News & Blogs Category: Partners in the News

Not long ago, Caroline Kessler noticed a simple but telling post on an East Bay Jewish community listserv.

“Hey, what’s happening for High Holiday services in the East Bay this year?” the post read.

If one person was asking this question, Kessler thought to herself, then many other people probably were, too.

Kessler, the newly appointed community director of GatherBay, a nonprofit that aims to connect post-college young adults to their Jewish roots, compiled a Google Doc with all of the East Bay High Holiday services she could find and forwarded it to the 400 people on the listserv, along with others she’s connected with personally.

Since then, Kessler has gotten feedback from people thanking her for the guide, asking where she’s going to services and even looking for a carpool.

“It’s less about creating a community and more about facilitating a community that’s already here,” Kessler said.

Rachel Gildiner, CEO of Gather Inc. based in Washington, D.C., said the nonprofit aims to help those who are “slipping through the cracks” by putting them in touch with existing Jewish organizations or helping them find alternative ways to express their Judaism.

She said the 8-year-old program GatherDC has seen great success with the idea of “relational engagement,” or meeting younger people where they are, listening to their needs and connecting them to the Jewish life they are looking for.

Gildiner’s faith in the power of relationships is how she ended up expanding her organization to the Bay Area after a conference where she clicked with a Jewish Bay Area professional. Soon Gather Inc. was being invited by the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund to lead a training in relational engagement.

“It was organic. We had expertise, and they had a vision. And we saw this model work,” Gildiner said. “So when looking to pick our next pilot city, it felt really natural that the Bay Area and specifically the East Bay had all the pieces we were looking for.”

The expansion is funded by the Rodan Family Foundation, a philanthropy focused on enriching Jewish community life in the East Bay, with additional support from the Federation. Contributions from the Jim Joseph Foundation and Schusterman Family Philanthropies through the Jewish Community Response and Impact Fund (JCRIF) will help support Gather Inc. on a national level.

Gather also receives support from the Morningstar Foundation and the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington.

Kessler has embraced her new role at GatherBay and says she loves having coffee and tea with young adults to hear their experiences with Jewish life. She believes many of their stories will be unique to the geography and culture of the Bay, and that her initial work will move slowly as she takes the time to get to know people.

Ari Eisenstadt recalls getting coffee with Kessler and discussing his Jewish journey.

“It’s a conversation I don’t get to have very often,” the Berkeley resident said. “That sort of conversation sort of bubbles up at the scene, and it’s sweet to explore those kinds of topics with Caroline in a collaborative way.”

In the short few weeks that Gather has been in the Bay Area, it has already formed relationships with a number of Jewish organizations with similar missions, including OneTable, Moishe House and the East Bay JCC. But for Kessler, it’s not about prioritizing one organization over another.

“The intention is to be in connection and in relationship with all of these folks,” she said, “so that we can connect the right Jewish young adults to the right offering for them.”

“D.C.-based org ready to ‘Gather’ young Jews in Bay Area,” Jordan Green, J – The Jewish News of Northern California, September 27, 2022

Support from Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw’s Hearthland Foundation will expand the group’s programming with multi-faith leaders and the entertainment industry

As the associate vice president for campus affairs at the Jewish United Fund of Chicago and executive director of the Hillels of Illinois, Emily Briskman oversees nearly 60 Hillel professionals, many of whom spend significant time dealing with on-campus expressions of antisemitism and anti-Zionism. Through her work with Hillels, Briskman has participated in programs run by Resetting the Table, an organization dedicated to building dialogue and deliberation across political divides.

First created with seed funding from UJA-Federation of New York in 2013, and becoming an independent organization the following year, Resetting the Table is in a phase of growth and expansion. Recently, Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw’s Hearthland Foundation began funding Resetting the Table programs happening outside of Jewish spaces, reaching multi-faith clergy and other leaders working to combat toxic polarization.

Resetting the Table has worked with 35 federations plus The Jewish Federations of North America and Jewish Council for Public Affairs, and trained 58 federation CEOs. The nonprofit, which has fiscal sponsorship through JCPA, has significant funding from The Charles & Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, the Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Foundation, Project Accelerate, Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah, Civic Health Project and The Jim Joseph Foundation, among others.

At JUF — which is just completing its third year of partnership with the organization — various staff teams participated in five consecutive Resetting the Table cohorts from December 2021 to May 2022. The team assembled cohorts including professionals and lay people, varying denominations, demographics and political perspectives, to engage a cross-section of the community in dialogue. Sessions emphasized skills and tools that will help participants engage in productive and collaborative conversations.

“We didn’t want a uniform or a monolithic group of people talking to each other who all agreed,” Briskman told eJewishPhilanthropy. “We really wanted to get that idea of what’s going on across the community. That intergenerational piece for us was so important,” she said. “Generational differences, especially on Israel, can be deeply polarizing,” she added.

After distributing two smaller grants in 2018, The Jim Joseph Foundation provided a three-year grant in June to provide general operating support for Resetting the Table’s work. Specifically focused on Jewish educators and leaders, the funding will support grantees’ efforts to engage young people in content about Jewish identity or Israel, the foundation’s chief operating officer, Dawne Bear Novicoff, told eJP.

“In today’s day and age, young people are looking for places to be honest, to be open, to have nuanced conversations,” Bear Novicoff said. “They don’t want to shy away from difficult conversations; therefore this is providing an opportunity for the grantees and the educators to help hold those conversations.”

Facing the fear

Resetting the Table’s first federation partnership, with the UJA-Federation of New York, had formed to identify what was driving young adult disengagement from Israel; the process revealed that what looked like apathy toward Israel was actually fear and anxiety, the organization’s co-founding executive director, Rabbi Melissa Weintraub, told eJP.

