News & Blogs Category: Partners in the News

As an experiential Jewish educator with core beliefs in a constructivist education, I search for ways to help my learners develop a deep, meaningful connection to Israel. Like many educators, I have grown to understand that this is easier said than done, and that the path of Israel education is fraught with challenges. However, these challenges can be overcome if educators are able to adopt principles that put the focus on the learner, the curriculum, and diverse narratives of Israel – three of the iCenter’s 12 principles of the Aleph Bet of Israel Education – 2^nd Edition that have helped me professionally and in fact make teaching methodology relatable and achievable in any educational environment.

The principles espoused within the Aleph Bet of Israel Education collectively constitute a framework of experiential learning alongside values for meaningful education – applicable to educators of all backgrounds. As the Assistant Director of Youth and Family Engagement at Beth El Synagogue Center in New Rochelle, NY, I spend much of my time working with middle and high school students as they navigate their personal identity development at a very transitional time in their lives. Already, I have incorporated certain Aleph Bet principles into my educational approach with my learners, utilizing techniques of experiential education in my everyday interactions.

I experimented with these techniques specifically while creating and implementing an Israel curriculum with seventh graders at Beth El Synagogue, crossing over diverse narratives and multiple landscapes of Israel; the focus was on people, history, land, technology, innovation, and more; all topics that the learners in this class specifically asked to better understand. The multiple entry points I provided in learning about these topics and assessing the growth of the learners in this environment further created a space of interest, engagement, and dialogue for my learners. I hope my experiences in this regard are helpful to other practitioners and researchers in the fields of Jewish education and Israel education.

Meeting Learners Where They Are

As David Bryfman of The Jewish Education Project discusses in the chapter, “A Learner-Centered Approach,” one of the main focuses of our teaching should be our learner; this makes our approach to education holistic and allows us to meet our learners where they need to be met. In these experiential educational settings, Bryfman talks about “a learner becom[ing] an active agent in the learning process” (p. 31). When tying these principles of a learner-centered environment to Israel education, he notes that the reason this information is relevant to Israel education is because of the way “it is meaningful and relevant to the lives of the individual learners” (p. 32). Although of course the content is important, if it is not relevant and meaningful to our learners or put forth to them in an experiential, tangible way, then it may not be successful Israel education.

When working with my seventh grade students at Beth El, I not only made sure to be open with them about what topics we were going to cover in order to give them a say in our content, but included differentiated learning opportunities in each part of the curriculum. Differentiation allowed for each of the learners to find a place in the curriculum that felt comfortable, yet challenging and interesting at the same time. Keeping learners at the forefront of our thoughts helps educators recognize the importance of every individual. Moreover, keeping learners connected to an Israel education that is grounded in educational techniques used in general education settings helps concretize the field of Israel education in the field.

Curricularizing Israel

In addition to a learner-centered education, Rabbi Jan Katzew, Ph.D., of HUC-JIR explains how we can bring education to life for our learners and our educators through a thematic curriculum instead of a chronological one. Katzew discusses the breadth and depth to an Israel education environment that focuses on both the needs of the learner and the intentions of the educator with the learners. With these thoughts in mind, themes of the land, the people, the history, and personal connections with Israel can help create a space where learners and educators are able to explore Israel together.

When I began thinking about the curriculum for my seventh grade class, I wanted to make sure there were clear touch points in multiple landscapes of Israel education in order to begin to heighten the learners’ interest in a variety of areas within Israel. Spending significant chunks of time on the biblical land of Israel, modern Israel, the people of modern Israel, immigration, and innovation gave the learners exposure to the breadth and depth of Israel. Depending on our learners, the thematic curriculum can have a more significant impact than a timeline on how our learners internalize their educational experiences. This is especially true if educators have the space to create and explore their curriculum in a way that is meaningful to them as well.

Diverse Narratives

The above ideals tie seamlessly into the importance of diverse narratives within Israel education, which are presented in such a coherent way through the iCenter that complex conversations genuinely seem achievable. Dr. Barry Chazan states in his chapter “Diverse Narratives” that we have three tasks as educators when it comes to expressing the diverse narratives of Israel education: 1) to help our youth feel fluent in the major narratives that are accepted as Jewish history, 2) to recognize that “openness to diverse narrations and narrators” is relevant when it comes to our Jewish values, as is teaching, learning, and debating l’shem shamayim, for the sake of Heaven, and 3) to help our youth feel fluent enough in their own narratives and beliefs that they can become the narrators themselves and find their own voice to express their own thoughts and opinions (p. 91). Creating a truly safe space for experiential education, where diverse learners can find their own way to learn, discuss, question, and grow in a supportive environment is critical. In these spaces, learners and educators are engaged together in order to find some live, mutual understandings of the land of Israel, modern Israel, complexities of Israel, and what a personal relationship with Israel can look like today.

I regularly think about the way we can make Israel alive for our learners, no matter how far in proximity they may be from Israel itself. Through my experience with Israel education in my seventh grade classroom, the times in which many opinions and stories were shared led to the most critical and important conversations in our class setting. These conversations allowed for the learners to learn about a multitude of perspectives on certain subjects pertaining to Israel, listen to one another, and find a way for their personal voice to be heard.

Through these experiences, I also realize that I too am allowed to have an evolving view of Israel, alongside an openness to teach diverse narratives of Israel education to diverse learners. By modeling that we, as educators, are continuing to learn and grow in our relationships with Israel, we help our learners feel similar freedom as we cultivate these experiences with them.

Israel Education is Demanding

Dr. Lee S. Shulman of Stanford University states in the Aleph Bet Postlude:

…learning does not occur in a vacuum. Israel education makes substantial demands on teachers and their pedagogical skill. Because the goals of Israel education are so multi-dimensional, teachers must be competent to teach for the understanding of subtle and challenging ideas. They must also be engaging role models and masters if the emotional and personal aspects of Israel education are to be addressed successfully (p. 129).

