News & Blogs Category: Partners in the News

One of the ways in which funding partners can make the biggest impact is by recognizing and supporting ideas and efforts worth scaling. But how can well-intentioned funders realize the potential to help grantees grow and export relevant solutions far and wide? We’d like to share some recent lessons learned from a funding collaborative’s efforts to scale meaningful programs for teens in the Jewish community.

Although mental health has always been a concern for the teen population, 2020 and 2021 have seen increasing and alarming rates of stress, anxiety, and depression in teens and young adults. In response to these times, the Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative and other partners have thought critically about how they might reach more teens in today’s climate.

Through 2019, the Funder Collaborative—in which national and local funders work together to develop, nurture, and scale new approaches to teen engagement—had delivered mental health training to 400 professionals. But this scale wasn’t enough. Guided by their ongoing work with Spring Impact, founded in 2011 to help mission-driven organizations create change at a greater scale, the Funder Collaborative decided to offer a virtual certification course for professionals, caregivers, and parents to train as Youth Mental Health First Aiders. The Funder Collaborative is now offering this course at no cost to nearly 1,000 professionals, caregivers, and parents, equipping them with a hands-on, five-step action plan for helping young people in both crisis and non-crisis situations. Each of the ten communities within the Funder Collaborative has integrated mental health wellness into their unique programming.

This example demonstrates how impactful, relevant programs can be scaled to reach thousands, while fostering local adaptation to each unique community.

By pooling resources, sharing toolkits, and learning how to adapt best practices to fit different programs, locations, markets, and audiences, local organizations can successfully scale up to maximize their impact and see results on a national level. While the value of scaling new approaches is clear, there are obstacles to accomplishing this in a sustainable way that centers local adaptation by each community.

Some of the main lessons the Funder Collaborative has learned to address these challenges include the following.

1. Scaling does not equate to duplication. Programs must be evaluated and adapted to fit the unique context of a new setting or target population. Some of the most successful instances of scale have come from stripping back to specific elements of a successful program and thinking about creative models to extend this impact to new communities. In the Funder Collaborative’s experience, it’s crucial to consider nuanced scaling approaches that go beyond duplication — like centralization, accreditation, loose networks, and training or fellowship programs. Funders can help by introducing organizations to examples of others who have successfully scaled impact through looser, creative models.
2. The time and resources it takes to scale are often underestimated. It is essential to have the drive and resources to scale impact. Often, organizations are unaware of the key elements necessary to scale successfully and underestimate the need for dedicated capacity and overestimate the demand from other communities. Scaling requires both time and capacity to plan and implement, as well as the ability to move beyond local funding restrictions. Taking into account the organization’s readiness to scale by assessing these key elements is a critical step before embarking on the scale journey. Funders can support organizations on this front by being flexible with restrictions and ensuring organizations have adequate resources to support the ample capacity and time needed to scale.
3. Scaling proven solutions can often be more valuable to your community than designing unique programs from scratch. Organizations often think that the only way to provide value is to create unique programs for their communities, when, in fact, capitalizing on existing great ideas and adapting them to fit your community is often a far more effective and efficient way to generate impact. Funders are in a unique position to have a broad view of different programs happening far apart and can make introductions that lead to collaboration and use of existing programs.
4. People who create programs may not always be the right people to scale them. The skills and strengths needed to create great programs aren’t the same skills and strengths needed to scale. Scaling requires empathizing with the leaders and individuals that adapt a given program in their own community and preparing sufficient initial and ongoing support to aid their adaptation. The Funder Collaborative has seen that many scaling initiatives need support from partners who can help build the structures, resources, and support for leaders and individuals that take on and adapt the program. Funders need to invest in building the capacity of organizational leaders to design effective, intentional scale plans, and iteratively validate these plans in the real world.”  

From its inception, the Funder Collaborative was dedicated to sharing program results and, eventually, proven models of effective engagement with other organizations. By using its considerable resources to develop, implement, and evaluate meaningful programming, the Funder Collaborative has and will continue to empower other organizations that might not have the means to take the risks involved in new programming.

With support from the Jim Joseph Foundation, the Funder Collaborative continues to work with Spring Impact to help effective teen engagement initiatives impact more lives. Our work together involves identifying programs ready for adaptation, answering key questions that would determine new community selection criteria, systemizing and codifying the processes that support program success, and coaching new communities through the launch of these programs.

Whether an organization is at the stage of understanding the criteria necessary to adapt to new environments, or testing out new methods of implementation, the Funder Collaborative helps to break down the barriers to scaling by identifying and providing key resources. The Funder Collaborative identifies the key ideas in an organization’s programming, evaluates how to best replicate or adapt programs, assists new communities in absorbing and implementing new ideas, helps match organizations with populations in need, and empowers organizations to self-evaluate and best understand scaling methodologies.

Philanthropy must be able to identify proven models of engagement and plan strategically to scale them when possible. Now more than ever, community leaders should know how to help smaller and medium-sized communities take on proven new initiatives in sustainable and cost-effective ways.

Additional Resources

Methodology to Extend Impact: Email [email protected] to receive our step-by-step toolkit that helps Jewish programs effectively and sustainably extend their impact to new organizations and communities.

The impact of Jewish experiences on teens can be measured using the Teen Jewish Learning and Engagement Scales (TJLES), which formed the basis of a major national research project on Jewish teen engagement.  Anyone can freely access the Teen and other validated measurement tools by contacting FC Director Sara Allen at [email protected].

Dan Berelowitz (he/him) is CEO and Founder, Spring Impact.

Sara Allen (she/her) is Executive Director of the Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative

originally published in Grantcraft

Jewish communities are constantly changing, and in the U.S. we have had a few decades of creative entrepreneurship to build on during the pandemic.

Among the many ways that the pandemic profoundly changed Jewish engagement, the High Holidays of 2020 stands out as a particularly fascinating case study. It was a kind of controlled experiment; essentially no one was able to celebrate or observe the holidays in the ways they were used to, so everyone was doing something different than usual. Institutions of all kinds innovated to adapt to the restrictions, and new ways of engaging emerged and spread more broadly than could have been previously imagined.

In an effort to understand the ways in which people’s engagement with the High Holidays changed during this past year, and what it might reveal about Jewish engagement more broadly, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, Jim Joseph Foundation and Aviv Foundation funded research through the Jewish Community Response and Impact Fund (JCRIF) to illuminate new patterns of participation and motivations. In the winter of 2020-2021, Benenson Strategy Group surveyed 1,414 American Jews nationwide about their experiences of the High Holidays and the ways that those experiences compared to previous years. The research explored not only what people did in 2020, but also compared it to what they had been doing before and explored what they might do in the future. The results provide important insights that have meaningful design implications not only for the upcoming High Holidays, but also for engagement efforts much more broadly.

