relationships.

“In Judaism there’s the idea of shomer negiah, that you’re not supposed to touch women,” he said, noting that his dance pieces try to subvert that paradigm. “We try to bring body culture into the public space and create opportunities for different communities to ‘touch’ each other.”

Hattab, an openly gay Muslim artist who rejected Islam in his teens, said that in his 30s, he made peace with it through his art. For a period of time, he said, he was “an obsessive knitter,” creating textile art with the craft.

“In Islam, like Judaism, the human figure is not allowed,” he explained. “There’s this notion of endless, empty space, which is God. When I knit, there’s an endless pattern; it refers to the Islamic idea of God that has no beginning and no end.”

For all of these artists, using their art to connect people is a key theme.

Textile and performance artist Nelly Agassi described how she stood inside the Tate Modern in London one afternoon and gave away 800 white tee-shirts she had made, each with the words “I am the one” written — in white letters — on the front. People took the shirts and put them on right in front of each other, laughing and talking, connecting in a more intimate way than might be expected of museum-goers.

“There I was, looking at all these little white-on-white dots milling around the museum,” she recalled. “They were all ‘the one.’ It’s important for everyone to feel that they are the one. You have to be for yourself first, before you can be for your lover, your family.”

While the artists featured at this conference borrowed from cultures and communities not their own, their art is successful, said Dalal, when they are grounded in their own first.

“You have to start with your own tradition,” he said. “There’s an Arabic phrase that says, ‘Without the old you cannot create the new.’”

Source: “Unmasking the wild, unexpected faces of contemporary Israeli arts,” J Weekly, April 7, 2017

By Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi

Today many Jewish leaders and philanthropists are trying to figure out how to convince more parents to send their children to Jewish day schools. Will an enhanced STEM focus or more scholarships help them fill the classrooms and enable Jewish day schools to thrive today and tomorrow? A key is better evidence – trained teachers, and more inclusive classrooms.

Recently, the day school movements all came together under one umbrella, Prizmah. Today that new collaborative and combined organization is uniquely positioned to share best practices with the field on these and other subjects. Their CEO, Paul Bernstein, wrote, “Prizmah supports increasing opportunities for inclusion and services for all Jewish students. There are great examples of high quality services for disabled students among Jewish day schools, but we need greater awareness and steps to keep improving, especially where such services are not currently available.”

Sulam at the Berman Hebrew Academy in Maryland, schools served by Gateways: Access to Jewish Education in Boston, as well as other Jewish schools in Chicago, Miami, New Jersey and beyond are using many best practices around inclusion of children of all abilities to strengthen their schools overall.

At the recent Prizmah conference, activist Shira Ruderman spoke on inclusion. (Here’s a link to an article about Ruderman’s presentation written by Alan Oliff, and in it there is a link to her presentation.) In her talk Ruderman posed a key question, “If 20% of our American population has special needs, can we afford to continue to exclude this significant segment of our Jewish community in our schools, synagogues, and programs?”

Of course, it is not only about fully welcoming and including people with disabilities in our Jewish community. It is also about their loved ones, who literally make up the majority of our community. Moreover, if children without disabilities spend their school years isolated from disability, they are not fully prepared for reality in their own futures. After all, people may only be temporarily without their own disabilities as – due to accident, disease or aging – disability eventually impacts most people if they live long enough.

But back to the good moves at the Prizmah conference. Importantly, Gateways also led a session on its B’Yadenu model, a whole-school approach to planning and implementing professional development to meet the needs of diverse learners. B’Yadenyu, funded by the Jim Joseph Foundation (JJF) and the Ruderman Family Foundation, is an effort to elevate the capacity of day school educators to differentiate instruction for those with learning challenges and, in so doing, enhance the quality of education for ALL students.

The B’Yadenu model was developed in collaboration with Boston-area day schools, but JJF has now extended the funding to disseminate the model in other communities. As a result of the Prizmah session, Gateways, and its partner Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP) are now actively exploring implementation of the B’Yadenu model in day schools around the country. This includes in my area with Sulam/Berman and Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Maryland, Gesher in Virginia and JPDS in Washington, DC. Both Sulam and MATAN are also involved in leading and assisting this cohort. MATAN, like Gateways and SULAM, are experts at training educators in how to work with children with differences. Collectively, these three nonprofits have tools and techniques that are desperately needed by other schools around the country.