At such a critical time in Israel’s life and in the life of Diaspora Jews, educators have the capacity to facilitate the creation of meaningful relationships with many facets of Judaism. Israel is one facet of Judaism that can be alive in a variety of environments for every individual learner; individualizing our Israel education programs can only further enhance the way in which knowledge and understanding of diverse narratives can strengthen the constructive conversations we have, despite our disagreements. Finding a way to build these environments and make them age-appropriate in our educational settings, as I have tried to do at Beth El Synagogue, can really be done through openness and collaboration with others in the educational environment.

The Aleph Bet of Israel Education – 2^nd edition provides tools for successful, experiential education to be conveyed in our Jewish communities today. Without this framework, we as Jewish educators living in the Diaspora would be further from dialogue and from finding open and personal understandings of Israel. Instead, I continuously find ways to further build our community at Beth El Synagogue Center and our conversations surrounding Israel by expanding our communal knowledge and basing those ideals in these principles of Israel education. These principles relate to all good education, no matter the subject, and are modeled through Israel education in a very specific, necessary, and legitimate manner that promotes meaningful dialogue and relationships in our communities. I hope that my experiences at Beth El and utilization of the iCenter and Israel education network help show what productive Israel education looks like in the Diaspora, and reflects the vast potential of the field in the years to come.

Rebekkah Gold is the Assistant Director of Youth and Family Engagement at Beth El Synagogue Center in New Rochelle, NY. She was a member of Cohort 4 of the iCenter’s iFellows Master’s Concentration in Israel Education and received her Master’s degree in Jewish Education at the Jewish Theological Seminary. Cohort 5 of the iFellows Master’s Concentration in Israel Education concluded at the end of May.

Source: “A Personal Approach to Israel Education,” Rebekkah Gold, eJewishPhilanthropy, June 1, 2016

“Fail Forward” is the mantra of entrepreneurs. Take risks. You will fail, guaranteed. Learn from it.  Once a little smarter, boldly launch again. Instead of meeting failure with crimson shame and pink slips, entrepreneurs believe, as Robert Kennedy did, “to achieve greatness, you have to fail greatly.”

David Bryfman, Chief Innovation Officer at The Jewish Education Project, introduced the concept of “fail forward” at a Jewish Futures Conference in New York City.

“I’m quite proud the community has embraced the idea. I hear the phrase ‘fail forward’ repeated more than anything else I’ve put out there.” An innovation guru who keynotes from London to Jerusalem to Sydney, David confesses it is a lot easier to teach fail forward than to enact it.

David recounts his own journey of learning to fail forward. It takes time to embrace the idea “that you can both have high standards and recognize we are not going to get everything right.” David says, “I try to let people I work with know that we are all in this together. If they fail, we all fail.” To ensure his team feels safe enough to take risks, including the risk of failure, David applies lessons he learned from a very unexpected teacher—a funder.

The Jim Joseph Foundation, a national grant maker committed to fostering compelling, effective Jewish learning experiences for young Jews, has been David’s mentor in learning to fail forward. As Foundation professionals work with him to reshape teen engagement, David notes, they consistently model this best practice of failing forward. David strives to replicate lessons learned from the Foundation with his own team.

Lessons learned:

1. Earn Trust

As the Foundation began working with David, they sought information not easily discerned from a grant proposal or a resume. They wanted to know David as a person. They also wanted him to get to know them. “A couple of years ago, I was at a conference in Florida,” recalls David. “A senior program officer at the Jim Joseph Foundation said ‘let’s go for a walk. We are not going to talk about business. We are going to talk about our lives.’” Skill alone doesn’t earn the trust needed to navigate unchartered territory. Character matters. Anyone who knows David, affectionately referred to as Bryfy, knows he is a principled man.

“Trust goes both ways,” remarks David. “I know the Foundation is not trying to catch me. We have mutuality and respect. Once you experience that, there is not a long jump to say we are in this together.”

David works to build mutual trust with his own staff. Despite working at a “million miles an hour like all entrepreneurs do,” David says he forces himself to slow down to spend time with his team. When he doesn’t, the team suffers. Without that time, “you don’t really get to know someone to build the trust.” Despite his best intentions, the day to day sometimes leaves him wishing for more relationship time.

2. Kill Blame, Enliven Inquiry

Too often, non-profit leaders fear retribution for failing to meet funders’ expectations. The Jim Joseph Foundation, says David, understands that innovation only happens through learning from successes and failures that naturally occur on the innovation path. “We have not been worried about our failures when we have tried something that has never been done before. The Foundation has stood behind its multi-year commitment to work with us to keep improving.”

Post-mortems on data follow the Foundation’s agenda of inquiry:

• What did we learn this week?
• How could we have done things differently?
• What can we do from our side to make success even more likely?

David works with the executive team at The Jewish Education Project to create a culture of inquiry and learning. By providing regular professional development, David ensures his team has the time and the skills to collect data, analyze it, learn from it and be agile enough to re-direct strategy based on what is learned. Learning to fail forward is a long-term commitment. Removing blame and replacing it with inquiry and learning enables The Jewish Education Project to be a national leader in educational innovation.

3. Be Accountable

Failure is an engine of innovation only when it is accompanied by accountability. Holding people responsible for assigned work, deadlines and outputs is imperative. David is happy to do the required reporting to the Foundation. Accountability is a practice he experiences with the Foundation through formal channels like regular reports, and through more informal but regular communication.

David strives to replicate the “just right” balance of failure and accountability with his team. “I have high expectations and high standards,” David notes. “We try new things all the time. If we don’t do it right the first time, I don’t care. The second time it is slightly clearer what has to be adjusted. But by the third time, I have some serious issues.” David says his message is “There is room for learning over time. Together, we have a fail forward mindset. And you have to be held to the highest standards.”

There is no success without learning to fail. David is learning, teaching and enacting this key entrepreneurial mantra. He is willing to reveal honestly how hard it is to instill the practice of fail forward. He also insists it is necessary to earn trust, enable inquiry and hold people accountable so they can take risks, learn from failure and innovate for our changing world. David is willing to do the hard work of failing, because not succeeding has cosmic ramifications.