Infrequent vs. Regular High Holiday Observers 

One of the most interesting findings focuses on those who are less consistent or comprehensive in their participation in a typical year (for example, participating sporadically or only in one of the holidays). This group, Infrequent High Holidays Observers, clearly have interest in participating in the High Holidays, but choose to not participate some of the time. This year, not only did they participate at high rates, they also had markedly different patterns of participation and motivations when compared to Regular Observers, who generally participate in both Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (and who this year largely tried to get as close as possible to “normal”). We want to highlight the findings about the Infrequent Observers as they have important implications beyond the pandemic.  (A link to the full research report is available below.)

Remarkably, approximately half of the Infrequent Observers participated in High Holidays this year, when it would have been very easy to opt out. Furthermore, they were more likely than Regular Observers to report sharing their High Holidays experiences with others in their lives, more likely to be considering new ways to engage in the future, and they are looking differently at what Jewishness means to them. There are three major lessons from these positive experiences that can serve as building blocks as we plan for the future:

1. Lowering Real and Perceived Barriers to Entry. A large segment of Infrequent Observers (47%) reported that “it was easy and straightforward” as a major motivation for participating this past year, more than any other single reason. By dissolving real and perceived barriers to participation, those who were previously opting out of the High Holidays some of the time leaned in this year. It behooves us to understand what people really mean by “easy and straightforward.” For example: less social anxiety or insecurity about Jewish or Hebrew knowledge, less intimidation about hours of commitment sitting in a pew, no stress about managing fidgety kids, and/or less confusion about if or how to include a partner who isn’t Jewish. Yes, cost and geography also fell away this year, but so did many other factors that have been getting in the way for many people. These lessons can be front of mind even as we design for in-person or hybrid experiences. When these real and perceived barriers fell to (almost) zero, those who are sometimes hesitant to commit their time and attention leaned in.

2. Relationships were a major motivator for the Infrequent Observers, with 42% citing recommendations from friends or family members and 41% citing the desire to connect with “other people like me” as key reasons for participation. It was through relationships that Infrequent Observers found unprecedented access to high-quality experiences, a plethora of niche ways to participate that they may not have known about or had access to, and the ability to authentically celebrate with non-local family and friends. Not only did they learn about opportunities from friends and family, they were also more likely than Regular Observers to share their experiences afterward: 35% of them reported that they told someone in their life about their High Holidays experiences and 25% posted on social media about their experiences, creating a virtuous cycle to engage more of their networks in additional High Holiday programming. Those designing for future High Holidays may want to consider inviting their participants to extend invitations to their friends and family to catalyze even more of this peer-to-peer engagement.

3. A Diverse Marketplace of Options. Infrequent Observers sought out a wide variety of ways to participate in the High Holidays, ranging from traditional rituals and services to mindfulness practice, volunteer or philanthropic activities, and informal celebrations with loved ones. Over 75% reported that they’d consider doing some or all of the experiences they did this year again, and 78% reported that they would consider or definitely try new ways to observe Jewish holidays in the future. These surprisingly high numbers indicate that the new levels of accessibility and exposure to creative options for engaging with the holidays supported positive, meaningful experiences that will continue to pay dividends for participants, their families and friends in the future.

Implications for Design

Because these past High Holidays required nearly everyone to reengineer their experiences, they offered a controlled experiment to test new attributes of design and accessibility. Many of the insights this data offers are not radically new. Rather, the data validates theories and design criteria that have been widely known in other fields for years, confirming that these design principles are important for Jewish leaders and educators too. These include:

1. People are looking for a “just right fit,” not a “one size fits all” approach. The wide range of accessible, specific options, spread via recommendations through personal networks, helped people discover the plethora of interesting, nuanced programming and communities available across the Jewish world. People could be more confident and motivated to lean into these experiences, recommend them to others, and come back for more. There was no specific modality that was universally more attractive than any other. Depending on the individual, an ideal experience might have been a highly-produced event or a very intimate gathering, a group to meditate with, or a Rosh Hashanah cooking class (i.e. we couldn’t rely on the family brisket this year, but we could learn to make it ourselves).

2. The “just right fit” is as much about the people as the content. Marketing expert Seth Godin says the bottom line of belonging is being able to say, “people like us do things like this.” Peer-to-peer recommendations and opportunities that are specific enough for a casual seeker to think “Ah! That’s where I belong!” can draw in those who are “looking for their people,” whether they slice that by life stage, creative ritual or specific areas of interest. This year, people who “found their people” actively recommended experiences and communities to others, and we saw many Infrequent Observers in turn share their experiences, too. Designing for “fit” matters.

3. This year participants felt there was a diversity of valid ways to mark the holidays, beyond sitting in an hours-long service. The recent Pew data reinforces this, noting the diverse ways people engage in being Jewish (55% of those who don’t attend services often said it’s because they express their Jewishness in other ways, and of those, 77% engage through Jewish food, 74% by sharing Jewish culture or holidays with non-Jewish friends). Whereas in the past some Infrequent Observers may have perceived a binary choice (go to services or do nothing), this year they leaned into a wide range of options.

Embracing Productive Disruption

Nearly every industry in our economy has faced major disruption in the past few decades. While Encyclopedia Britannica was the gold standard of knowledge management for hundreds of years, the Wikipedia model disrupted it in the blink of an eye. Disruption is often a catalyst for a kind of systemic change that is hard to adopt voluntarily when you believe that the status quo is acceptable.

Jewish communities are constantly changing, and in the U.S. we have had a few decades of creative entrepreneurship to build on during the pandemic. But the pandemic affected everyone: it was a disruption that forced us all to design differently. In doing so, we were able to test theories and learn from the data. Now our challenge is to integrate these bold lessons into our future design, rather than returning passively to the comfortable (but not optimized) status quo. Listening empathetically and attentively to the feelings, attitudes, motivations and behaviors of Infrequent Observers will help us design effectively for greater engagement in the future.

It is hugely encouraging that half of those who haven’t been regularly participating in High Holidays are in fact seeking meaningful, well-calibrated experiences. It’s even more exciting that the vast majority of those who did participate this year want to do more, and that they are recommending their experiences to their friends. Many of these insights are also likely to apply to a subset of Regular Observers who may have the activation energy to participate every year, but for whom their experiences aren’t as positive. Let’s use this opportunity to build on this positive feedback loop.

These insights about Infrequent Observers are just one of many lessons that can be gleaned from this research effort. Curious to dive in further to the data report? The research is available at Collecting These Times: American Jewish experiences of the Pandemic.

Lisa Colton is the president of Darim Online, and a consultant working on this research and its implications. Tobin Marcus is a senior vice president at Benenson Strategy Group, which conducted the research. Felicia Herman is the director of the JCRIF Aligned Grant Program. 