The cohort of four Jewish day schools working together to upskill their teachers and be more inclusive is largely thanks to the outstanding leadership of the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington. They have made inclusion and professional development a hallmark of their efforts to strengthen the Jewish community and are truly a model to follow.

Nationally, one of the best developments is that inclusion of students with disabilities is now part of the conversation, the strategic planning, and the implementation of programs and services – within individual schools, and in forums across schools (i.e. Prizmah and other formal and informal networks).

One of the biggest changes in the field is the shift from a focus on the hiring of special educators and other service providers who take the primary responsibility for supporting students with special needs to a larger emphasis on training and supporting ALL educators in a day school to better differentiate instruction to meet the needs of diverse learners. Special educators and experts are still worth their weight in gold. However, the holistic training of teachers is a vital best practice for students with and without disabilities alike.

Teaching the teachers research-based best practices is vital. Jewish schools can further benefit from research based best practices gleaned from the latest in neuroscience. This can help ALL learners – whether they have a disability or not.

At St. Andrews Episcopal School in Maryland, for example, their innovative Center for Transformative Teaching & Learning (CTTL) is bringing the latest developments from neuroscience into the classroom. Indeed, research-informed teaching and learning has become the central focus of faculty professional development, curriculum and program design. Fully 100% of the teachers at St. Andrews have been trained in research-based best practices. Importantly, they did not do this on behalf of children with disabilities – they did it because the latest in neuroscience proves that children’s brains are still forming. Putting the right training and practices in place can help ALL children reach higher levels of intelligence and skills. CTTL’s work is so exciting that they are now offering training to teachers and experts from around the world.

Prizmah and day schools around the country can and should capitalize on its momentum in the Jewish day school community to educate Jewish day school leaders on best practices in special education – which is simply GOOD EDUCATION. But they should draw from outside of Jewish schools as well. Indeed, I just finished reading the new book Neuroteach: Brain Science and the Future of Education by CTTL’s director, Glenn Whitman, along with its director of research, Ian Kelleher. I recommend it highly to anyone who wants to improve education and the success of children.

One of the key principles of CTTL is the concept of “not yet.” You can learn something about it in a powerful Ted Talk by Carol Dweck, as well as one by Angela Duckworth on the power of grit. But it is larger than that. It turns out that simple changes, including changing what part of class times is used to give out the key educational content, and how and when teachers give out quizzes, can make big differences in the abilities of children to actually grow smarter and more capable.

National leaders in education today are those institutions that recognize that inclusive schools with well trained teachers widen the umbrella for ALL learners within the classroom. No longer is it acceptable to teach to the average, for there is no such thing as average. Neurodiversity is the norm, and schools must teach to a wide and varied range of learners.

When teachers reach the highest learners and the most challenged learners all within one classroom, the entire middle range of learners will be better reached as well. This is achievable with partnership and collaboration between general educators and special educators – all of whom take responsibility of EVERY child.

Let Prizmah and philanthropists lead the way to help Jewish schools become the national leaders of education, by facilitating the joining of forces between special educators and general educators in the use of research-based best practices. With this combination, the success and future of Jewish day schools can be unlimited.

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi is the president of RespectAbilityUSA.org, a nonprofit fighting stigmas and advancing opportunities for people with disabilities. She is also co-founder/director of the Mizrahi Family Charitable Fund. She can be reached at [email protected].

Source: “Strengthening Jewish Day Schools Through Better Trained & Inclusive Teachers,” by Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, eJewishPhilanthropy, April 21, 2017, 

Fueled by energy drinks, adrenaline and a strong sense of wanting to make the world better, 11 teams of UC Berkeley students spent last weekend working with people with disabilities to create devices that could improve their lives.

They were participating in the first collegiate Tikkun Olam Makers event, where students in fields ranging from neuroscience to mechanical engineering sacrificed time and sleep — and were paid back in gratitude and lots of munchies.