“So much of what young adults were calling for was a more productive conversation across difference,” Weintraub said. “Young adult disengagement also was in part driven by other dynamics in the community that we have to change — communal institutions and what the climate is like around Israel.” She added, “I think a lot of the impasse is around our own ideological silos within the Jewish people. I’m a big believer that we need a kind of collective insight to solve problems that we don’t have when we all live in echo chambers.”

“There’s real fear that exists in our community about talking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Israel in general, for fear of saying the wrong thing, having the wrong opinion, being ostracized, for whatever opinion it is that you do have,” Briskman said. “Breaking that fear cycle is so important. Israel is something that we should be able to talk about,” Weintraub said, adding that many are afraid they don’t know enough about the region or are going to say the wrong thing, leading to disengagement. But Resetting the Table’s training “really breaks that cycle,” she said.

“I am among those who more frequently avoid conflict than actively engage in charged conversation,” Lisa Rosenkranz, a JUF board member who participated in the Chicago training, told program organizers. “I also live in my own bubble – the majority of people with whom I interact share my perspective. I believe the skills being built in this program extend far beyond just differing opinions about Israel – we are building the ability to have constructive conversations across many charged topics. Reflecting back and making sure you truly understand an opposing point of view is so essential for these conversations,” she said.

Weintraub describes RTT’s work as “shifting rigidity into receptivity,” adding that sessions are designed to “help shift the common tendencies of polarized conflict…so that people can take in ideas and information and people that they otherwise might have dismissed, written off out of hand.”

Federation facilitations

Resetting the Table received an aggregate of $3 million from federations for various training programs designed for their target audiences and constituencies. Baltimore brought together high-level donors and philanthropists; Seattle focused on lay leaders and board members. In addition to its partnership with JUF, the organization is in its fourth year of partnership with federations in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Weintraub compared the federation experiences to chaplaincy training: All clergy members need some pastoral counseling experience, but some train for years, or at different intensities, to achieve deeper expertise. The organization’s four-to-six session boot camp facilitation training that teaches foundational skills for difficult conversations and troubleshooting techniques for challenging group dynamics, might be particularly useful for Israel trip providers, young adults, campus professionals, clergy and others who might confront political or moral differences around Israel. There are also intensive, rigorous facilitation trainings (13 sessions over seven months); some students may train more intensively to become coaches or trainers.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles brought in Resetting the Table after hearing about its work addressing polarization in New York’s Jewish community, Alisa Finsten, the federation’s chief of staff, told eJP. With funding from a Jewish Community Foundation Cutting Edge grant — $350,000 over three years — to replicate the model, the federation created a bench of trained facilitators who could preside over challenging conversations within L.A. Jewish community organizations, and work directly with those organizations to put on dialogue programs.

“We really felt that the federation was the best organization poised to do this work, because of our role at the 30,000-foot level in the L.A. Jewish community,” Finsten said, noting federation’s partnerships with synagogues, schools, camps and Hillels in the politically diverse and geographically spread-out community. While the three-year grant period is over, Finsten added, the federation remains committed to the work, allocating funding for a staff person to serve as an in-house “force multiplier”: advising on local challenging conversations and bringing the Resetting the Table model of dialogue to its leadership programs. For example, the federation’s Community Leadership Institute cohort will participate in a Resetting the Table program before their September trip to Israel.

Beyond Israel

Resetting the Table discussions go beyond conversation for conversation’s sake, organizers say; they also glean insights and heal or strengthen relationships across divides, while facilitators, the organization’s founder added, “help people be able to investigate their differences and confront them courageously in ways they [can] stay connected and receptive.” And while Resetting the Table was created to focus on the Jewish world, after the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the organization went national, bringing programs to the general population beyond Jewish issues, in a country that’s increasingly polarized.

Hearthland’s support, for example, is part of the foundation’s work “to help build a more just, equitable, and connected America,” Shayna Rose Triebwasser, the foundation’s senior program officer, told eJP.

“Part of how we do that is by investing in projects and programs that bring people together across all kinds of divides to build relationships and solidarity,” Triebwasser said. “We believe that when we come together, we not only affirm our shared humanity and have the opportunity to understand our collective challenges more fully, but we can also begin to design solutions that work for more people and build the power we need to make real change.

“We’ve seen a polarization take over our country, our globe,” Briskman said. “This project is really reacting to that because…any fracture in our community is really an existential threat. It doesn’t mean that we don’t disagree with each other, it doesn’t mean that we don’t have differences of opinion. I have a colleague who likes to say that in the Jewish community, we never expect uniformity. But we do strive for unity, which I think is a really good line, especially for Resetting the Table: we want to be able to talk to each other.”

“Resetting the Table Aims to Shift ‘Rigidity into Receptivity,’” Esther D. Kustanowitz, eJewish Philanthropy, August 11, 2022

The approach involves creating workshops that encourage collaborative discussions when arguments regarding Israel’s complexities arise. 

Innovative Jewish educators Abi Dauber Sterne and Robbie Gringas have taken on a new approach to learning about Israel: Argument circles.

Now, with the help of a  $1.1 million grant from the Jim Joseph Foundation, For the Sake of Argument (FSA)’s pilot program will give Dauber Sterne and Gringas the opportunity to achieve successful execution of the program among Jewish community groups across the world.

The approach involves creating workshops that encourage collaborative discussions when arguments regarding Israel’s complexities arise.

“We embrace arguments as a powerful tool for getting to know ourselves, each other, and the issues we’re discussing more deeply,” reads their mission statement.

The Jim Joseph Foundation — a private organization that supports Jewish education among youth and young adult groups — aims to “help all Jews, their families, and their friends lead connected, meaningful, purpose-filled lives and to make positive contributions to their communities,” according to its mission statement.