Source: eJewish Philanthropy

There were more than 72,000 Jewish educators working in the United States in 2019, according to a new study from the Collaborative for Applied Studies in Jewish Education (CASJE) that aims to better understand and support the Jewish educational workforce.

“Any mature and specific field needs a knowledge base for policy makers and funders to make decisions, respond to needs and take advantage of opportunities,” said Stacie Cherner, director of learning and evaluation at the Jim Joseph Foundation, which funded the research for the report, along with the William Davidson Foundation. The study’s authors and backers say this research is the first of its kind.

Researchers have in the past studied Jewish day schools and yeshiva teachers, as in the Educators in Jewish Schools Study of 2006 by the Jewish Education Center of North America, said Arielle Levites, CASJE’s managing director.

This study uses a much broader definition of “educator”: Someone who educates or “engages” in a Jewish setting, regardless of the subject taught or whether the educator identifies as Jewish. This includes full-time, part-time and seasonal workers, but no pulpit rabbis, people who work solely in operations or administration or those who have a non-educational expertise, such as school psychologist or therapist.

The study counted educators not only in schools but also in camps, supplementary schools, preschools, youth groups, museums, adult education programs, college campus organizations, afterschool programs and family engagement or social justice organizations.

Engagement programs might include work with adults or families, and their inclusion reflects the researchers’ aspiration to look beyond formal school settings to include other educational experiences, such as those that happen at Moishe House, a global network of housing for young Jewish adults, or OneTable, which facilitates Shabbat meals, Levites said.

The census is the first of a series of papers exploring Jewish educators’ career trajectories, to be released starting in July, Levites said.

“The most important factor in a student’s success is the teacher,” she said. “We need to know how to support their development, how we recruit them, how we prepare them. All of that matters.”

The study found that in 2019, there were about 96,000 educator positions. The greater number of roles compared with educators does not indicate a shortage, but the fact that many educators fill multiple roles, such as a classroom teacher who also works in a summer camp, Levites said.

The researchers arrived at the census estimates both by gathering data from national organizations that maintain their own databases, like the Foundation for Jewish Camp, Hillel International and the Orthodox Union, and by surveying individual educational institutions. Of the large national organizations, 55% responded, while 33% of the institutions that filled out the survey responded.

CASJE and its research partner, the Greenberg Team, had originally planned to conduct the survey in March 2020 and to ask the educational institutions how many educators they were currently employing. Due to the pandemic, however, institutions were focusing on pivoting to remote learning, and leaders were unable to fill out the questionnaire. CASJE responded by both postponing the survey and scheduling a second, post-pandemic round. In June 2020, they distributed the first survey, asking respondents to tell them their 2019 employee counts. The second survey, which will be distributed starting next week, will request 2021 numbers.

“We don’t know the basic information,” said Chip Edelsberg, the Jim Joseph Foundation’s founding executive director, who consulted on the study. “We don’t know the numbers of educators, little or anything about the training, what motivates them to stay, what compels them to leave.”

Source: eJewish Philanthropy

Questions are the mentor’s super-tool

In the first act of Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1.3.84 Folger), Polonius sends his son, Laertes off to school with a quick rat-tat-tat of paternal advice on fashion, finances and interpersonal relationships. He ends his loving speech with a mentoring doozy, “This above all: to thine own self be true.”

In the first book of the Torah, after Adam and Eve disobey God by eating the fruit of Good and Evil and hide in the Garden of Eden, God seeks them out with this powerful mentoring question, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9)

Polonius’ great wisdom was that one’s own guidance has to come from within – he could give his son advice but, in the end, Laertes’ own life’s compass is found in his own natural resourcefulness. The same is true with God’s powerful question to Adam and Eve: Medieval commentator Rashi writes, “God knew where Adam and Eve were, but God asked this question in order to open up a conversation,” (Rashi on Genesis 3:9). God wanted Adam and Eve to answer the question for themselves.

Being a great mentee starts with the premise that with enough reflection and remaining true to ourselves, which is far more easily said than done, we each will be able to locate ourselves in this world. Being a great mentor means serving as the guiding hand that supports a growth-based relationship, based not in fixing problems, but rather in opening up conversations. By “opening up the conversation,” mentees are invited to see where they are (point A) and imagine where they want to be (point B). Mentors help mentees get from point A (as defined by the mentee) to Point B (also defined by the mentee), often by helping mentees gain a broader perspective on themselves and their situation.

The Wexner Graduate Fellowship/Davidson Scholars Alumni Mentoring Program (created in partnership with the Jim Joseph Foundation) matches Jewish professionals with mentors for a year-long process to support their ongoing professional and personal growth. The mentoring relationship’s positive impact on both mentees and mentors is significant and serves as an important strategy for improving professionals’ leadership skills.

Now in its eighth year, we have gleaned some wisdom about the importance of Jewish professionals being true to themselves and knowing where they are at (and where they want to be) that we would like to briefly sample here.

For Mentees: Maintain a Growth Mindset 

Your mentoring experience will be helpful to you only if you really want to grow. Your mentor may give you pro tips along the way, but it is your job to use your mentor as a catalyst for your own reflection, growth and change. You are the one that needs to do the work. You need to come to each session prepared with an agenda and to ask for what you need – some days it will be gentle support and other days you will need constructive feedback. Sometimes your growth will entail facing some difficult truths about yourself as a professional. That’s okay – this work is hard and often woven into our souls. A mentor believes in the mentee’s inherent creativity and resourcefulness while encouraging them to go deeper and further in their leadership. Zen master Shunryu Suzuki says, “you…are perfect the way you are … and you can use a little improvement.” Singer/Songwriter of Jewish songs Dan Nichols uses this idea as commentary on the blessing for the body when he sings: “I’m perfect the way I am and a little broken too.” As an engaged mentee, you are responsible for your growth and improvement.

Since mentoring is about growth and change, it’s natural for you to use conversations with your mentor as a place to share frustrations and challenges. While having your mentor’s compassionate ear is a wonderful thing, to make the most of mentoring you really want to find pathways to action. When you find yourself complaining, Rae Ringel (co-creator of this mentoring program) suggests remembering that underneath every complaint is an unmade request. That is to say, when you are feeling disgruntled, instead of wallowing in the kvetch, work with your mentor to identify a clear, time-bound request that you can make. It will help you get what you want (or understand why you can’t) and allow your mentor to help you deepen your learning and forward your action. Focusing on requests, rather than complaints, will allow you to discover opportunities where you might previously have only seen challenges.