Among the projects they worked on were creating a prototype that can help someone with limited hand strength to apply makeup, and building a commode that can be folded up for transport on a plane.

Tikkun Olam Makers (TOM) was conceived by the Tel Aviv-based Reut Group, whose website says it is “focused on creating and scaling effective models to tackle some of the toughest challenges facing Israel and the Jewish people, while making a significant and distinct contribution to humanity.”

The first TOM event was held in 2014 in Nazareth, and the program has grown into a global experience with Makeathons in such locales as Ho Chi Minh City, Buenos Aires and Melbourne.

The Berkeley event, which ran from March 17 to 19, was the first student-led TOM experience. There will be five more Makeathons this year, including at UC Irvine, Northwestern and Vanderbilt, supported in part by a grant from the San Francisco-based Jim Joseph Foundation.

Rebecca Fuhrman, TOM’s Architect of Inspiration, said there are 1.1 billion people globally with a disability and plenty of people who want to help them.

“People have talent and they really want to volunteer to do good in the world,” she said on the morning of March 19 as students shuffled back into the main work area after a few hours of sleep. “They have been working from dawn to dusk burning the midnight oil.”

Among the early risers was Joshua Toch, 20, a junior majoring in business administration at Cal. His team worked on speech translation software for an 11-year-old girl who has cerebral palsy and has difficulty being understood when she speaks. The team, which included Google employees, developed an algorithm that takes samples of her speech and trains itself to memorize words, which are then either projected on a computer screen or repeated electronically.

Toch, from Morgan Hill, also has cerebral palsy. He was a Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Award winner in 2014 for creating Mind Before Mouth, an anti-bullying group that uses public speaking as a way of creating awareness, after being ridiculed by bullies for his disability.

“I loved the fact that I could possibly help someone out who’s in the same shoes as me,” he said. “It’s just about helping people, and wherever that help is coming from, it’s great.”

In addition to working on their projects, participants are required to document how they came up with solutions, so that the devices can be replicated. All TOM inventions become available to anyone at no cost.

That’s important to members of the disabled community, who often have to pay exorbitant amounts for devices that help in their daily lives. Pierluigi Mantovani, 23, who graduated from UC Berkeley last year with a degree in cognitive science and now works as a neuroscience researcher at UCSF, knows all about that because his father has multiple sclerosis.

Using volunteer labor and relatively inexpensive materials, Mantovani’s TOM team designed a special glove for a Berkeley filmmaker in a wheelchair who has very limited use of his hands. By slightly moving his wrists, he now can navigate a computer screen — using electromyography, which detects signals from his muscles. Before, he had been limited to using a joystick with his lower lip.

“We are really into making assistive technologies more affordable,” Mantovani said. “We want people to see these devices are extremely expensive for no reason.”

Tomás Vega, a senior computer science and cognitive science major and another member of Mantovani’s team, said it was all part of an effort to “democratize” the assistive tech field — and added that TOM was a great way to spend a weekend.

“When someone tells you, ‘Thank you for changing my life, for improving the quality of my life,’ there’s nothing like that,” Vega said.

“Cal students pull a marathon to engineer disability solutions,” Rob Gloster, J Weekly, March 22, 2017

NEW YORK (JTA) — In the upstairs sanctuary of a Manhattan synagogue, a group of rabbis is studying Jewish texts on pluralism and community. One floor below, 22 students are sitting in pairs poring over the book of Exodus.

The students spend all day, every weekday in the building, studying Jewish text and observing strict Jewish law in a gender-equal environment. The rabbis, by contrast, leave the building that afternoon and return to their communities across the country, which range from Reform synagogues that don’t observe traditional Jewish law to Orthodox ones that eschew full gender equality.

The two groups illustrate the dual mission of Mechon Hadar, a Jewish study institute now celebrating its 10th anniversary. As opposed to other Jewish schools offering college degrees or rabbinic ordination, Hadar hopes instead to form an educated, egalitarian Jewish laity and encourage rigorous Torah study across Jewish institutions.