“What keeps me up at night?” he tells me, is the question.  “How will this work make the Jewish people better off?”

Source: “No Success Without Learning to Fail,” Reconstructionist Rabbinical College Blog, May 13, 2016

“What are we hearing from families about choosing Jewish early childhood education?” “What are common challenges and opportunities in congregational education?” “How do macro trends impact Jewish learning/life programming and choices?”

Some 150 educators, clergy, lay leaders, administrators and other stakeholders gathered May 10 to tackle these and other big questions, hear about innovation approaches from national experts, stimulate one another’s thinking, and empower each other to effect change.

Convened by JUF’s Community Foundation for Jewish Education, “Thinking Together: Communal Conversations about  Jewish Congregational and Early Childhood Education in Chicago” focused on national ideas and local challenges in the field, which engages nearly 8,000 students enrolled in 40 schools in the metropolitan area.

The participants began their day of learning and idea exchange with an overview of key data points relating to enrollment trends, capacity utilization, teacher compensation and professional development, funding and costs, and other vital information.

(From left) Rabbi Scott Aaron, CFJE executive director; Buddy Schreiber, recipient of the CFJE-Grinspoon Foundation Award for Excellence in Jewish Congregational Education; Claudine Guralnick, recipient of the Sue Pinsky Award for Excellence in Jewish Education; and Sue Pinsky. (Photo by Robert F. Kusel)

“2015-2016 was the first year Chicago’s Jewish early childhood programs participated in a community wide, systematic data collection. The results offer a first view of the landscape and serve as a baseline for future tracking,” said CFJE Executive Director Rabbi Scott Aaron.

The data study was facilitated by CFJE and conducted by JData, a research program operated by Brandeis University with generous support from the Jim Joseph Foundation.

With information in hand, the conference participants broke into two interest groups, one focusing on early childhood education and another centering on congregational education. Both sessions offered case studies of innovative approaches and programs designed to address the challenges of engaging families and youth in Jewish education.

“The passion and energy in the room was unstoppable,” said one participant of the interaction with other professionals.  “Although we have a long way to go [in advancing the field,” said another, yet another educator stressed how “empowering [it is] being in the room with passionate Jewish educators.”

Guralnick, Schreiber receive Jewish education awards

Following informal conversations during lunch, CFJE presented its second annual Sue Pinsky Award for Excellence in Jewish Education to Claudine Guralnick, of Oak Park, an educator at West Suburban Temple Har Zion in River Forest.

Members of her congregational community described Guralnick as “understanding, perceptive, patient, and fun… Her support [for children and families] is unwavering, and her engagement with the children is constant and active.”

The Pinsky Award honors Sue Pinsky, a Jewish educator who was instrumental in the founding of the North Suburban JCC. Her son, Mark Pinsky, and his wife, Lisa, generously established an endowment fund in Sue’s honor to ensure the award in perpetuity through JUF’s Agency Endowment Program.

CFJE also awarded its first annual CFJE-Grinspoon Foundation Award for Excellence in Jewish Congregational Education to Buddy Schreiber, who teaches at Am Shalom in Glencoe.

The award celebrates successful innovation in Jewish education and was awarded to Schreiber, in part for “the quiet way [he] impacts students…[and] his determined presence and desire to bring them a high level discussion about higher level ideas.”

To learn more about the groundbreaking work of JUF’s Community Foundation for Jewish Education of Metropolitan Chicago, visit www.cfje.org. 

Source: “Congregational and early childhood educators talk innovation, recognize innovators,” JUF News, May 12, 2016

Jewish communities around the country are discovering the power of Jewish education that is grounded in the relationship between Jewish tradition and the natural world through JOFEE (Jewish Outdoor, Food, & Environmental Education). As a result of collaborative, cross-organizational efforts led by Hazon and other leading JOFEE organizations, two exciting new programs – the JOFEE Fellowship and the JOFEE Network Gathering – are moving this field  into its next stage as both a professional pathway for Jewish educators and a highly effective modality of Jewish engagement.

Together, these programs launch an ambitious plan to bring JOFEE to exponentially more participants and communities, and to support individuals, organizations, and institutions working throughout the JOFEE space. Both the Fellowship and the Network Gathering build directly on data and findings in the JOFEE Report that formalized anecdotal knowledge about those working in the JOFEE space around the country over the past two decades and more. The report demonstrated that JOFEE programming breathes fresh life into Jewish organizations and fosters an emerging group of leaders and community members who may not have otherwise found connections to the broader Jewish community. Grounded in Jewish tradition, JOFEE is a tremendously productive estuary in which organizers and participants tackle the core social and environmental challenges of the 21st century and simultaneously strengthen Jewish knowledge, practice, and identification.

The JOFEE Fellowship, with its first cohort set to begin May 22, is a response to the need for more JOFEE opportunities both for Jewish communities and for emerging JOFEE professionals. Supported by the Jim Joseph Foundation, in partnership with leading JOFEE organizations, the JCC Association of North America, and JCC host institutions, the year-long Fellowship features extensive immersive training and professional development, mentorship with veteran JOFEE leaders, and professional placement at either a Jewish Community Center (JCC) or a JOFEE organization. Our first cohort includes outstanding educators from across the Jewish spectrum in observance, affiliation, and geography. Several have emerged through the ranks of immersive JOFEE programs such Adamah or Urban Adamah, or from experiences at Teva, Eden Village Camp, or Ramah Outdoor Adventure at Ramah in the Rockies; others have come to the fellowship through extensive experience in general Jewish education and community engagement. All are eager and committed to bringing JOFEE programming to their host communities. The Fellowship kicks off with a three-week orientation and training intensive at Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center. (You can read the full list of JOFEE Fellowship bios and placements here.)