For Mentors: Prioritize being, doing and asking

For a satisfying and successful career, Cindy Chazan (the other co-creator of this mentoring program) recommends to Jewish professionals to “swap your to-do list with your to-be list.” This advice is not only beneficial for your mentee’s growth, but in your growth as a mentor. While your mentee is seeking you out (in part) due to your professional accomplishments, the success of the relationship will ultimately depend on how you show up and model that to your mentee. Strive to authentically and candidly model how you have been true to yourself, with all of the requisite difficult choices that has entailed, over the course of your career. This means sharing your accomplishments and your missteps, and what you learned from both. Your mentee will be impressed with your achievements but will be impacted by how you show up: with intention, candor and compassion.

On the other hand, just as leadership is an activity and not a position, mentoring is also an activity – it is about what you do with who you are. Sometimes people say that they had a mentor, but it wasn’t someone with whom they had an actual relationship that fostered growth. Instead, it was someone they admired, or looked to as a role model. When we think about mentoring as an activity, we focus on the verbs, not the nouns. That means that to mentor well, you don’t have to be an expert or a role model 100 percent of the time. But you do need to be real and intentional. The actions you take – the questions you ask, the listening you do, the new perspective you offer – are what make you a mentor.

Questions are the mentor’s super-tool, but it’s not because of the information mentors get from the answers. The questions’ power resides in the transformation, clarity or commitment that the mentee experiences when considering and answering the question; it’s not about what you (the mentor) need to know, but about what the mentee needs to learn. Coaching pioneer Henry Kimsey-House writes, “Powerful questions invite introspection, present additional solutions, and lead to greater creativity and insight.” Asking powerful questions requires deep listening and gives rise to new perspectives for the mentee – and honors their unique ability to be resourceful and creative.

Both Shakespeare and God really know how to turn a phrase. In just six words (“To thine own self be true,”) Polonius modeled the core of mentoring. God bested Shakespeare by doing it in only three words! (And only one word in Hebrew – “Ayekah?”). In “Where are you?” God asks a powerful question that undergirds Shakespeare’s advice. By asking this question, God opens an eternal mentoring conversation – one that can inspire any mentoring relationship that we are lucky to be part of.

Dr. Michelle Lynn-Sachs is a leadership coach and organizational consultant with the practice she founded, Spotlight Consulting & Coaching, and she is chair of the Wexner Field Fellows and a co-coordinator of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship/Davidson Scholars Program Alumni Mentoring Program.

Or Mars is a vice president of The Wexner Foundation and a co-coordinator of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship/Davidson Scholars Program Alumni Mentoring Program.

Source: eJewish Philanthropy

The Jewish Story Partners foundation, which Steven Spielberg and wife Kate Capshaw helped found to fund Jewish-themed documentary films, announced its first slate of grantees on Wednesday.

The 10 projects received a total of $225,000 from Jewish Story Partners, which has received its initial funding from Spielberg’s Righteous Persons Foundation, the Maimonides Fund and the Jim Joseph Foundation.

Here are the films, first reported by Deadline:

“Coexistence My Ass!” – Directed by Amber Fares

The film follows Israeli comedian Noam Schuster, who is bent on using her standup routine to get Israelis to question their biases.

“The Conspiracy” – Directed by Maxim Pozdorovkin

The film looks at the history behind the lie “that a dangerous cabal of powerful Jews controls the world.”

“Meredith Monk: Dancing Voice, Singing Body” – Directed by Billy Shebar and David Roberts

The groundbreaking composer and choreographer, who has won the National Medal of Arts and a MacArthur grant, gets her own film. The pop legend Bjork is a co-producer.

“Rabbi” – Directed by Sandi DuBowski

“Rabbi” chronicles the story of pioneering Rabbi Amichau Lau-Lavie “from drag queen rebel to rabbinical student to founder of Lab/Shul, an everybody-friendly, God-optional, artist-driven, pop-up experimental congregation.”

“South Commons” – Directed by Joey Soloway

The Jewish creator of “Transparent” takes a hard look at the racial tensions in the Chicago community in which they grew up.

“Untitled Spiritual Care Documentary” – Directed by Luke Lorentzen

Mount Sinai hospitals in New York appoint interfaith chaplain residents each year — this film follows four of them.

“The Wild One” – Directed by Tessa Louise Salomé

It’s the story of Jack Garfein, an Auschwitz survivor who went on to play a key role in the Actors’ Studio group and taught the craft to some of the last century’s biggest stars.

“Heroes” – Directed by Avishai Mekonen and Shari Rothfarb Mekonen

The tale of a group of Ethiopian-Jewish activists who fought to keep their community alive in the 1970s to 1990s, a time of harsh dictatorship.

“Joyva” – Directed by Josh Freund and Sam Radutzky

The 100-plus-year-old Joyva company is among the most recognized Jewish-American candy companies, whose delicacies often end up at holiday celebrations such as Passover. The film focuses on the founder’s great-grandchildren, who are fighting to keep the business afloat.

“Walk With Me” – Directed by Heidi Levitt

Levitt tracks her husband’s battle with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.

Source: JTA

The web portal currently connects users to around 70 collecting projects. However, the list of collections will expand as the project goes larger.

A new web portal has been launched to help American Jews and Jewish institutions gather and preserve materials on Jewish life during the coronavirus pandemic.

Called “Collecting These Times: American Jewish Experiences of the Pandemic,” the portal was developed by George Mason University’s Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, in partnership with the Berman Museum, Hebrew Theological College, Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Capital Jewish Museum, Council of American Jewish Museums and Prizma: Center for Jewish Day Schools.

Users are able to find and contribute papers, images, videos, documents, oral accounts and audio recordings to various institutions across the US, with the collection being curated to show everything from schools and summer camps to Jewish ritual practices and businesses in various communities.

It currently connects users to around 70 collecting projects. However, the list of collections will expand as the project goes larger.

The site can be accessed in its entirety at no cost, with funding coming from the Chronicling Funder Collaborative, which supports efforts to document Jewish experiences in the pandemic.

“Collecting These Times is accessible to anyone who wants to share their experiences or better understand how Jewish life in the US has changed over the past year,” Roy Rosenzweig Center’s Jessica Mack said in a statement.

“We have much to learn about how individuals, families and communities have used creativity and tenacity to reimagine so many Jewish experiences during the pandemic, and we hope that the site will be an educational resource both now and in the future,” she said. “The collections will continue to grow as more people contribute content and tell their stories.”

“The website represents an extraordinary confluence of interest and determination by everyone involved,” Hebrew Theological College chief academic officer Zev Eleff said. “Our shared aim is to democratize our knowledge and wisdom of the current pandemic to deepen learning and scholarship on contemporary Jewish life.”

The portal can be accessed at CollectingTheseTimes.org.

But the web portal is not the only significant historical effort made to preserve and document Jewish life during the pandemic.

In April 2020, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research launched a similar initiative to gather and compile stories of Jewish life amid COVID-19. It primarily focuses on first-hand accounts on how Jewish life has changed due to the pandemic.