On one hand, it has taught and trained cohorts of adult students who live the lifestyle it promotes — intensively learning Torah and observing Jewish law without discriminating based on gender identity or sexual preference. But more recently, Hadar has spread its net further, offering classes and programs for Jewish professionals who don’t necessarily share its Jewish worldview.

Rabbi Ethan Tucker, a co-founder of Hadar, speaking with rabbis during a seminar at the New York yeshiva, March 1, 2017. (Ben Sales)

“We would like to impact the Jewish community both from the bottom up and from the top down,” said Rabbi Shai Held, one of Hadar’s three co-founders. “I no longer believe in you just train rabbis and they change the world. You need rabbis, for sure, but you also need to inspire people to be responsible.”

Hadar was founded in 2006 by Held and two other rabbis, Ethan Tucker and Elie Kaunfer. Although Kaunfer and Held were ordained at the Conservative movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary, and Tucker earned his doctorate in Talmud and rabbinics there, Hadar — like Kehilat Hadar, the Manhattan minyan out of which it developed —  is a product of the movement of independent minyanim, or Jewish prayer groups unaffiliated with traditional synagogues or denominations. It offers resources on Jewish prayer and taught its first summer session of 18 fellows in 2007.

In the decade since, Hadar, meeting at space it rents from the Reconstructionist West End Synagogue, has had 500 full-time students in summer and yearlong programs, as well as 1,500 others who have attended shorter seminars for rabbis, college students or other Jewish professionals. Its Jewish study resources have been downloaded more than a million times in the past two years — covering everything from the weekly Torah portion to podcasts on Jewish ritual like how to celebrate a girl’s birth. And its co-presidents have published books on prayer groups, Jewish law and gender equality, and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.

“[It’s] a place in which you can be your full Jewish self without compromising on questions of values and gender that is in line with tradition and really continuing that,” Kaunfer said. “Being a place that other people can point to and say, ‘Oh yeah, the kind of Jewish life that I believe in exists, and here it is.’”

Core to that Jewish life are its groups of full-time students, who spend either a summer or academic year doing what was once almost exclusively the province of Orthodox men: learning over pages of Talmud, Bible and philosophy from morning to night. The students also teach part-time across the New York City area and engage in social service.

“It’s fascinating and really important to our society today to have this in-depth exploration of all sides of issues, of opinions you ultimately end up rejecting or disagreeing with, hearing all voices,” said Johanna Press, one of this year’s fellows, who came to Hadar after becoming more Jewishly observant in college and then spending a year studying in Israel.

“The beit midrash is the best educational environment I’ve been in,” she added, using the Hebrew term for a study house. “It’s OK to be working. It’s about engaging in the process.”

Johanna Press, left, and Noa Albaum studying Talmud together at Hadar, March 1, 2017. Both are fellows in its yearlong study program. (Ben Sales)

Beyond the shorter seminars, Hadar has expanded its footprint with study programs in Israel, as well as engagement with other movements’ institutions. Its Community Beit Midrash, held every month, brings together teachers from Hadar, the pluralistic Israel-based yeshiva Pardes, a few liberal Orthodox schools and the Jewish Theological Seminary.

“I see ourselves in league with them in a very deep way,” Kaunfer said of the other schools taking part. “The Jewish world likes to categorize and distinguish, and I feel like we’re more in the world of looking at the points of unity between us.”

This weekend, Mechon Hadar will celebrate its first decade with a sold-out retreat at a hotel in Teaneck, New Jersey, that will include Shabbat prayer, study and a concert on Saturday night.

Looking forward, Hadar hopes to expand its study programs, as well as support communities that share its philosophy. There are already some 100 independent minyanim that broadly accord with Hadar philosophically. But Tucker, a Hadar co-founder, said the organization needs to work on leveraging its alumni and allies into sustainable, multigenerational communities.

“One of our great challenges and goals has to be how do we help foster a new generation of people, kids and communities that sort of grow up living out this vision,” Tucker said. “The next frontier, as I see it, is actually beginning to generate a community that way transcends our programs and our beit midrash.”