“Abi Dauber Sterne and Robbie Gringras have a timely, important vision to create a new multidimensional learning model for Israel education,” commented Steven Green, Senior Director at the Jim Joseph Foundation.

“This trust-based approach is about engaging young learners in authentic, deeply meaningful conversations around Israel based on disagreements that acknowledge a diversity of perspectives. The Foundation is pleased to support their efforts.”

Dauber Sterne, a religious Jewish American-Israeli, is the current director of Makom: Israel Education Lab of the Jewish Agency for Israel. She previously served as vice-president of Jewish Education at Hillel International for seven years and is the founder of Limmud NY — an organization that creates spaces to build and strengthen Jewish communities.

Dauber has reflected on her and Gringas’ roles as innovative Jewish teachers. “As educators, our instincts are to create environments in which we agree,” she said. “Ironically, disagreement and argument hold within them exactly the energy and passion that we, as a community of educators, should seek to engender.”

Gringas, a secular British-Israeli, is a theater performer, inspirational speaker, and teacher. He was the director of a theater company in London’s vibrant West End district and has since taken on a variety of educational roles, such as creative director of Makom, while continuing to pursue writing and theater.

“Today’s society shines away from disagreement, but Jewish tradition strongly encourages it as a way of reaching understanding, if not consensus,” he stated.

FSA was initially formulated at the Jewish Agency’s Makom: The Israel Education Lab with support from the Jim Joseph Foundation. The publication of Stories for the Sake of Argument, a collection of short stories written by Dauber Sterne and Gringas, was the first stage of the project.

The stories, which “emerged from a realization that the field of Israel education has changed” according to FSA’s website, touch on complex issues regarding Israel and the modern Jewish world. The book also includes tools and questions to incentivize healthy group discussions while reducing fears surrounding difficult conversations on Israel.

Where is the money going?

The two-year grant will further support Dauber Sterne and Gringas in their research on how to use arguments to build valuable connections to Israel and strengthen the acceptance of diverse opinions among Jewish communities.

“Arguments today are too often perceived as destructive and aggressive. We often avoid discussing the issues that are most important to us, for fear of causing discomfort,” said Gringras. “But growth cannot take place without disagreement.”

Dauber Sterne, who has dedicated her career to adding value to people’s Jewish lives, recognized the value that the grant will have in continuing her and Gringas’ innovative project. “We are so grateful that the Jim Joseph Foundation will be supporting this project in this research and pilot phase as they too seek to address the challenges facing our field.”

published in the Jerusalem Post

An organization that promotes dialogue and understanding among people with different political and religious perspectives is expanding its partnership with Hillels to address tensions among Jewish students about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Idit Klein has been at the helm of Keshet, the Jewish LGBTQ+ organization, since 2001. Over the course of her tenure, she has been able to carve out time for two sabbaticals — July-September 2013 and July-August 2021 — and each time returned to what she described as a “more resilient and sustainable” organization.

“My colleagues had the opportunity to step up in new ways in my absence, stretch in new directions and explore new capacities,” she said. “I believe sabbaticals are vital, not only to give the CEO the opportunity to rest, re-energize, and renew but to strengthen the leadership of others in the organization.”

The reenergizing potential of sabbaticals, especially at a time of rising concern over pandemic burnout, is the guiding motivation of R&R: The Rest of Our Lives, a new organization offering three-month paid sabbatical grants to a handful of CEOs and directors of Jewish nonprofits.

“We’re talking about a group of humans who are service-oriented, purpose-driven [and] are very good at serving others,” R&R Founder Josh Feldman said. “They have often — to their own detriment — worked beyond their own capacity for years, or even decades. So this is somebody who, in their own self-evaluation, is able to say, ‘This is the right timing for me.’”

Feldman said R&R is the first organization to provide sabbatical grants to the Jewish communal sector on a national scale, and expects to offer five organizations a total of $60,000 each — $50,000 for the awardees to rest, travel, reflect or renew for a minimum of three consecutive months while maintaining their current salary and benefits; and $10,000 to support interim leaders and staff in the CEO’s absence.

The sabbatical grants will be awarded by September, with recipients required to take the sabbatical within the following calendar year. The recipients will also come together in a national cohort, which Feldman hopes will provide them with added value.

“We’ve seen over the last two years, people are deeply connected to each other’s lives across time zones and geography. And even though perhaps Zoom fatigue is on the top of some people’s list for the reasons they need rest, there’s also a real sophistication now to how we can be in community across distance.”

Before founding R&R, Feldman was the founding director of Hillel’s Springboard Fellowship, a two-year paid program for emerging leaders. After learning about the Los Angeles-based Durfee Foundation, which grants paid sabbaticals to local nonprofit CEOs, he wondered if such a model might work for Jewish nonprofits. He developed the idea and applied for 2020’s Jewish Community Response and Impact Fund (JCRIF) grants, funding from a coalition of major Jewish groups that allied to respond to a range of needs during the pandemic. While JCRIF didn’t select the project for a grant, the proposal caught the attention of an anonymous donor who offered seed funding if Feldman would lead the initiative.

R&R currently has two staff members — Feldman and experienced nonprofit professional Rachel Zieleniec, who most recently worked for the Honeymoon Israel Foundation as program director. The group’s budget for the current fiscal year is $400,000, a figure that will rise to $650,000 in the coming year, when the grants will be awarded. The project is fiscally sponsored by the Social Good Fund, a California nonprofit, and funded by individual donors, the Jim Joseph Foundation and RiseUp, a social justice initiative funded by the Nathan Cummings Foundation.