YIVO is a leading organization in the field of studying, preserving and teaching Jewish history, and has the world’s single largest collection of Yiddish-language works. It is also one of the five institutions that make up the Center for Jewish History, which itself is affiliated with the Smithsonian and has the biggest collection of records and archival works of Jewish history in the US.

Source: Jerusalem Post

The core funders of the Jewish Community Response and Impact Fund (JCRIF)’s Aligned Grant Program—Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, Jim Joseph Foundation, Maimonides Fund, and The Paul E. Singer Foundation—are today announcing that they are launching a second round of JCRIF grantmaking for 2021, and that the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation, a partner on the JCRIF Loan Program, will also be joining the Grant Program.

A major piece of JCRIF’s 2021 efforts will be its new RESET Grants, which will support efforts to seize this unique moment in history to reimagine, renew, and reset Jewish communities for the future. The funders are hereby issuing a Request for Proposals for those grants—seeking new ideas that look beyond current organizational boundaries, structures, missions, and program delivery mechanisms to envision a new future for Jewish communities in North America. Applicants can apply for up to $10 million of funding over 1-5 years for major new efforts to reset Jewish communal life. The JCRIF grant program will also continue to offer grants for emergency needs and for innovative adaptations to programs and organizational structures in response to the pandemic.

JCRIF’s second year of grantmaking will build on lessons learned in its first 8 months. The funders are also pleased to share JCRIF Lessons Learned 2020, a report written by Felicia Herman, Director of the JCRIF Aligned Grant Program. Grant funding to date has provided emergency support, fueled innovation and adaptation, and addressed some of the many systemic issues that have arisen from—or been accelerated by—the wholesale closure of Jewish institutions due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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The Jewish Community Response and Impact Fund was created in April 2020 as a partnership of 8 major Jewish foundations and the Jewish Federations of North America to distribute more than $90 million in grants and no-interest loans to Jewish communal organizations meeting new challenges and opportunities posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

For more information, please reach out to [email protected]

In recent years, Jewish communal leaders and philanthropists have come to recognize that the American Jewish community—widely presumed to be white-skinned and Ashkenazi (from Central and Eastern Europe)—is far more diverse than they imagined.

With the help of philanthropic partners, the Jews of Color Initiative, a Berkeley, California-based fund led by Executive Director Ilana Kaufman, is raising consciousness about underserved Jews of color and working to create a more inclusive and welcoming ecosystem in the organized American Jewish community.

Though Jews of color have been undercounted in Jewish population studies for decades, data from several reputable studies point to the fact that Jews of color represent at least 12 to 15% of the American Jewish population. That percentage does not include Jews of Sephardic (Spanish and Portuguese) and Mizrahi (Middle Eastern) ancestry—and it is growing.

Yet the majority of Jews of color, aren’t showing up in synagogues, Jewish community centers or religious schools. One reason for their absence is that they don’t feel welcome, says Kaufman, whose organization is committed to building and advancing the professional, organizational and communal field for Jews of color.

“As the Jews of Color Initiative was being founded, we heard from Jewish community members of color, our families and friends, that often when attending services and community programs, they might be racially profiled,” says Kaufman. “Sometimes when freshening up in the restroom, they might be asked to change an empty paper towel dispenser; when picking up a daughter from religious school, they might be assumed to be the nanny; when attending a program in a community space, be asked if they need help or if they know someone in the community or why they are there that evening,” says Kaufman. “Each example is an expression of racism that is seen and heard.”

Such blatant instances of racism, adds Kaufman, occur in addition to more subtle examples, such as “looks of wonder; the pervasive use of language and customs that exclude Jews who are neither Ashkenazi or white; the resistance, on the part of some, to come to terms with and deeply understand the impact of racism and white supremacy in the United States, including in our Jewish communities.”

In 2017, Kaufman was part of a group of 12 Black Jews invited to the Leichtag Foundation to discuss issues around racial justice. “It was a sincere, curious and sometimes awkward conversation with a group of funders and colleagues coming together in the very heightened racial climate [during] 2016,” recalls Kaufman. “It was hard, because race is hard and talking about race and racism is hard.”

Yet the group persevered, with white funders and colleagues asking questions expressing concern about the experiences of Jews of color and seeking information about what needed to change.

“There was clearly a need for funding and there was also some curiosity about to what extent creating a hub of some kind would benefit, not only Jews of color, but the whole Jewish community,” Kaufman says.

After two days of discussion and soul searching, the Jews of Color Field Building Fund was created. Kaufman, who was then working as a public affairs and civic engagement director for the Bay Area Jewish Community Relations Council, came aboard as a contract program officer for the pilot fund, which started with just $60,000. The fund was held at the Coastal Community Foundation in San Diego and was supported by the Leichtag Foundation. The Jim Joseph Foundation and Walter and Elise Haas Fund soon joined the effort.

“We ended up with $160,000 and we gave away $110,000 in grantmaking that first year,” says Kaufman. “Fast-forward three years, and our name has gotten shorter and our budget has gotten larger.”

The JoCI’s fundraising goal for 2020-2021 was $450,000, but due to funders’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and its disproportionate impact on people of color, Kaufman now expects to raise $828,000 this year.

In addition to the Leichtag and Jim Joseph foundations and the Haas Fund, the JoCI is currently supported by prominent philanthropies, including the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation and the Rodan Family Foundation.

This year’s grantees include Hillel International, Avodah, Reconstructing Judaism and the Union for Reform Judaism.

“The Jews of Color Initiative’s grantmaking is limited to field building,” says Kaufman. “We’re informed by the Bridgespan Group’s field-building guide and we focus on resourcing, leadership development, establishing best practices, policy, identity and research.” Research, says Kaufman, is especially important, since most white Jews know so little about Jews of color.

“Every time I would go present about Jews of color, I would have a conversation and someone would ask, ‘Yeah, but how many Jews of color are there really?’ So, then I thought, OK, we have to go out and do research.”

The JoCI’s first demographic study, “Counting Inconsistencies: An Analysis of American Jewish Population Studies, with a Focus on Jews of Color,” was funded by the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation and released in 2019. The study discovered significant irregularities in the ways previous demographic studies were conducted, which made it difficult to gain a full understanding of how many Jews of color actually live in the U.S. For example, many Jewish population studies failed to include questions about race or ethnicity.

Based on these inconsistencies, the researchers recommended that future Jewish population studies “adopt better and more consistent practices for sampling populations, weighting responses, and formulating more comprehensive and sensitively worded questions.”

In January 2021, the JoCI commenced the  “Count Me In” survey, which asks Jews of color to share experiences and perspectives on Jewish identity, systemic racism, and their aspirations for the Jewish  community. The JoCI hopes that the survey, which will close on Feb. 19 and be released in July, will garner 1,000 responses.