But Hadar’s leadership doesn’t feel that all of its alumni need to narrowly pursue its stance of religiously observant egalitarianism in order to advance its vision. One alumna, Zoe Jick, now runs an English-language, full-time study program at Bina, a secular yeshiva in Tel Aviv, partly with financial support from Mechon Hadar. While she does not observe traditional Jewish law, Jick says Hadar inspired her to encourage Jewish study.

“Hadar 100 percent convinced me that Torah was at the core of my identity,” she said. “I felt like all of a sudden I was provided not only context and content, but given language to the things I felt instinctual about but didn’t know where it was coming from.”

Source: “At 10, egalitarian yeshiva wants to expand learning among Jews in the pews,” Ben Sales, JTA, March 3, 2017

Jewish students across the country mobilized to create affordable solutions to improve lives.

Jewish students at CornellTech, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Berkeley, UCI, and Solomon Schechter Westchester are preparing for six TOM Makeathons ‘three-day marathons of making’ at five colleges and one high school where participants will work with people with disabilities to develop solutions for everyday challenges. The designs of the solutions will be developed further and made available for widespread use for other users worldwide.

The six Makeathons are being organized with the support of the Jim Joseph Foundation and will be the latest in activities launched by the global TOM:Tikkun Olam Makers movement (currently active in Israel, the US, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Vietnam, Australia, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, and Barcelona), an initiative of the Reut Group founded with the support of the Schusterman Family Foundation. TOM is a global community of makers, technology developers, and innovators who seek to solve unmet social challenges in disadvantaged communities and nations, fulfilling the traditional Jewish value of Tikkun Olam – repairing the world.

Chair Call: Drew McPherson, TOM:Berkeley Organizer at TOM:Israel in January designing a device to help call a power wheelchair to ones’ bedside. Courtesy of Tikkun Olam Makers

Students are taking part in a new initiative by TOM:Tikkun Olam Makers to train young leaders as local pioneers launching TOM Communities on their campuses. In late January, 20 organizers met for the first time in Chelsea, NY and participated in an intensive 48 hour training seminar preparing them for the logistical and social responsibility of launching a TOM Community. Each will be responsible for bringing together technologists, designers, therapists from their campuses and from Israel, together with people with disabilities who will develop ideas and products that address challenges of people living with disabilities, their family members, and health-care professionals.

Bradley Schwartz of TOM:Vanderbilt shared,  “I came to Israel on BBYO’s International Leadership Seminar in Israel (ILSI) summer program. I’ve been a Maker my whole life – when I heard about TOM I realized that this can really benefit people on campus, and makers, and the community – nothing else is going to do all that at once.”

“If you look around, we have the right people, talent, and resources to help people – but the interactions between all three aren’t happening enough. If I can help someone – I want to help. In this 72 hour event, we can help create devices that can make people’s lives better – it all starts with bringing people together.” Guy Zeltser of TOM:Northwestern

The Jim Joseph Foundation is championing the innovative efforts to mobilize young leadership by supporting the seminar training for campus organizers, supporting the development of a campus methodology and guidebook, as well as supporting each of the six Makeathons. These efforts are designed to create a scalable model to reach and engage even more young Jewish leaders, Jewish high schools, and college communities across the United States.

“This is a dynamic initiative that mobilizes young people to create change for good in an environment imbued with creativity and Jewish values,” says Barry Finestone, President and CEO of the Jim Joseph Foundation. “The Foundation is excited to partner with TOM, offering opportunities for young adults to connect with Israelis and to engage in projects that inherently reflect diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

“This will be my sixth Makeathon – I was at the first Makeathon organized by TOM in Nazareth, then Tefen, the Bay Area, San Diego, and Haifa. There is something unique about creating a solution with a Need-Knower (person with a deep understanding with a disability and its challenges) and seeing their smile and satisfaction. And you know this is going to help other people – and that you took part in making that happen. This is why I am here.” explained Oded Shorer of TOM:NYC.

TOM:Tikkun Olam Makers is a strategic initiative of the Reut Group (reutgroup.org), a Tel Aviv-based nonprofit creating and scaling models to ensure prosperity and resilience for Israel and the Jewish People. TOM was launched in 2014 as a global movement of communities, bringing together people with disabilities and Makers in order to address neglected challenges and develop open-source technological solutions for people in need around the world. Thus, fulfilling the traditional Jewish value of Tikkun Olam – repairing the world.