“Burnout happens when perceived obligations outweigh perceived resources,” Betsy Stone, a retired psychologist who is an adjunct lecturer at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, and has written previously about burnout at Jewish nonprofits, told eJP. “It actually doesn’t matter if I have the resources, it only matters if I believe I have the resources. And if I believe I don’t have the resources, what tends to happen to us is that other people try to convince us that we do, which generally doesn’t work. Over the course of this pandemic what has really happened has been a huge explosion in responsibilities without an explosion in resources.”

Feldman said the post-pandemic moment has people thinking differently about the future of work and the workplace. Beyond sabbaticals, organizations may offer their staff continued flexibility around work hours and location to make sure that employees are psychologically safe and healthier, he told eJP.

“The audacious goal here, what R&R is after, is what if after a week, month or year of our work, we felt healthier partly because of the organizations we worked in?” he said. “There is a new zeitgeist around rest and rejuvenation. We hope that many communities start to support their grantees and grant recipients with rest-based solutions. There needs to be an entire ecosystem supporting the rest and rejuvenation of workers. And there will be a need that far surpasses their resources unless it’s made a major priority.”

Applications for R&R sabbatical grants are now open to CEOs or people in an equivalent leadership position who have been in their current role at least three years, have at least seven years of professional leadership experience in the nonprofit sector and report directly to the board of a 501(c)(3) nonprofit or fiscally-sponsored project. In addition, applicants’ organizations must have at least five full-time staff members, to ensure that the organization can continue operating in the CEO’s absence. Applicants for sabbatical grants must also demonstrate financial need to underwrite the candidate’s leave, meaning larger organizations with large budgets may be less likely to be selected.

“There may be an organization [that] doesn’t have the financial resources themselves for this program to work,” Feldman said. “Does their executive and their entire staff deserve rest? Yes. But that doesn’t mean this model will be right for every organization.”

R&R is “operating through an equity lens,” Feldman said. Toward that end, R&R is encouraging CEOs who are Black, indigenous and people of color; LGBTQ+ individuals; people with disabilities, and women and other leaders with underrepresented identities to apply for sabbaticals.

Keshet’s Klein praised R&R’s mission, adding that all Jewish nonprofit employees should have the opportunity to take a sabbatical.

“It is extraordinary to see this investment in CEO sabbaticals, and I’d love to see organizations invest in sabbaticals for all staff, no matter their position,” Klein said. “Rest is essential for everyone, and the whole organization benefits when staff can renew their energies.”

“I want the CEO of [a federation] to feel like she’s being treated well, but I want everyone else in that organization to feel that way, [for it to] be structured in a way that strengthens everyone,” Stone agreed. “After the CEO gets time off, do they figure out how to give other people time off?”

Feldman called the CEO grants “just a start,” and “part of a broader focus we need on rest, recovery and rejuvenation for nonprofit workers. But we have to start somewhere, and we have to start now because the need is so great.” R&R plans to partner with philanthropists and foundations in the coming months and years to scale initiatives to meet the needs of more Jewish nonprofit professionals.

“Do we want to offer additional sabbaticals and other rest-based rejuvenation programs?” he said. “Absolutely, and long-term [we] will look to do so, with entry-level through senior leaders.”

Feldman hopes R&R’s efforts will prompt nonprofit leaders to make rest-based practices and policy, such as sabbaticals, the norm for their organizations. As an example, Feldman named the progressive group social change group Bend the Arc, which offers sabbaticals to all staff for every seven years of employment.

R&R identifies sabbaticals as “our leading intervention,” but says others are to come, like a deck of rest-themed cards, meant to prompt individuals, teams and organizations to think about rest — or as Feldman says, “micro moments of rest and rejuvenation” — every day. For example, he recommends making meetings 50 minutes instead of an hour; being clear around the hours when people must be in communication with each other; and making sure that professionals are focused on strategies that help them achieve their mission.

Feldman literally walks the walk of his organization’s raison d’etre; he goes on walks daily and hikes in the mountains of western Massachusetts, and one of R&R’s consulting “interventions” is something called a “walkshop”—a guided walk that can be done outside or inside, with an R&R facilitator issuing prompts while participants walk in silence, giving them the opportunity to move, occupy the space around them and think creatively.

“We believe our primary role is to help soften the ground so that organizations and cultures begin to have a different orientation towards rest,” he said. “Ultimately, we can help move the entire society, because we know that the existential threats we face are bigger than ever, and how we’re going to solve those is not just going to be through new methodologies and new ways of working, it’s going to be in the way we take care of people so that our best, brightest and hardest-working folks in the nonprofit sector can have the energy and resolve to work on all of this.”

Source: eJewish Philanthropy 

The $1.8 million, four-year grant from the Jim Joseph Foundation to CASJE, also seeks to broaden what counts as Jewish education and who it serves.

What does the phrase “Jewish education” bring to mind?

Perhaps it conjures an image of a Jewish day school, a Hebrew school or a synagogue program. And odds are the people sitting in it are children. Starting next year, a new research fellowship will aim to change that image — or at least add texture to it, eJewishPhilanthropy has learned. The two-year fellowship for six people with doctorates in education or related fields will be run by the Collaborative for Applied Studies in Jewish Education (CASJE) and funded by a grant from the Jim Joseph Foundation.

CASJE, which is housed at The George Washington University, aims to elevate the field of Jewish education through academic research. The $1.8 million, four-year grant from Jim Joseph, however, also seeks to broaden what counts as “Jewish education” and who it serves. The project hopes to “reflect the diversity of the Jewish communities in the United States,” according to a statement. It aims to accomplish that both by studying a wide range of topics and by recruiting fellows from across the academic world, not just from the doctoral programs in Jewish education that exist at schools such as Stanford University, New York University and Jewish denominational seminaries.

“We know that who does the research matters, and different researchers have different perspectives and lived experiences,” Stacie Cherner, director of learning and evaluation at Jim Joseph, told eJP. “I think that we want to make sure that research is representative of the diverse perspectives of the Jewish community and all that entails.”