Strengthening the local Jewish community in the San Francisco Bay area for future generations is a funding priority for the Rodan Family Foundation, which was established approximately two years ago. Elana Rodan Schuldt, the foundation’s president and CEO, says that initially, the foundation wasn’t sure what that goal would mean.

“Frankly, I was thinking about my kids, and my peers’ kids, and what are they coming of age with and how will Judaism be relevant for them,” says Rodan Schuldt.

“We wanted to be very objective, so we looked at all the available data and were able to talk to most local organizations and leaders. What was glaringly obvious to us is that there’s a mismatch between who our Jewish community is from a demographic perspective and what the demographics of organizational Jewish life looks like.”

Considering trends such as intermarriage and the lifestyles of modern Jewish families, says Rodan Schuldt, “we felt it was imperative to start reaching people not showing up in our community, especially Jews of color, and bringing Jewish life to them.”

Rodan Schuldt hopes the Rodan Foundation’s support of the JoCI will “strengthen the field of practitioners and organizations supporting Jews of color and help current Jewish institutions and organizations to do that hard work of readying themselves to be places where Jews of color can thrive and want to show up.” She also hopes the Rodan Foundation’s investment in the JoCI “will catalyze other funders to prioritize this and start putting their dollars to it.”

The Jim Joseph Foundation has done just that. Jon Marker, senior program officer for the Jim Joseph Foundation, says they support the JoCI because of a recognition that “the dominant narrative of who Jews are in the United States, and who our institutions are made of, center around European ‘Ashkenormative’ Jewish experience, which is limited and does not encompass all the places where Jews come from.”

The narrative “doesn’t encompass the nuance and richness and memory that exists in multiracial and multiethnic families that have existed for generations,” says Marker. “If our goal is to focus on helping young Jews to find meaning and purpose through Jewish wisdom, we need to recognize that a purely Ashkenazic narrative is not going to resonate with everyone and it’s not going to speak to the complexity and richness and resilience of our narrative.”

Both Rodan Schuldt and Marker agree that partnering with the JoCI makes their work especially rewarding. “First and foremost,” says Marker, “it’s a tremendous joy to work with Ilana [Kaufman] and the team she’s assembled. They’re incredibly strong leaders who bring a rich wisdom and lived experience within the American Jewish community. They also bring a skillset for nonprofit management and how to grow a field and ecosystem that is important, not because they are Jews of color, but because they are talented leaders.”

Kaufman does her best to ensure that the grant application process is relatively painless. “We try to do grantmaking in ways that are excellent, low barrier, low labor, low panic and low stress because it just makes for a much better experience,” says Kaufman, who awards grants throughout the year.

“We’re here to support [communities and nonprofit leaders] but it’s not about us,” Kaufman says. “We’re just facilitators, we’re a pathway.… This is about the community becoming its next version of its best self.”

Source: “How the Jews of Color Initiative Is Funding Work for a More Inclusive Jewish Community,” Simone Ellin, Inside Philanthropy, January 28, 2021

The Council of American Jewish Museums and George Mason University’s Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media Receive Grants for Major Archiving Project Led by Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah

January 27, 2021 — The Council of American Jewish Museums (CAJM) and George Mason University’s Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (RRCHNM) are launching two new collecting initiatives with support from a group of Jewish funders, the Chronicling Funder Collaborative, to document diverse Jewish experiences of the pandemic. The Rosenzweig Center received a grant to create a web portal that will serve as a digital content hub reflecting Jewish life during this time. The grant to CAJM enables it to partner with 18 member institutions to lead a broad-based oral history collecting initiative.

The Funder Collaborative is composed of Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah, Jim Joseph Foundation, Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, and The Russell Berrie Foundation.

The web portal, led by the Rosenzweig Center in collaboration with Hebrew Theological College (HTC), will coordinate, catalog, and share digital content from institutions chronicling life in American Jewish communities during the pandemic. This effort builds upon the American Jewish Life digital collection developed last year by RRCHNM in collaboration  with six Jewish partner organizations.

“Collectors, researchers, and teachers are synergizing their efforts,” explained Zev Eleff, chief academic officer of HTC. “We all understand that this is a pivotal teaching and learning moment, freighted with so much meaning for all kinds of students.”

Beginning in March 2021, individuals will be able to find relevant collections through the portal and easily contribute materials to a range of collecting institutions in different parts of the U.S.  Libraries, archives, researchers, educators, and others will be able to access all content at no cost and communicate and share content with each other.

“The Jewish community’s response to this historic moment warrants careful curating and documentation in one centralized location,” says Jessica Mack of George Mason University’s Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media. “Contrary to what many think, digital content does not last forever unless we make efforts to preserve it. With the Collaborative’s generous support, we will gather materials showing how the community adapted at this time—and share it in one accessible, central platform. Future Jewish community researchers and leaders will be able to learn about the rapid transformation of Jewish life during this time.”

CAJM’s oral history collecting campaign expands its efforts to record Jewish stories from the pandemic with its member museums.  For this new phase of grant-funded work, CAJM will partner with 18 collecting repositories across the country—from Los Angeles, Iowa, New York, Florida, and Portland, Oregon. The recording partners will utilize TheirStory—a web-based video interview platform that allows museums to record their communities’ personal accounts from their computers.  The TheirStory platform works in-tandem with Aviary, a cloud-based platform that enhances collection management and preservation functionality using cutting-edge features.

“For organizations that do the work of Jewish history, this is a defining chapter,”  says Melissa Martens Yaverbaum, Executive Director of the Council of American Jewish Museums. “The pandemic has rearranged many aspects of Jewish life—from the holidays to healthcare, mourning, milestones, the work of social justice, and the ways we create community.  Our grassroots efforts aim to reflect the breadth of the Jewish community and a myriad Jewish experiences from the pandemic era. In sharing personal stories, we’re laying the groundwork for a more inclusive future.”

Efforts to elevate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) are integral to both the web portal and oral history collecting campaign. Both entities seek to engage populations that historically have not been included in this type of collecting and interpretation, lending valuable insights into very different Jewish pandemic experiences. Both projects will work with DEI consultants and an advisory board in approaching this work with an inclusive lens and strategy.

“Holding space for diversity, equity, and inclusion is essential to the work of both these projects,” says Aaron Dorfman of Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah. “If we want these platforms to be truly useful to researchers and institutions in the future—and if we really want the community to learn from this moment—we must capture experiences representing the breadth of the Jewish community, particularly its often marginalized members.”

The Rosenzweig Center and CAJM will coordinate closely with each other as they develop both platforms.