By investing in promising Jewish education grant initiatives, the Jim Joseph Foundation seeks to foster compelling, effective Jewish learning experiences for young Jews in the United States. Established in 2006, the Jim Joseph Foundation has awarded more than $440 million in grants to engage, educate, and inspire young Jewish minds to discover the joy of living vibrant Jewish lives. www.jimjosephfoundation.org

Source: “Designing Solutions For People With Disabilities,” The New York Jewish Week, New Normal Blog, February 20, 2017

The organization builds on the foundation of Birthright trips for university-aged students offering more in-depth and educational experiences for US youth.

Onward Israel, an organization that provides Jewish young adults with multi-week immersive experiences in Israel, recently received an $8 million grant to expand its programming from the Jim Joseph Foundation, a San Francisco-based organization that supports Jewish learning initiatives for young Jews.

Established in 2012 by the Jewish Agency together with numerous partners from the Jewish world, Onward Israel aims to promote Jewish engagement among Jewish young adults. The organization builds on the foundation of Birthright trips for university- aged students, offering more in-depth and educational experiences for young Jews.

“Onward Israel is designed to meet the interests of today’s young adults who seek international resumé building experiences,” said David Shapira, the program’s co-founder and chairman. “Onward Israel is becoming one of the most attractive and fastest growing deep-impact programs in the Jewish world.”

The grant from the Jim Joseph Foundation will enable Onward Israel to continue to grow as well as invest in educational content to attract more youth, said Shapira.

In the coming year, Onward Israel anticipates increasing the number of participants in its programs from 1,520 to 2,200, as well as expanding its theme-based experience from four to 11. Program areas include entrepreneurship and innovation; education and social services; science, technology and health; policy and government; and sports, hospitality and business.

Onward Israel partners with a range of communities and organizations in Israel to carry out many of its programs.

These programs seek to provide Jewish young adults with the opportunity to form future professional networks based on a shared professional interest, interaction with Israeli society and a shared Jewish experience in Israel.

“Through Onward Israel’s range of programs and opportunities, more and more young adults connect with Israel and build lasting personal connections to the land and people,” explained Barry Finestone, president and CEO of the Jim Joseph Foundation.

“Young adults are especially attracted to these experiences because they add value to both their personal and professional lives,” he said. “We believe that when Jewish and Israel education occurs in this context, it is particularly powerful.”

Last year, Onward Israel launched numerous new initiatives to deepen Jewish learning experiences, including introducing weekend seminars for participants, launching evening mini-courses and internships for academic credit, as well as a pre-program online Hebrew learning opportunity in partnership with Ulpan Or.

According to a report released last year by Rosov Consulting, which has evaluated the organization since its inception, upon completion of the program, the majority of Onward Israel participants increase their engagement in Jewish activities and in the Jewish community, taking on various leadership roles, including organizing and leading Jewish social, cultural and religious events.

“Even a year after their Onward Israel experience, participants are more engaged in Jewish life than they were previously, and many remain connected to their peers from the trip,” said Alex Pomson, managing director of Rosov Consulting.

Source: “Israel Trip Program to Expand Offerings for American Jewish Youth,” Lidar Grave-Lazi, Jerusalem Post, February 15, 2017

Newly formed Prizmah brings innovation and 1,000 educators to three-day meeting.

Chicago — Since 2008, when the U.S. economy tanked in the wake of the Madoff Ponzi scheme scandal, Jewish day school conferences have been a place for lay and professional leaders of the movement to kvetch about hard times. And for good reason. Their difficulty in trying to provide quality Jewish and secular education while keeping steep tuition costs in line was a persistent theme. Pessimism was in the air.

The dilemma hasn’t gone away, but this week’s first national Jewish day school conference sponsored by the newly formed Prizmah (Hebrew for prism) has had a decidedly upbeat mood. There is an air of enthusiasm among the more than 1,000 principals, teachers, administrators and lay leaders gathered at a downtown hotel here for three days.