By ‘diversity,” the program is referring not just to a range of backgrounds and identities — such as Jews of color, LGBTQ Jews or Jews with disabilities. It also seeks to widen the range of educational programs studied. There hasn’t been a lot of research into Jewish education in youth groups, or educational initiatives targeting Jewish grandparents, said Ben Jacobs, a professor of experiential Jewish education at GWU and co-chair of CASJE’s advisory board.

“We definitely want the fellows to seek out things that people aren’t talking about, because that opens up new possibilities,” Jacobs told eJP. “We’re trying to get more research in some of those less-researched areas that nonetheless are powerful educational venues.”

The fellows will be divided into two cohorts that will begin in subsequent years, with the first trio beginning in fall 2023. Because the fellowship is for applied studies, it will emphasize what Jacobs called “things that have immediate ramifications for the way things are done on the ground.” Each of the fellows will be paired with a faculty mentor and will focus their research on one specific Jewish educational institution while looking to glean insights that apply to a broader swath of the Jewish educational world. “When you’re doing a doctorate, it’s all about specialization,” Jacobs said. “You’re becoming an expert in your area. A program such as this provides an opportunity to expand your horizons in different ways.”

Cherner added that she hopes at least some of the fellows continue working in Jewish educational institutions, rather than just studying them, after the fellowship ends.

The fellowship aims “to encourage people who have the knowledge and the skills that come with a doctorate in education to think about the Jewish communal field as a place to work. Another goal is for Jewish communal organizations to think about creating roles for people with this knowledge base and mindset,” Cherner said. “I think if these students think outside of academia as a place to work in the future, that would be great.”

Source: eJewish Philanthropy

This piece on the crisis regarding the shortage of Jewish educators is authored by members of ADCA, the Association of Directors of Communal Agencies for Jewish Education from around the country: Rabbi Scott Aaron, PhD; Tzipi Altman-Shafer; Peter Eckstein; Dr. Gil Graff; Rabbi Mordechai Harris; Marlyn Bloch Jaffe; Lawrence M. Katz; Amian Frost Kelemer; Lisa Klein; Dr. Julie Lieber; Elana Rivel; Rabbi Arnold D. Samlan; Dana Sheanin; Susan H. Wachsstock; and Rabbi Efrat Zarren-Zohar

The crisis that we knew was coming is here. Jewish day schools, early childhood centers and part-time congregational schools across the country face a shortage of educators to fill multiple openings for lead teachers, assistants and substitutes. This is no longer simply a “challenge.” Rather, it is a crisis because of continuing trends in the overall job market, exacerbated by the pandemic.

In day schools, the teacher shortage is felt deeply in the challenge of finding Jewish studies and Hebrew language teachers. In early childhood programs, where Jewish engagement and connection for families are established, the shortage of teachers is compounded by the low wages typically paid to those in this field. Congregational schools face the same challenges as day schools in finding Jewish studies and Hebrew language teachers, and schools often are left with enthusiastic but untrained members of the community as teachers.

What can we do to find solutions to this crisis? How might we as a Jewish community work together to ensure that there will be well-trained and inspiring teachers to teach our children and grandchildren?

A recently released research report from CASJE on Jewish educators shows that fewer new teachers are entering education and more current teachers are leaving. Covid has worsened the teacher exit; some teachers did not feel safe teaching in person and left or opted for early retirement.  Burnout is also a contributing factor to teachers leaving the field. Feelings of being overworked and underpaid have only increased during the pandemic.

National data shows teachers make about 20 percent less than other professionals with similar education and experience. That percentage gap is even higher in Jewish educational settings, especially early childhood.

Recruitment and retention of educators demands both professional development and material support. Jewish federations and communal agencies for Jewish education have undertaken a variety of initiatives to address local needs. National programs, such as the Mandel Teacher Educator Institute (MTEI) and Jewish New Teacher Project (JNTP), have supported and encouraged educators’ professional growth. Despite these positive efforts, the CASJE study points to the reality that more is required.

ADCA, the Association of Directors of Communal Agencies for Jewish Education, representing cities throughout the continent, shares local efforts through ongoing communication and collaboration and has organized collective opportunities for the professional growth of educators. Its members have worked with national foundations and institutions to address aspects of the growing teacher shortage in Jewish education. Yet, more is needed.

We welcome publication of the CASJE study as the start of a national conversation that brings funders and educational leaders together to propose and develop new and strengthened approaches to addressing the recruitment and retention crisis in multiple sectors of Jewish education. Well-conceived initiatives, collaboratively developed and implemented in national and local partnership can surely make a difference. Such initiatives – as inattention to the presenting crisis – will have an impact for generations.

originally published in eJewish Philanthropy

By Susan Wachsstock

While we have always known the power of technology, it took a pandemic for many of us to fully realize the power that technology could have. During these last 18 months, a great deal of communal commitment and creativity resulted in myriad new ways to virtually connect to Jewish life.

Mid-pandemic, in May of 2021, Pew released its most recent study on the Jewish community. It once again highlighted that how people Jewishly identify is different than in previous generations, devoting the first five chapters of the report speaking to identity and affiliation. Reflecting on this research, we as communal leaders must acknowledge that Jewish identity is complex and the composition of the Jewish family is more complex than in the past. The proliferation of Jewish opportunities online amplifies and underscores Pew’s message: Today, people connect to Jewish life, belief and practice in different ways.

The Jewish Education Project has always sought to create meaningful Jewish learning experiences that transform the lives of young Jews and their families. And so, putting these two big ideas together—ubiquitous use of technology and the changing nature of Jewish community—it is both timely and necessary that we are launching Truvie, our online Jewish learning platform, to reach as many of today’s Jews through the medium that they are so familiar with.