As JOFEE Fellows ready themselves to transition into their field placements, JOFEE professionals and lay leaders will converge at Isabella Freedman for the JOFEE Network Gathering, June 6-9, 2016. A forum to gather, learn, share resources, and collaborate, the Gathering will focus on hands-on pedagogical skills, on integrating JOFEE inside and outside of the classroom, and on strengthening the JOFEE field through content and expertise-sharing. It is a forum to begin even more ongoing and impactful network weaving between seasoned professionals, emerging leaders, and community stakeholders.

In addition to opportunities to meet the full cohort of JOFEE Fellows, supervisors from host placements, and JOFEE Fellow mentors, the Network Gathering will feature the following program highlights:

• Keynote from Rabbi Sid Schwarz, Senior Fellow at Clal, and author of Jewish Megatrends, on the growth of JOFEE as a field, learnings from the JOFEE Report and programming developed since its release, and leveraging the JOFEE network of organizations and programs developed over the last two decades.
• JOFEE professionals from around the country articulating successful local-level models of field-building in communities from Boulder to Toronto.
• Programs and training from top educators in the field who are pushing the boundaries of JOFEE.
• The Consultant Cafe, during which participants can sign up for one-on-one time slots with experts in the field, in the spirit of honoring and learning from veteran leadership while celebrating the emerging class of new JOFEE leaders.
• A visioning session will enable all participants to broadcast their voices on the future course of JOFEE as a profession and body of knowledge and learning.

Registration is still open for the JOFEE Network Gathering! Contact Julie Botnick ([email protected]) JOFEE Program Associate at Hazon, with any questions, and help us launch the next exciting phase in Jewish Outdoor, Food, & Environmental Education.

Yoshi Silverstein is Director of the JOFEE Fellowship at Hazon and holds over thirteen years’ experience in both Jewish and secular outdoor, food, farm-based, and environmental education. Alongside his work at Hazon, he is founder of Mitsui Design, which strengthens Jewish connections to nature through landscape design and community engagement.

Julie Botnick is the JOFEE Program Associate at Hazon, where she manages field-building projects and programs such as the JOFEE Network Gathering, and authors educational curricula like Min Ha’Aretz. She holds a B.A. in History from Yale.

Source: Growing the Field From Seed to Harvest: Jewish Outdoor, Food, & Environmental Education (JOFEE) Matures into its Next Phase

Welcoming teens into Jewish life is both one of the most important and seemingly challenging endeavors of the Jewish community. The rapid decline in teen engagement in Jewish life post-b’nai mitzvah is well-documented and depressing. It’s also an entirely reversible trend, but only if the Jewish community approaches teen engagement in a new way — one that recognizes the whole teen and values her or him as an equal partner in creating experiences that add meaning to her or his life.

In general, Jewish teens (like non-Jewish peers) today are deeply thoughtful, inquisitive and ambitious. Also like their peers, they can be narcissistic and attached to technology. Most of today’s teens are vastly different than a generation ago, and in many ways different than a decade ago. These changes are due in large part to the changing world in which we live, the central role of technology and the nearly endless opportunities for personal customization a click away.

We know this because over the last 2 1/2 years, The Jewish Education Project led major research to learn about Jewish teens from Jewish teens. We heard directly from them about their lives, their views on spirituality, their ambitions, their fears, their feelings toward friends and family, how they form their identities and more. We’ve compiled and analyzed the findings into a new report, Generation Now: Understanding and Engaging Jewish Teens Today.

The report’s insights are a wake-up call to organizations or individuals who want to engage Jewish teens. Our community needs to work with teens to create experiences that address all aspects of their lives.

Just a few insights from Generation Now show the depth of Jewish teens today:

• Jewish teens want programs of substance that add value to some facet of their life. Teens are most likely to find Jewish knowledge meaningful when they see the connections and relevance to the rest of their lives. Programs that blend this value with opportunities to have fun, socialize and be with friends are especially attractive.
• While many teens still see Judaism as a religion, many more relate to being Jewish in language commonly associated with ethnicity, culture, heritage or tribal affiliation.
• Being a minority group in the U.S. is something that many Jewish teens highly value and feel pride in, but they do not view themselves as being special for this reason. In fact, many Jewish teens enjoy involving non-Jewish friends in “Jewish activities.”
• Jewish teens often are both universalists and particularists. Their orientation is fluid and depends on their environment. As an example, “doing good” is an important value, but seldom seen as a Jewish value.
• During major holidays, teens appreciate time to bond with immediate family, visit extended family and enjoy family traditions, particularly around “traditional” foods. Most of today’s teens enjoy spending time with their parents.

The challenge now is to take the report’s insights and have them inform our community’s approach to Jewish teen education and engagement. We must move beyond thinking about teens as passive recipients of Jewish learning experiences. Instead, we must begin designing initiatives and programs with Jewish teens, for Jewish teens.

Many teens are ready to lead now and want to have skin in the game. They are the most effective people to engage their peers. At the recent Summit on Jewish Teens, held during the BBYO International Convention in February, teens welcomed the invitation to take a place on the stage and at the table with philanthropists, lay leaders, professionals and others — to network with these individuals, to learn from one another, and to share and hear about the latest developments in Jewish teen engagement.

Every community is different, with differences within each community itself. A “cookie cutter” approach to programming would inevitably fail. Yet Generation Now offers recommendations for all communities to bear in mind. Effective initiatives will engage teens intellectually, physically and socially; will offer something that teens want to share with friends; will be demonstrably applicable to teens’ lives; will help to develop skills; will help teens feel proud of being Jewish; will help teens be better citizens of the world; and/or will help teens make the world a better place.

Changes in teen engagement will come from existing organizations that can adapt and do things differently, and from the creation of new organizations ready to engage 21st century Jewish teens.

Together with teens, we can make Jewish experiences a meaningful and central part of their lives.

David Bryfman, Ph.D., is the chief innovation officer at The Jewish Education Project, which is a beneficiary agency of UJA Federation of New York. Generation Now was commissioned by the Jim Joseph Foundation, Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation and The Marcus Foundation.