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Since 1994, the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media has created websites and other digital media with the goal of democratizing history for scholarly, public, and educational audiences. RRCHNM brings together scholars, web developers and designers, and graduate and undergraduate students to accomplish that mission. In addition to democratizing history for the over two million people who visit its websites each year, RRCHNM is passionate about enabling the work of other institutions, especially through its ability to develop websites and software, host technical infrastructure, and manage projects and grants. RRCHNM is a research center at George Mason University, the largest public research university in Virginia and one of the most diverse universities in the United States.

The Council of American Jewish Museums (CAJM) is an association of institutions and individuals committed to enriching American and Jewish culture and enhancing the value of Jewish museums to their communities. It offers programs, networking, and learning opportunities to the Jewish-museum field, and highlights issues pertaining to the presentation and preservation of Jewish culture. It is the leading forum for Jewish museums in North America. 

Jewish professionals will receive professional development and education in leadership and Judaic studies over the course of three years

The Wexner Foundation, in partnership with the Jim Joseph Foundation, is pleased to announce Class 5 of the Wexner Field Fellowship. In what was the most competitive pool to date and in the middle of a pandemic, no less, 15 outstanding professionals were selected for this three-year intensive program. Utilizing the diverse, cohort-based learning that is the hallmark of The Wexner Foundation programs, Field Fellows will be exposed to different approaches to leadership and tools for addressing pressing issues in the Jewish community, while being integrated into The Wexner Foundation’s vast network of more than 3,000 professional and volunteer leaders in North America and Israel, including the 45 outstanding professionals who are currently in the Field Fellowship Program, as well as 40 Alumni.

Complete list of Class 5 Fellows:

• Benjamin Berger, Vice President for Jewish Education, Hillel International, Washington, DC
• Aaron Cantor, Camp Director, Emma Kaufmann Camp, Jewish Community Center of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA
• Amy Cohen, Chief Social Services Officer, JFS Executive Director, Shalom Austin, Austin, TX
• Carrie Darsky, Vice President of Talent Acquisition, Hillel International, Washington, DC
• Yoni Fein, Head of School, Brauser Maimonides Academy, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
• Rachel Gottfried-Clancy, Executive Director, Jewish Youth for Community Action, Oakland, CA
• Shira Hutt, Chief of Staff, Jewish Federation of North America, New York, NY
• Steven Ingber, Chief Operating Officer, Jewish Federation of Metro Detroit, Bloomfield Hills, MI
• Nate Looney, Manager of Racial Justice Initiatives, Avodah, New York, NY
• Analucía Lopezrevoredo, Senior Director, Project Shamash, Bend the Arc, San Francisco, CA
• Danielle Natelson, Design Strategist, UpStart, Los Angeles, CA
• Mindy Schachtman, Chief Development Officer, Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, New York, NY
• Alexandra Shklar, Director of Strategic Partnerships and the Centennial Campaign, JDC, New York NY
• Dov Wilker, Atlanta Regional Director, American Jewish Committee, Atlanta, GA
• Alex Zablotsky, Managing Director, PJ Library, Harold Grinspoon Foundation, Agawam, MA

The Wexner Foundation has more than 30 years of experience developing excellence in Jewish professionals and volunteer leaders in North America. The Wexner Field Fellowship was created in 2013 in partnership with the Jim Joseph Foundation to focus on developing promising Jewish professionals’ leadership skills while enveloping them in a rich network of Jewish colleagues. Wexner Field Fellows engage in a diverse, cohort-based leadership learning program.

Fellows are selected based on their past accomplishments, current motivation and engagement, and exceptional attributes they will contribute to the cohort of 15 diverse Jewish professionals of which they will be a part. Class 5 will start the program virtually and ultimately come together through in-person intensive institutes where they will be exposed to Jewish educational and professional growth opportunities, while addressing their unique needs of career and personal progress.

“The need to support emerging professional leaders in the Jewish ecosystem has never been more pressing. As we’ve seen during this unique application cycle, the field is richly blessed. I am excited about the ways in which these 15 midcareer Jewish professionals will contribute to the Wexner Field Fellowship and more importantly to the Jewish organizations and communities they will lead,” said Rabbi B. Elka Abrahamson, President of The Wexner Foundation. “This new cohort of transformational leaders will add mightily to the community of Wexner Fellows and Alumni shaping the Jewish future.”

As with the first four classes of Field Fellows, Class 5 is comprised of dynamic Jewish professionals at pivotal moments in their careers. Fellows work in Jewish federations, summer camps, advocacy and social justice organizations, day schools, national organizations and local institutions across North America. To get more info about each Fellow, please click here.

“This cohort represents the Wexner Foundation’s ongoing commitment to elevate diverse voices and perspectives among leaders in Jewish engagement and education,” says Barry Finestone, President and CEO of the Jim Joseph Foundation. “There are deeply committed, talented leaders across the Jewish professional landscape. The Wexner Field Fellowship offers 15 of them a special opportunity to learn and grow at a moment filled with immense challenges and opportunities.”

As part of this three-year intensive professional development program, Wexner Field Fellows:

• Become part of a selective cohort of lifelong professional learners.
• Learn with amazing leadership teachers and Jewish educators.
• Receive one-on-one professional coaching and Jewish learning, along with access to funds toward customized professional development opportunities.
• Develop a nuanced appreciation for the diversity of the North American Jewish community.
• Focus on developing strengths in adaptive leadership, storytelling, difficult conversations, negotiation and other crucial leadership skills.

About The Wexner Foundation
Led by Leslie and Abigail Wexner, The Wexner Foundation focuses on the development of Jewish professional and
volunteer leaders in North America, public leaders in Israel and Jewish teenagers in Columbus. With a respect for the
diversity of Jewish life, cohort-based learning and the development of a network of leaders, The Wexner Foundation has
never wavered from its focus on Jewish leadership excellence. www.wexnerfoundation.org

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More than 1,200 students worldwide have already signed up for the free classes.

Hillel International will be launching an initiative to connect students virtually amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Dubbed “Winterfest,” from the start of the spring semester until the end of next January, Hillel will be organizing 170 small-setting experiences that will be held at universities in nine countries across the world.

”The story of our namesake, Hillel the Elder, being brought in from the cold, snowy roof to be warmed by the hearth of the Beit Midrash (House of Learning) within speaks to the ways the rabbis imagined that Torah could warm the soul and the body,” Hillel’s Vice President For Jewish Education Rabbi Benjamin Berger said. “With Hillel Winterfest, we can create cozy environments of learning that warm the soul, the mind and the body.”

“While this moment doesn’t allow students to be together in the ways they need and we wish they could be, we can still leverage the expertise we’ve built over the past year to create small groups that, even over Zoom, foster community and learning,” Berger added.

The programs are intended to provide substantive Jewish learning to students on and off campus, all the while combating social isolation by fostering connections among Jewish students amid the health crisis.