When we look at the shape and structure of how, where, and when Jewish education happens, it does not look so different than when I was a child in the 1970s/80s. If you want any sort of “formal” Jewish education you can, generally, choose from a day school or a Hebrew school, the vast majority of which are associated with congregations. For many children and families this model not only works but helps learners thrive within a life-long supportive community.

But this does not work for everyone. We know from a study conducted by the Steinhardt Foundation that only 50% of Jewish youth are engaged in religious school or day school^[1]. Simply, this statistic means we are not offering educational experiences that speak to the needs and realities of all members of our community.

How can we shape a community and offer Jewish educational opportunities that engage and inspire Jews with diverse identities? How can we become comfortable with the idea that we can, we must, encourage connection and Jewish education in the ways we have for decades and in ways that are new and relevant to those who do not feel reflected in our current landscape? How do we foster numerous doorways (and windows) as gateways to Jewish education and engagement?

COVID accelerated our search for these answers, forcing us to become better acquainted with online educational approaches. As part of this learning, we spent the last year exploring various educational marketplaces such as Outschool, Kahn Academy, and Masterclass. While each provides something different, each is also designed around a shared value: the consumer will choose what works for them. We wondered if we could design a Jewish educational marketplace that similarly supported the level of choice, convenience, and flexibility embedded within these platforms. We also considered how to do this in the context of Jewish education so the resulting marketplace supported pluralism, excellence, and diversity. We learned that online engagement does not mirror the qualities of in-person educational experiences, but that online learning can provide meaningful, creative and engaging educational experiences.

So, we set out to develop a Jewish educational marketplace that makes it easy for families to “choose their own adventure.” The result of this work and experimentation is Truvie (a play on Lucky Find in French.) Launching with a three-month beta period on October 18, and an initial focus on 3^rd – 8^th graders, this new learning marketplace will allow both individual educators and organizations to offer short (aka learners register for a series of weeks rather than for a full school year or semester) synchronous courses. Teachers will have the freedom to create the courses and content they wish to teach, at the time they wish to teach it, at the price point they suggest. Parents will be empowered to chart their child’s unique Jewish journeys, encompassing the full spectrum of their vibrant and varied interests. For children and families with unique passions and pursuits, Truvie will (following the beta period) allow learners to engage in continuous learning while pursuing their passions (think specialty camping year-round.) Truvie will live at the intersection of identity and innovation, providing content-rich, hands-on experiences infused with Jewish spirit and culture from accomplished educators. Truvie will allow for Jewish learning—and Jewish teaching—from a kitchen table, a family room, from Portland, Dallas, and Topeka. Wherever there’s Wifi in North America (for now) Truvie will be accessible.

Through the ideation and development process, we recognized that Truvie can be an open marketplace…and a valuable tool to organizations seeking to offer their community additional or different virtual content. (The site will allow for private, co-branded spaces accessible only to organizational community members.) So Truvie will also offer a unique set of features for camps, congregations, JCC’s and others that seek to leverage the technology and the open marketplace.

At the heart of Jewish education is joy and the belief that Judaism – however you connect with it and identify—enhances your life, helps you be a better person, and enriches your understanding of the world. As we emerge from the joyous month of Tishrei, what better way to renew our commitment to Jewish life, history, peoplehood, practice, culture…. than to foster new means for our youth to discover the beauty and joy of Jewish life.

Susan Wachsstock is chief program officer at The Jewish Education Project. Truvie is partially funded by the Jewish Community Response and Impact Fund (JCRIF).

[1] These numbers were derived from a statistical analysis of the landscape conducted 4 years ago by the Steinhardt Foundation. Based on communal studies it was estimated that there were approximately 85,000 students in each cohort, 68,891 who are non-Orthodox. Based on enrolment in 6^th grade at the time 26,334 of these non-Orthodox youth were engaged in supplementary schools (38.2%), 2,509 in day schools (3.6%) and 39,281 (58.1%) engaged in neither form of formal education.

originally published in eJewishPhilanthropy

The new paper from CASJE analyzes the supply and demand of Jewish educators

A growing industry of academic degree and training providers is helping the field of Jewish education meet its staffing needs, but supplemental schools, such as those in synagogues, face shortages, according to a new paper from the Collaborative of Applied Studies in Jewish Education (CASJE).

“It’s the supplementary school sector that has shaped the narrative around a shortage. The personnel needs are immense there,” Alex Pomson, a researcher involved in the project, told eJewishPhilanthropy.

Prepared by Rosov Consulting, where Pomson is the managing director, “Mapping the Marketplace,” is part of CASJE’s “Career Trajectories of Jewish Educators,” the first such study of the entire field since the 2006 “Educators in Jewish Schools” study.

This lack of recent hard data hampered philanthropic decision-making across the community, said Darin McKeever, president and CEO of the William Davidson Foundation, which with the Jim Joseph Foundation supported the study over two and a half years with grants totaling $1.5 million. The project also conducted the field’s first-ever census. It found that there were 72,000 Jewish educators working in the United States in 2019.

“We funded this for the field, not for our foundations,” McKeever said.

The conclusions in “Mapping the Marketplace” were drawn from a combination of interviews, surveys and focus groups in eight Jewish communities selected to provide a cross section of American Jewry: Austin, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas, the San Francisco Bay area, Miami-Dade County in Florida and Nassau and Westchester Counties in New York. The educators responded to surveys, and some sat for follow-up interviews. Of the respondents, 40% work in day schools; 20% in supplemental schools and 20% are early childhood educators. The rest are informal educators or work in innovation or social justice organizations, federations or independently.

The researchers decided to analyze the supply-and-demand dynamics of the Jewish education labor market because the lack of data on the subject has caused participants in the market — from funders to hiring managers to aspiring educators — to make decisions based on unexamined assumptions about the field of Jewish education as a whole.