Source: “Engaging Jewish Teens Isn’t Hopeless–If We do it Right,” David Bryfman, The Forward, May 8, 2016 

Golda Och Academy in West Orange is one of six day schools — the only one in New Jersey — chosen to pilot an iCenter for Israel Education program designed to build “personal, enduring” relationships between Jewish students and Israel.

The goal of the 18-24 month iNfuse programis to have the institutions “emerge with robust and well-integrated Israel learning opportunities,” according to the center’s website.

Although GOA already provides its students with extensive Israel education, the iCenter has helped in the creation of standards and benchmarks to ensure “that the school and curriculum have systematic and intentional Israel learning and education that complements the already rich engagement,” said Aliza Goodman, iCenter director of professional development, in an e-mail. “Through this process, they were also able to identify holes in their program — areas where students actually were not learning about, nor engaging with Israel, but could and should be.”

Schools in the iNfuse program are provided with an adviser, on-line support, and information about what other schools in the program are doing, said Rabbi Meirav Kallush, GOA’s director of Israel engagement.

The program is set to begin implementation at GOA in September.

The iCenter’s director of professional development, Aliza Goodman, and senior educator, Adam Stewart; its iNfuse program is being piloted at Golda Och Academy.

Goodman said the initiative is looking to inject the history and culture of Israel into every area of study, from science and literature to clubs and recreational activities. Each participating school will develop an individualized plan reflecting its own mission and vision, to be implemented in stages.

Kallush said that in June five GOA teachers will be sent for training to the iCenter, based in the Chicago suburb of Northbrook.

She said GOA also offers “informal” Israel education through clubs and activities, some run by three rishonim — young Israeli shlihim, or emissaries — spending a year in the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ region before entering military service.

“We are bringing a set of tools to day schools…to engage hearts and minds,” said Adam Stewart, a senior educator at the iCenter, which receives support from the Avi Chai, Jim Joseph, andSchusterman Family foundations.

The iCenter’s programs operate through what it calls its “Aleph Bet of Israel Education.” Its initiatives include iCamp for Israel Education,Birthright Israel Fellows, and the iFellows Master’s Concentration in Israel Education.

The other iNfuse pilot schools are Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School, Chicago; Saul Mirowitz Jewish Day School, St. Louis; Donna Klein Academy, Boca Raton, Fla.; Jacobson Sinai Academy, North Miami Beach; and Hochberg Prep, Miami.

Source: “Program to infuse Israeli culture, history at GOA,” New Jersey Jewish News, Debra Rubin, April 13, 2016

NEW YORK (JTA) — The Foundation for Jewish Camp has received a $10 million grant to help establish a third set of Jewish specialty camps.

The money from the Jim Joseph Foundation will fund Incubator III, which will help establish four Jewish specialty camps. A total of nine such camps — including one focused on business entrepreneurialism, an environmental sustainability-focused camp and two sports ones — were created in previous incubators, with the first round of camps opening in 2010.

The New York-based Foundation for Jewish Camp’s incubator is designed to create camps that integrate Jewish learning with activities that kids are passionate about – such as performing arts, health and wellness, science and technology, and outdoor adventure.

Incubator III will provide funding to the new camps during their planning, startup and first three years of operation, and evaluate the progress of each camp’s development. Each new camp will receive startup investment and operational funding for three years of up to $1.4 million pegged to performance goals.

Campers at Camp Inc. create a brochure for their company Underdog, which pairs troubled teens with rescued or abused dogs. (Courtesy of Camp Inc.)

The camps launched through Incubator I and II have served more than 5,000 unique campers in six years.

“The Specialty Camps Incubators have raised the profile of Jewish camp and has allowed the field to continue to expand, grow, and attract children and teens from all backgrounds,” Jeremy Fingerman, the Foundation for Jewish Camp’s CEO, said in a news release. “We are grateful for the Jim Joseph Foundation’s incredible investment in our field.”

FJC expects the four new camps to serve annually, in aggregate, 1,200 campers and 160 college-aged counselors by the conclusion of the grant period (December 2020, after three summers). The Incubator team will provide training and mentoring to support the cohort as they plan and implement their vision for new models of Jewish specialty camps.

FJC is accepting proposals for the four new specialty camps.

Source: “Third Round of Jewish Specialty Camps to Launch with $10 million gift, JTA, April 14, 2016

The Jewish Emergent Network – a collaboration between seven path-breaking Jewish communities from across the United States – has announced the pilot cohort of rabbinic fellows for its inaugural collective project, the Rabbinic Fellowship.

This Fellowship will place select early career rabbis into each of the seven participating Network communities for a two-year period, in order to train the next generation of enterprising rabbis to take on the challenges and realities of 21st century Jewish life in America in a variety of settings. The seven communities in the Network are all devoted to revitalizing the field of Jewish engagement. While each community is different in form and organizational structure, all have taken an entrepreneurial approach to this shared vision, operating outside of traditional institutional models, and rethinking basic assumptions about US Jewish communities with regard to prayer, membership models, staff structures, the religious/cultural divide, and physical space.

The first cohort of Network fellows includes: Rabbi Nate DeGroot at IKAR in Los Angeles, Rabbi Sydney Henning at Kavana in Seattle, Rabbi Jonathan Bubis at The Kitchen in San Francisco, Rabbi Lauren Henderson at Mishkan in Chicago, Rabbi Suzy Stone at Sixth & I in Washington, DC, Rabbi Kerry Chaplin at Lab/Shul in New York City, and Rabbi Joshua Buchin at Romemu, also in New York City.

The rabbis will be embedded in their new communities beginning in July. Each fellow will take on a variety of independent rabbinic tasks, and will receive weekly supervision and support from leaders within the host organization. Throughout the two-year program, fellows will meet seven times as a fully assembled cohort, traveling to each of the seven Network communities for intensive conferences at which they will learn from Network and non-Network rabbis, teachers and other experts from around the country. The first conference will take place at Romemu in Manhattan this August. The final site visit, planned for June 2018 at IKAR in Los Angeles, will also include a public-facing conference that welcomes clergy, staff, and lay leaders from across the country to engage with the fellows and share best practices of innovation and creativity with regard to Jewish community building. Towards the end of the first cohort, a second cohort of rabbinic fellows will be selected and placed.