In large part that’s because they’ve seen that the New York-based Prizmah, the result of a complex merger over the last two years of five national Jewish day school organizations — the Orthodox Yeshiva School Partnership, Pardes (Reform), Schechter (Conservative), PEJE (which helps day schools with governance and fundraising issues) and RAVSAK: The Jewish Community Day School Network — is for real, making good on its pledge to bring innovation and substantive content to day schools across the denominational spectrum.

The birthing process wasn’t easy. It has been more than two years since leading day school funders — primarily the Avi Chai and Jim Joseph Foundations — made clear their belief that it was ineffective to fund the existing five national groups separately. They felt there was too much overlap, and that a single body could serve the common interests of the different streams while allowing them to maintain their own religious identity.

Teachers, administrators from the Wise School in Los Angeles. Courtesy of Prizmah

The organizations balked at first, but when faced with the possibility of losing their major funding, had little choice but to agree to form one entity. The five top executives were kept on for six months as Prizmah launched this past year, but the understanding was that none would lead the new group, so as to avoid politicking. The same applied to the five lay chairs of the founding groups.

It was difficult for the leaders to work themselves out of a job, and there was skepticism in the field about the anticipated results.

But I detected little cynicism at this week’s conference, Prizmah’s debut event. A wide range of lay leaders and professionals from around the country told me how impressed they were, starting with the size of the turnout, which was more than double those of pre-Prizmah conferences. They noted the variety and quality of the scores of working sessions, which included three-hour “intensives,” a choice of up to a dozen concurrent 80-minute programs, 45-minute programs and a “playground” area to explore the latest in technology and software.

Among the highlights: an expert game developer on the positive aspects of gaming and why it’s the future of learning; innovations in the field of online Jewish studies; a roundtable on how to navigate respectful discussions on the national political climate in the Trump era; and a Second City presentation on how improv can be a powerful tool for educators.

For me, a session on ways day schools might reach adults who don’t participate in Jewish life was particularly creative, suggesting counter-intuitive techniques.

Dan Libenson, president of the Chicago-based Judaism Unbound/Institute for the Next Jewish Future, posited the notion of offering a product — in this case, education — that is not of the highest caliber but “good enough” to appeal to Jews of little religion, and to improve the product as interest grows.

His analogy was photography. Libenson noted that a decade ago people took quality pictures with traditional cameras. Along came the iPhone and other similar devices that had built-in cameras. The photos they produced weren’t as sharp but the devices were so easy to use that consumers sacrificed some quality for the convenience. As the devices became more popular, the built-in cameras were improved.

What if Judaism used that approach, Libenson suggested, encouraging the participants to be able to articulate “why” day schools rather than just “what” they are and “how” they operate. Perhaps day schools could compete with supplemental Hebrew schools, he speculated, appealing to working parents who need a place for their children to go after school, and providing a less-intensive-than-day-school curriculum. Or maybe offer adult education courses at the day school in the evenings in the hope that non-affiliated Jews will attend and eventually choose to send their children to day schools.

I attended two other sessions that challenged conventional thinking. One dealt with the rationale for teaching Hebrew and the other was on how to instill passion for Israel in students while acknowledging Jerusalem’s internal political problems and tarnished international reputation. The conversations were frank, and there was a healthy sense of safe space among colleagues.

Paul Bernstein, the new CEO of Prizmah, with a diverse background in education, philanthropy and social media, said the organization’s mantra is to “do what we do best and connect the rest.” That translates into offering program services, resources and data, fundraising help and advocacy in making the case for the value of a day school education. And encouraging those in the field to network and collaborate.

He told me that he and Kathy Manning, the chair of Prizmah, spent six months visiting communities large and small around the country to hear what the local needs are. “We are learning from and with” educators, Bernstein said, and are “committed to instilling Jewish values” in making the case for day schools as a vital part of American Jewish life.

The old day school challenges haven’t gone away, but there is a new sense of optimism that Prizmah can make a difference, and be a rare model for collaboration in our all-too-divided community.

Source: “Rare Sense Of Optimism At Day School Conference,” February 9, 2017, Gary Rosenblatt, The New York Jewish Week