The new study defines “educator” as one who educates or “engages” in a Jewish setting, regardless of the subject taught or whether the educator identifies as Jewish. That definition, a shift from the definition used in the 2006 study, captures more and newer educator roles, such as those who work in camps, youth groups and adult education programs.

The identification and analysis of these new roles by the larger “Career Trajectories” project indicates that it might no longer make sense to look at Jewish education as a single field, unlike in 2006.

“A question rattling around in my mind is whether future research should be in slices,” said Barry Finestone, president and CEO of the Jim Joseph Foundation. “Every once in a while there should be a massive study, and then we should ask what are the responsibilities of the individual sectors.”

Historically, local bureaus of Jewish education or similar institutions supported by federations or denominations offered preparation and professional development for Jewish educators at supplemental schools, day schools and, to some extent, early childhood centers, according to the report. Now most of those institutions no longer exist or are moribund. In their place, colleges and universities and independent operators are offering degrees, certifications and training.

The growth of these educational options makes it easier for aspiring educators to be matched up with employers. Candidates entering the field with certifications are hired by employers so quickly that preparation programs no longer need to offer job placement services, according to the report.

However, the $50,000 price tag of a degree — almost as much as a year’s salary — means that many would-be educators can’t afford training unless the program attracts philanthropic support to subsidize the tuition, according to the report. As a result, some don’t enter the field at all, while others take the plunge but are ill-prepared, and then leave.

Also, the existing training programs tend to focus more on developing the personal qualities that will foster successful Jewish engagement, and less on content knowledge.

“Does the ecosystem of professional development opportunities offer the necessary training and support for educators to reach their full potential and succeed?” McKeever asked, adding that the research also raises the question of whether these opportunities are being designed with the input of employers.

“As good research does,” he noted, “[the study] oftentimes raises more questions than it answers.”

While some synagogues that provide supplementary Jewish education have been able to hire staff relatively easily due to their location, because their leaders attract candidates or because the congregation itself is a source of staff, most are engaged in what the report calls a “perpetual struggle” to maintain their rosters, even describing themselves as “dependent on miracles” to do so.

Just under half of supplementary schools report needing to replace more than half of their staff each year, which is a higher rate of turnover than in other sectors. No day school head who responded to the survey said they faced a similar problem.

“From a model standpoint, supplementary schools need to be seriously looked at,” Finestone said, especially because the institutions that offer supplementary education often depend on the revenue generated by those programs. “The delivery mechanisms are fundamentally the same, yet everything else has changed.”

Day schools do struggle with their own hiring challenges, in that they require educators to have more specialized skills, such as the ability to teach Hebrew.

“I want someone who is a content expert,” one head of school quoted in the survey said. “It’s important that they know the material. I want somebody who has pedagogical expertise.”

Going forward, CASJE will convene funders and practitioners, including at an event with the Association of Directors of Communal Agencies for Jewish Education and in a series of webinars with the Jewish Funders Network.

“It’s too early to say exactly what actions we’ll take,” Finestone said. “The first thing is to engage with the study, to read it and understand it. We were interested in CASJE for this because it’s ‘applied research.’”

originally published in eJewish Philanthropy

About two years before Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, the Genesis Prize Foundation gave out $3.5 million for gender equity initiatives in honor of the Supreme Court justice. One of the Ginsburg grants has now borne fruit with the release of a report on why there are relatively few female leaders in Jewish institutions — and how to fix the problem. 

According to The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Ginsburg reviewed the grants and upon learning about the planned report shook her head, appalled that Jewish organizations were still struggling with a gender gap in leadership. 

“[Ginsburg’s] attitude was almost: ‘We’re still doing this?’” Jill Smith, a Genesis Prize official who was with Ginsburg for the review, said in an interview with The Chronicle of Philanthropy.

The organization that went on to do the study is called Leading Edge. Founded in 2014, Leading Edge advises Jewish nonprofits on how to retain employees and foster their development into leaders. (70 Faces Media, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s parent company, has participated in Leading Edge surveys.)

In this instance, the group’s focus was on gender, and it found signs that women are gaining more representation on boards and in executive offices. Women now lead nearly half of all Jewish federations, according to the study, which also noted that high-profile executive openings at the JDC and the Jewish Theological Seminary were filled by women last year. 

But overall, the survey found, women still tend to run smaller nonprofits and programs. Most Jewish summer camps are run by men, as are nearly two-thirds of Jewish community centers and all but one of the 17 federations serving large metropolitan areas. 

“The persistent leadership gender gap means that we are not leveraging the talent, experience, and perspective of all the leaders in our community,” Gali Cooks, the president and CEO of Leading Edge, said in a statement. 

The gender gap in leadership is a problem for the wider nonprofit world, according to The Chronicle of Philanthropy, and evangelical Christian organizations tend to have a larger imbalance than Jewish ones. 

To produce the report, Leading Edge researchers spent two years on surveys, workshops and listening sessions about the perceived causes of the gap, reaching 1,200 people. In that effort, the researchers identified 71 causes and synthesized them into five recommendations on how to bring about change.

The report says that existing leaders should make gender diversity a priority in recruiting new leaders, and that overall staffing practices should incorporate diversity, equity and inclusion strategies. 

Two of the recommendations have to do with bias. Prevailing perceptions about what qualities are desired in a leader can lead to prejudices against women, the report says. Meanwhile, many believe that a top leader cannot also be a primary caregiver, leading to detrimental assumptions about candidates who are mothers. 

Lastly, the report calls on men to become advocates on the issue of leadership diversity. 