The goal of the Fellowship is to create the next generation of entrepreneurial, risk-taking change-makers, whose skills will equally prepare them to initiate independent communities, and be valuable and valued inside of existing Jewish institutions and synagogues. Each fellow will be steeped in the spirit and best practices of the Network organizations and poised to educate, engage, and serve an array of target populations, especially young adults and families with young children.

The seven rabbinic fellows bring diverse backgrounds, interests and experience to the Network. The cohort will be comprised of four women and three men; two graduates of Hebrew Union College, one graduate of The Jewish Theological Seminary, one graduate of the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College, and three graduates of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at American Jewish University.

Seed funding for the first four years of this program has been generously provided through a grant from the Jim Joseph Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Crown Family and the Charles H. Revson Foundation.

Source: “Jewish Emergent Network Announces First Cohort of Rabbinic Fellows,” eJewishPhilanthropy, April 7, 2016

As the newest cohort of Birthright Israel Fellows convenes this week in San Diego, the program continues to evolve as it seeks to raise the overall level and quality of the Birthright Israel trip experience. To help affect this change, Birthright Israel has hired a full-time Director of the Birthright Israel Fellows program to engage with the nearly 400 current fellows, as well as the continually growing cadre of specially-trained Birthright Israel staff that will participate in the program in the coming years. During the four-day seminar in San Diego, run in partnership with the iCenter for Israel Education, the latest cohort will learn from experts in Jewish, Israel, and experiential education. The participants will begin staffing trips this summer

According to Aaron Bock, the new Director of Birthright Israel Fellows, “This program was designed to be a game-changer on a large scale. As the network of fellows grows – and the interactions with Birthright Israel participants and alumni increase – we are beginning to see the deep and long-lasting impact that Birthright Israel Fellows will have. This convening is another critical step for Birthright Israel, bringing together talented, leading educators to work directly with fellows.”

The seminar includes a session on “Creating a Birthright Israel Culture,” along with skill development workshops in areas such as storytelling, building educational experiences, and facilitating meaningful conversations with participants. All sessions are designed to help fellows gain a deeper understanding of the core educational principles and goals of Birthright Israel. In addition, through engagement with the iCenter’s recently releasedAleph Bet of Israel Education – 2^nd Edition – which represents a set of 12 core principles, approaches to content, and essential pedagogies that together constitute the building blocks of the field – fellows view and understand their work within a broader context as part of a larger field of Israel education.

Shoshana Gibbor, Director of Birthright & Israel Engagement at MIT Hillel and a member of the 1st Birthright Israel Fellows Cohort, tells eJP, “The Fellows program prepares us as staff to leverage every opportunity to help participants develop personal connections to the land, the people, and the state of Israel. That’s what makes this program so powerful, and that is how fellows increase the quality of the Birthright Israel experience and the quality of Jewish life once participants are back home.”

Birthright Israel Fellows accepts up to one hundred participants, aged 22 and above, into the program every six months. Along with the in-person seminar, Birthright Israel Fellows incorporates an online learning component and additional resources in experiential Jewish education.

The Birthright Israel Fellows program is generously funded by the Maimonides Fund.

Source: “Birthright Israel Fellows Program Raises Quality of Educational Experience,” eJewishPhilanthropy, March, 28, 2016

(JNS.org) Summer isn’t exactly around the corner, but that hasn’t stopped more than 750 camp professionals, educators, funders, and others from gathering this week in New Jersey for the Foundation for Jewish Camp’s (FJC) 2016 Leaders Assembly Conference, which marks the largest-ever such gathering in the Jewish camp world.

FJC said it structured its biennial conference to focus on three core areas: expansion of the field of Jewish camps; day camps; and “inclusion of every kind of Jewish youth and every kind of Jewish community.” The conference’s breakout sessions, according to FJC, “cover a range of areas from use of new technology; the place of Hebrew language at camp; HR (human resources) management and development; and communicating with parents; among many others.”

“Jewish camp offers one of the most unique, immersive environments to foster a love of Judaism and a sense of belonging to the Jewish people,” Jeremy Fingerman, CEO of the FJC, said in a statement. “Every two years, FJC brings the camp family together to chart our collective path forward and to push everyone to welcome in more families to help build a strong Jewish future. Ultimately, campers, families, and the Jewish community benefit when camp professionals are resourced and trained with the best approaches in outreach and Jewish engagement.”

The FJC also used its conference to launch the “I belong to Jewish Camp” initiative and grant opportunities. “I belong to Jewish Camp” is offering organizations such as day camps, overnight camps, Jewish federations, and others up to $25,000 in seed-funding for a new outreach and/or programmatic initiative that engages one or more of the following constituencies: interfaith/multi-ethnic; diverse perspectives on Israel; the LGBTQ community; people with disabilities; emerging Jewish leaders; teenagers (focused on attracting and retaining more Jewish teens in Jewish summer experiences); and families with young children. The grant opportunities total $100,000.

Chip Edelsberg, executive director of the Jim Joseph Foundation, noted the success of the FJC’s “Specialty Camps Incubator” program, which over the last five years has created nine different camps that blend Jewish values with a specialty such as technology, the arts, sports, and more. The Jim Joseph Foundation is a funder of the FJC.

“For 18 years, FJC has been leading the field and making the immersive camp environment stronger and more accessible for more families,” said Edelsberg. “The Jim Joseph Foundation is fortunate to work closely with FJC on the Specialty Camps Incubator and other initiatives—and we look forward to continued collaboration that benefits Jewish youth.”

REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK: With teen attendance tripling since 2012, the BBYO International Convention is now among the largest events on the Jewish communal calendar.

BALTIMORE (JTA) — My teenage years were pretty Jewy.