The program, sponsored by the Maimonides Fund and Jim Joseph Foundation through the Jewish Community Response and Impact Fund, will launch the small-setting experiences throughout Belarus, Canada, France, Georgia, Germany, Israel, Russia, Ukraine and the US.

Berger notes that normally the college experience allows students to create countless personal connections, and with that grow increasingly independent overtime. However, amid the health crisis, many new students have to forego this experience within their first year or two of college, as current health guidelines do not allow for these types of interactions.

“Many of the most meaningful experiences students have at Hillel are in smaller groups. With Winterfest, Hillel is building on the Jewish concept of a minyan – a gathering of 10 people with a specific purpose – to bring light and warmth to students during this dark time,” said Hillel President and CEO Adam Lehman.

“We learned from the work we did to support Jewish college community throughout this year, and we found that activities where students could gather in cohorts, which met regularly, generated better attendance and interest than drop-in or one-off activities. This is what students are looking for and that is what Winterfest will provide,” Lehman added.

More than 1,200 students worldwide have already signed up for the free classes.

Source: “Hillel Int’l launches educational winter initiative amid coronavirus,” Jerusalem Post, January 6, 2020

This is the third piece in series in eJewish Philanthropy on the new report from CASJE, conducted by Rosov Consulting, Facing the Future: Mapping the Marketplace of Jewish Education during COVID-19 Read the first piece and second piece in the series on the growing opportunities of full-time work in Jewish education and on what educational offerings parents are prioritizing.

The recent interchange between Andrés Spokoiny and Russel Neiss about what Spokoiny called the “democratization of quality” accelerated by COVID-19 captures two competing visions of Jewish education and the role of the Jewish educator. Spokoiny was celebrating increased access to high quality educational content from anywhere in the world, often free of charge. Neiss saw another instance of misguided seduction by broadcast technology, at the expense of “empower[ing] our teachers and learners with the skills and permission to reinvision, remix and renew our tradition for themselves.”

We don’t intend to take a position in this argument. We want to underline how the perspectives articulated get to the core of one of the more confusing implications of COVID-19 for providers of Jewish education. These perspectives reflect an emerging reality where in many instances, the local and national are no longer well defined, discrete and complementary. They are experienced as competing goods, often within the same organization. This clash between these local and national goods occurs along a spectrum from the benign to the potentially malignant.

We’ve observed this continuum during the course of a major study of the career trajectories of Jewish educators led by CASJE (Consortium for Applied Studies in Jewish Education), supported by the Jim Joseph Foundation and William Davidson Foundation, and conducted by Rosov Consulting.[1] Our reflections here constitute the final installment of insights derived from a recently released interim report, Facing the Future: Mapping the Marketplace of Jewish Education during COVID-19. In this report, based on one strand of the larger CASJE study, we saw the clash between the local and the national as confronted specifically by employers. We outline here how the tension between local and national plays out in a number of sectors of Jewish education, most prominently among youth serving organizations.

The relationship between local and national has been experienced as more confluence than clash among institutions like JCCs and Hillels. Despite having to downsize or furlough their staff in some cases, individual providers with well-developed local identities are, more often than usual, drawing on content and human resources from their larger institutional networks to serve populations essentially trapped at home. The providers maintain their distinct identity while functioning as portals to broader movements.

Things get more complicated in other sectors. For congregational schools, for example, the clash is not so much local versus national, as local versus distant. If their programming now is fully online, many Directors prioritize finding the best people for this moment, wherever they are located. They’re looking for people who can both communicate via this medium and are sensitive to children’s needs at this time. In a previous piece, we noted how this resulted in downsizing staff capacity, letting local people go, and assigning more hours to the strongest educators, sometimes from further afield. These choices prompt concerns about the challenge of rebuilding teams when learners come back into the building. The urgent need now, however, is to do whatever it takes to be relevant and responsive.

For youth serving organizations (YSOs), the choices between local and national are perhaps most difficult. Youth programming depends on finding appropriate and, ideally, able advisors who are geographically proximate to the audience. At the moment, though, geography is no longer a limitation. Some of the largest YSOs, such as BBYO and NCSY, set the bar high when early in the pandemic they created national portals and apps for online resources and programming accessible for individual teens. This has meant that YSOs have been able, first, to ask themselves optimally what they want to accomplish rather than what is possible to accomplish given locally available talent. They then identify the best-qualified people – outside experts if needed – to help achieve their goals – without being limited by location. In fact, they have additional flexibility now because they don’t need to worry about staff-teen ratios in a supervisory sense when programming online. As one director put it, “we don’t have to hire new staff, we can go back to known performers.”

While these circumstances have created a moment of opportunity, some are wrestling with a series of accompanying complications. Local-level youth programming has been hit by the financial challenges of the present moment. Youth professionals were among the first staff to be let go or furloughed by congregations and by other local providers. And, when communities are reopening or seeking to reestablish personal connections among teens and between teens and near peers, there is evidence that some organizations see internships rather than rehires as a more attractive locally-based option when it comes to staffing. There is a danger that a sector that gradually professionalized in recent years will be degraded by financial pressures.

Additionally, one of the greatest strengths of YSOs has always been their ground-game, their ability to form relationships with young people and create opportunities for them to spend time with one another and shape their own experiences. These assets have been badly battered and might be hard to rebuild. At the same time, with so much programming now flowing from central sources, the quality of these offerings is much more consistent and may even be higher. Some of it is said to be exceptional. This, we believe, is the dilemma at the crux of the interchange between Spokoiny and Neiss.

On the one hand, because of their national reach, the YSOs have been able to bring exceptional new content to their participants, and at the same time they are fearful for the future of their prize assets – the local personnel who can form a direct connection with youth. The question is can they somehow hold on to both.

The pandemic has changed the rules of the youth-serving game, and those of other sectors too. These changes do not simply pose questions about staffing and capacity. The dilemmas surfaced are essentially reflective of competing visions of Jewish education. To what extent is Jewish education about the cultivation of relationships, and to what extent is it about initiation into content? The pandemic requires us to confront ultimate questions of this kind.

The multi-year research project is generously funded by the William Davidson Foundation and Jim Joseph Foundation.

Frayda Gonshor Cohen, EdD, is a Senior Project Leader at Rosov Consulting, a mission-driven company that works with funders and grantees to inform and improve Jewish education and engagement.

Alex Pomson is Principal and Managing Director at Rosov Consulting, For more information, visit RosovConsulting.com.

^[1] As part of this study, we conducted interviews and focus groups during July and August of this year with 75 individuals responsible for hiring Jewish educators in a wide span of educational institutions: overnight and day camps, Hillels, day schools, congregations and afterschool programs, JCCs, and early childhood centers.