The report, which looked at gender from a binary prism, acknowledged trans and nonbinary identities in a footnote and called for further studies.  

originally published: “How Ruth Bader Ginsburg helped an effort to promote female leadership in Jewish institutions,” Asaf Shalev, JTA, August 19, 2021

For the past few years, Jews of color in the United States have been counted and recounted. They’ve been argued over and used as props in ideological battles.

Now their own voices have emerged as hard data with the release Thursday of the most comprehensive survey of Jews of color ever carried out.

The movement fighting racism within the Jewish community is heralding the study as a watershed moment.

Responses from more than 1,100 people in the study reveal a deep engagement with Jewish identity that has often come with experiences of discrimination in communal settings.

In some cases, Jews of color said they are ignored. In others they are casually interrogated about their race and ethnicity. Respondents said white Jews will sometimes presume a need to educate them about Jewish rituals or assume they are present in synagogues or schools as nannies and security guards rather than community members.

Some 80% of respondents said they have experienced discrimination in Jewish settings.

Titled “Beyond the Count,” the study out of Stanford University corroborates with data and the anecdotes of racism in the Jewish community that have been widespread for years.

The study’s sponsor and research team hope the findings will jolt Jewish institutions into funding initiatives for and by Jews of color and changing the composition of decision-making bodies to reflect Jewish diversity.

“This study validates the experiences of Jews of color, and it also takes away a bit of the illusion that Jewish community organizations are doing enough to respond to racism and racial injustice,” said Ilana Kaufman, executive director of the Jews of Color Initiative, which commissioned and funded the study. Kaufman also shared her reaction to the study in an essay.

Its 1,118 participants were found through an online survey that started with a series of screening questions to ensure that only those identifying as Jews of color were included. The study was not designed to be a statistical representation of all Jews of color but as an in-depth sampling of the views. Interviews with 61 of the participants provided additional texture and nuance.

In a finding that baffled researchers, two-thirds of respondents were women.

Nearly half of the participants identified with one or more racial categories, while two-thirds said they were biracial, mixed or multiracial. One in five were Black or African-American, about a tenth were Hispanic or Latino, and a tenth were Asian. Some 7% identified as North African or Middle Eastern, and a small percentage identified with other racial or ethnic groups.

Two-thirds of the respondents were raised Jewish and a similar percentage have at least one Jewish parent. About 40% said they converted to Judaism.

The researchers behind the study noted the diversity of both backgrounds and views among the participants.

“Jews of color are anything but monolithic, but there are common, prevalent trends about the places and moments when they are not fully embraced by the community or made to only bring a part of themselves to a program or congregation,” said Dalya Perez, a member of the research team who works as an equity strategist for Microsoft. According to her biographical description, Perez is the daughter of an immigrant father from the Philippines and a refugee mother who is a Sephardic Jew from Egypt.

One Native American interviewee quoted in the report had moved to a new area and sought out community at a local synagogue. What the woman encountered were intrusive questions about her identity.

“At times I’ve had to compartmentalize sides of myself because it’s just so mentally exhausting facing the ‘What are you?’ questions,” she said.

A Black man who is active in the Jewish community told researchers about a similar experience of being scrutinized over his perceived differences.

“I went to Shabbat services recently and a woman came up to me and said without introducing herself, ‘Shabbat Shalom. So are you here for a religion class? Did you convert?’” he recalled.

One set of findings that researchers said should galvanize Jewish leaders to specific actions has to do with Jews of color seeking community with one another. Nearly 40% of participants said they had no close friends who are also Jews of color and half said talking to other Jews of color about their experiences was very important. Jews of color can have a sense of belonging among white Jews, the survey said, but only about half said they have felt they belong.

Perez said these findings demand “tangible” investments in community initiatives for Jews of color.

Defining exactly what the term “Jew of color” means is a challenge that the researchers and the wider Jewish racial justice movement have grappled with for years.

Calling it an “imperfect, but useful umbrella term,” the study said those who identified as Jews of color for a variety of reasons. Some were referring to belonging to a racial group as is common in the United States. Others use the term to capture their national, geographic or ethnic heritage, as in the case of certain Iranian, Ethiopian or Sephardic Jews.

The ambiguity of the term arose previously in debates over the total number of Jews of color in the U.S. Estimates of the community range from 6% to 15% depending on the study and definition. A 2019 report from the Jews of Color Initiative argued that the community has been chronically undercounted because of poor study designs.

The recent Jewish population report from the Pew Research Center did not attempt to answer the question, but it did conclude that 92% of Jews identify as white.

As the title “Beyond the Count” suggests, the new study’s authors want to turn the focus away from past debates and move toward a deeper understanding of Jewish diversity.

Asked how they express their Jewishness, the participants offered five main responses. Three out of four said that working for justice and equality was very important to their Jewish identity. About two-thirds selected passing on their Judaism, honoring ancestors, remembering the Holocaust and celebrating holidays as very important expressions of Jewishness.

The quotes from interviewees enlivened the numbers and pointed to the wide-ranging ways in which Jews of color conceive of their identity. One woman, who identified as white, Black and Native, spoke about the significance of being outdoors and observing birds or the rustling of leaves.

“Nature grounds me that there’s a creator responsible for all of this,” she said.

An Indian American talked about the challenge of keeping kosher in the South, while an Asian American said they had recently brought people together for a Bollywood-themed Shabbat ritual.

“With every person I talked to, their story was so unique and interesting,” said Gage Gorsky, one of the researchers. “Each time I said, ‘Wow, yeah, another way to be Jewish that I hadn’t even thought of.’”

Correction: Aug. 12, 2021: A previous version of this story said that 83% of respondents were women, but that is the percentage of interviewees who were women. Only 67% of respondents were women. 

originally published: “Researchers unveil massive study on Jews of color, boosting fight for racial justice with hard data,” Asaf Shalev, JTA, August 12, 2021