Back in high school, I happily attended Jewish day school, spent summers at a Jewish camp, went on a group Israel trip and took part in a few youth group events. So it was a strange feeling I experienced over President’s Day weekend when I found myself looking back and suddenly feeling Jewishly deprived.

Sounds corny. But that was my gut reaction standing among 2,500 spirited teens from around the world at the energized opening ceremonies of this year’s BBYO International Convention.

IC, as it is known in BBYO world, has been around for decades. But in the past few years it has evolved into a high-energy event rivaling any conference or convention on the Jewish calendar.

Teen attendance has nearly tripled since 2012 — this year’s total attendance was about 4,000, including adults. Depending on how you count, that’s bigger than the annual General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America. Yes, AIPAC’s annual policy conference wins on the numbers, drawing more than 15,000 — including more than half of Congress — and it features a first-rate program packed with big-time plenary speakers and dozens of interesting panel discussions. But the AIPAC event’s focus is relatively narrow compared to the annual BBYO gathering (and slightly less fun).

This year’s IC boasted its own mega-program, with a diverse set of headline speakers, including welcome videos from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and in-person talks from the NAACP president, Cornell Brooks; Kind Snacks founder and CEO Daniel Lubetzky; transgender advocate and model Geena Rocero; Nordstrom executive (and BBYO alumnus) Jeffrey Kalinksy; refugee activist Erin Shrode, and Gideon Lichtman, a founding pilot in the Israeli Air Force.

Teens took part in 30 offsite “Leadership Labs” with a wide range of leaders in the realms of advocacy, philanthropy, marketing, social entrepreneurship, political engagement, civic leadership, Israel, Jewish communal affairs, education and environmental protection.

Throughout, there was also live music, including electronic from the dance music group Cash Cash, the alternative rock band The Mowgli’s and hip hop/pop singer-songwriter Jason Derulo.

Participants in the BBYO International Convention in Baltimore, Feb. 18, 2016. (Jason Dixson Photography)

Shabbat included 23 pluralistic teen-led services, a Friday night meal billed by organizers as breaking the Guinness World Record for largest Shabbat dinner ever, and multiple learning sessions (including a talk moderated by this journalist between Matt Nosanchuk, the Obama administration’s Jewish liaison, and Noam Neusner, who served in the same capacity during the administration of President George W. Bush). There was even a New York Times columnist on hand to sum it all up.

“What you see here is like a Woodstock of Jewish identity,” David Brooks of the Times told a group of philanthropists who had gathered for their summit on the eve of IC to discuss the need for more funding for teen programs. “You see all these people coming together and their identity as Jews is inflamed by the presence of each other.”

Just as Woodstock was a cultural moment that reverberated for decades, it is not hard to imagine a few more epic ICs could create and inspire a cohort of thousands of Jewish activists-for-life capable of maintaining and reinvigorating Jewish communities and institutions for years to come. For some philanthropists, that alone might justify the $1.1 million funders are putting up to keep the cost to each teen under $1,000.

But for BBYO’s CEO, Matt Grossman, the supersized IC is about the here and now. The growing numbers at IC are partially the product of recent BBYO membership growth (17 percent over past five years), Grossman said during an interview. More importantly, he added, the convention is an important tool for inspiring teens to connect their friends to BBYO.

READ: Op-Ed: How to build a holy Tabernacle for teens today

“Nothing is more powerful than an older teen putting their arm around a younger teen and inviting them into the movement,” Grossman said. “Teen leadership and, specifically, peer-to-peer recruitment is key to our growth.”

And they’re going to need a ton of it.

According to an analysis of the 2013 Pew survey of American Jews done by Rosov Consulting, there are about 446,000 Jewish teens with some claim to being Jewish. Filter out 19-year-olds, the Orthodox and those most disconnected from Jewish life, and you’re looking at a target audience of about 210,000. According to Grossman, BBYO is undergoing a capacity-building study to determine “the resources and strategies needed to capture even greater market share.”

Currently the organization has about 19,000 paid members, and about 32,000 take part in a BBYO event each year. The organization’s database of reachable teens is about 80,000.

Tripling the number of paid members would get about a quarter of the 210,000 target audience. If we’re simply talking participation in an event, BBYO would still need to more than double its current number of annual touches to reach all those teens.

BBYO’s annual budget is about $28 million — a 33 percent increase over the past five years. The organization boasts an impressive group of lead funders — including the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, the Jim Joseph Foundation, the David and Inez Myers Foundation, and the Marcus Foundation — though it says its fastest growing source of revenue is smaller gifts from parents and alumni ($2.35 million in 2015).

The organization employs 100 paid full-time and 30 part-time staff. About 30 staffers in total are based at the national headquarters in Washington, D.C., with the remaining employees working with teens in the field.

“BBYO is enabling tens of thousands of Jewish teens to create and participate in fun, joyous and meaningful experiences that allow them to develop as leaders, serve others and connect with Israel and to a larger purpose, all within a Jewish wrapping,” said Stacy Schusterman, co-chair of the Schusterman Foundation. “I have seen firsthand, both as a parent and a funder, the enduring power and importance of this work, as did all of those who participated in BBYO IC and the Teen Summit. I hope more people will invest in the currently underfunded Jewish teen space.”

The stakes are about more than BBYO — most of those 210,000 teens aren’t involved in any Jewish activities.

Grossman isn’t prepared yet to say how much it would cost to hit sky-high numbers. But he believes one thing BBYO already has is a successful formula for engaging the bulk of today’s Jewish teens.

It starts with a bedrock first principle of being a teen-led movement rather than advancing a particular ideology — a huge advantage at a time when Jews of all ages are steering clear of institutions and synagogue movements and formulating their own definitions of Jewish identity.

The IC program, say BBYO’s staffers and several members of the youth group, was the product of planning by the teens themselves and hence a reflection of their eclectic interests and passions. Judging from the speaker lineup and the crowd response, the average BBYOer is unapologetically excited about being Jewish, connecting with other Jews and supportive of Israel — and equally dedicated to working together to advance more universal causes, from minority and LGBQT rights to the plight of international refugees.

Which creates the seemingly incongruous sight (at least in today’s political climate) of a raucous convention hall crowd cheering a founding Israeli Air Force pilot’s talk of shooting down Arab fighter planes and less than an hour later applauding just as strongly for the NAACP leader’s calls for Jewish teens to take advantage of their privilege to join with African-American activists in today’s battles for racial justice.

While a willingness to let today’s teens point the way forward is critical to BBYO’s success, so is the organization’s simultaneous ability to foster enthusiasm for its 90-year history and leverage an alumni base of 400,000.

The result is a potent combination of historical gravitas and a wide-open future.

How high a future is the question.

Today, the Ruderman Family Foundation is well-known in the Greater Boston Area’s Jewish community, Israel, the world-wide Jewish community, and beyond as a prominent advocate for the full inclusion of people with disabilities. However, only twelve years ago, when we first became involved in philanthropy, I, along with the majority of my community, had no awareness of the challenges that people with disabilities faced. It wasn’t until we ventured into the field of special education through a grant to Boston’s Federation CJP (Combined Jewish Philanthropies), called the Day School Initiative, which created Gateways: Access to Jewish Education, that I began learning about the extent of exclusion in the Jewish community here.

Before Gateways existed, there was very little, if any, conversation about special needs inclusion in Jewish day schools. When we became visible in the field of inclusion, I would often hear from devastated parents who were being told, without any explanation, that their child didn’t belong in the day school they were attending. These parents struggled in small numbers trying to make a change in an educational landscape that simply didn’t know how to service their children. Many day schools would let students with disabilities enroll, only to later let the child and the family down.

As a consequence, many of these families then turned to South Area Solomon Schecter Day School, which was the only school back then that knew how to include kids with special needs and support their families. While the families were certainly glad to have a place where their child’s needs would be met, they did not leave the original day school of choice without feelings of exclusion. Typical learners were included there, but their child was not.

As Gateways entered many of the day schools, the conversation changed. Heads of schools, administrators, and teachers began to learn the importance of supporting students who had various learning disabilities. Many day schools expanded their Gateways services and often brought in their own professionals to make sure all of the students who needed support received it. Also, The Jim Joseph Foundation along with us at the Ruderman Family Foundation, brought B’yadanu into many of the schools to make a school-wide, inclusive change. Today, the stories I hear from parents sound very different from the devastating tone of exclusion. I am often told, if it wasn’t for Gateways services, my child would not have succeeded in his or her school, and “thank you for what you have done to help support my child.”

Even though I’ve seen this progress, we at the Ruderman Family Foundation don’t believe the struggle is over. Our newest project is a scholarship fund in memory of my Dad called the Morton E. Ruderman Inclusion Scholarship. This is a scholarship fund to help support day school students who need special needs services and attract new families who have children with learning disabilities to attend Jewish day schools.

We were happy to be making a difference in the day schools, however, we noticed that another major community institution was also not inclusive: our synagogues. We ventured into the synagogue inclusion arena a few years ago. The backdrop was different, but the stories of exclusion were essentially the same. I kept hearing from many people over the years who did not feel welcome at their synagogue of choice because their synagogue did not know how to include their family member with a disability. When these families felt turned away, they left their synagogue and often the Jewish community altogether.

We wanted to do something about this unfairness and in partnership with the CJP, we created the Ruderman Synagogue Inclusion project. Through this initiative, we have partnered with 3 remarkable synagogues; Shaarei Tefillah, Beth Elohim and Temple Emunah who have incredible programs of including people with different abilities. These institutions are now fully accessible and are all about inclusion. I noticed that when a synagogue becomes more welcoming and inclusive to people with disabilities, people who did not bring their family members to synagogue before are now bringing them and there is an overt sense of warmth and inclusion for everyone. This project has been so successful that we will soon be adding additional synagogues the Ruderman Synagogue Inclusion project. I look forward to hearing that all synagogues in the Greater Boston community want to be part of this important movement.

We have made remarkable strides in both day schools and synagogues over the years, but the program I find personally most rewarding is the Transitions to Work partnership with the Ruderman Family Foundation, CJP and JVS (Jewish Vocational Services). Learning over the years that only 19% of young adults with disabilities are employed convinced us that vocational training is an area to focus on. I have met with many parents of young adults with disabilities who have been desperate to find their child meaningful employment for many years. Just visit one of the many Transitions to Work training sites and you will see a program run by professionals who understand how to work with the participants to help make them excellent, hardworking employees. Speak to one of the many employers who hired Transitions to Work graduates and you will find a high level of satisfaction and a high retention rate.

My favorite part of this program is attending the Transitions to Work graduations with the many parents and family members who are extremely grateful for the program and staff. After years of struggling to help their child find meaningful employment, they are often in tears when they finally realize that their child has found this success in the Transitions to Work program.

Throughout the past 12 years, I have personally witnessed the success of people with disabilities in day school education, synagogue life and employment because of the many programs the Ruderman Family Foundation has funded in the greater Boston community and beyond. It is the most rewarding feeling to hear from families that without Gateways, their child would never be able to be successful in his or her day school. Or see the joy of children and adults who feel welcome and included in their synagogue because of the Ruderman Synagogue Inclusion Project at CJP. Each time I attend a Transitions to Work graduation I have had the opportunity to meet parents and family members of graduates who are so thankful their child has finally found a vocational program that understands their needs and helps them find jobs where they are supported and accommodated.

We are a foundation that works closely with our partners to help design fully inclusive programs. It is extremely rewarding to be active in our projects so we can fully appreciate the success our programs are having to empower people with disabilities and their families. My hope is that in the next 12 years our programs will put themselves out of business because organizations will make it part of their mission to be inclusive, and I hope that the greater philanthropic community will understand the value of including the twenty percent of our population who have disabilities in all of our community programming.

Source: “The Last 12 Years,” Sharon Shapiro, eJewishPhilanthropy, February 16, 2016