News & Blogs Category: Partners in the News

The field of Israel studies emerged two decades ago as a reaction against the politicization (read: anti-Israel bias) of Mideast studies departments in U.S. universities. The new field, spearheaded by the creation of Israel studies centers at Emory and American University in 1998, was designed to give scholars a place for research, collaboration and teaching unencumbered by political litmus tests.

Today the field of Israel studies is robust and on the upswing, according to those who spoke at the June 25 opening keynote of the 34th annual Association for Israel Studies conference, held this year for the first time at UC Berkeley. Forty universities worldwide have adopted an Israel studies center, program or chair, including San Francisco State University, UCLA and CSU Chico.

“Israel studies is growing,” said Ken Bamberger, founding director of the 6-year-old Berkeley Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies, one of the newer centers helping to raise the profile of the field. “This area of studies is at a real growth point.”

The three-day conference this week drew some 300 academics, mostly from North America and Israel, and boasted a rich schedule of panel discussions on a variety of topics, from the lingering societal effects of the 1948 war and consideration of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to more esoteric investigations such as “Zionism and the Question of Jewish Whiteness” and “Israeli Women in Cinema.”

Law professor Pnina Lahav of Boston University attended a panel on gender politics in Israel, which included a discussion of Islamic and Jewish feminist efforts within the rabbinic and shariah court systems. “I learned a great deal,” she said, calling the discussion “fascinating.”

“It’s important for people to understand that Israel is a coat of many colors,” said Lahav, a former president of the Association for Israel Studies. “Some we don’t like, and some we adore. Some of us are still hoping to restore the Israel we love.”

It was a real coup for Bamberger and the Berkeley Institute to be chosen as hosts for this year’s conference. Berkeley is, after all, a town more known for its anti-Israel activism. At the opening night gathering, Bamberger joked that when a colleague learned the conference would be held at Cal, he remarked, “hell has frozen over.”

But, Bamberger continued, six years of the Berkeley Institute’s work offering courses, bringing in visiting Israeli scholars and hosting public lectures has helped change some attitudes in the East Bay and beyond. “Berkeley has put our own special stamp on Israel studies,” he said. “The fact that Berkeley is hosting the annual AIS conference is a testament to the leadership position this campus has achieved since the program was launched just 6½ years ago.”

Current AIS president Donna Robinson Divine, a professor of Jewish studies and government at Smith College, agreed with Bamberger’s assessment, saying that she’s been pursuing his team for several years and considers it a coup for the association to finally land Berkeley, not the other way around.

“Why wouldn’t we?” she responded when asked about bringing the conference here. “We interrogate the history, society and culture of Israel to learn more about it, to pose questions that haven’t been posed and pass it on to the next generation. It’s fitting that we would hold our conference in the very place that transformed and defined the campus culture for the United States and the rest of the world.”

If the decision to hold the conference in Berkeley was easily made, the discussion over next year’s proposed location in Israel has been fraught, particularly given the Israeli government’s recent law banning entry to supporters of BDS, which promotes anti-Israel boycotts, divestment and sanctions.

Haifa University president Ron Robin, who received his Ph.D. at UC Berkeley, addressed the controversy during his keynote address, coming down on the side of keeping the conference in Israel. Noting that academics get “kicked out” of many countries, including the United States, for their political views, he said: “State law eclipses academic freedom everywhere. If a country denies access, that scholar can still pursue his or her academic pursuits. It’s of far greater concern when those discriminatory practices are employed by our own professional associations — it’s a travesty.”

Recalling how he was forced to leave the American Studies Association, which approved an academic boycott of Israel in 2013, he said, “The best remedy to the abrogation of freedom is advocacy of more freedom.”

The AIS is a scholarly organization, not a pro-Israel advocacy group, noted University of Pennsylvania political science professor Ian Lustick during the evening’s Q&A, and its members include academics who might be barred entry from Israel because of their political views.

“The decision whether to meet in Israel next year is partly tactical, and partly moral, a question of principle,” he said. “What gives our organization its energy is access” to a wide range of views. Noting that the donor base that supports Israel studies “is very pro-Israel,” he warned against letting that color what should remain a global community of scholars. “We don’t want to become an organization of Israelis talking to other Israelis,” he said.

Caught as she was leaving the session for the opening night dinner, Robinson Divine said the issue would be decided the next afternoon. “Unless I’m impeached, we’ll be meeting next year in Kinneret,” she told J.

And so it went — on June 26, the AIS voted to keep its 2019 conference in Israel, at Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee. And Robinson Divine is still president.

Source: “Israel Studies confab comes to UC Berkeley,” J – The Jewish News of Northern California, Sue Fishkoff, June 27 

The Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) hopes to fill a summer camp gap with the debut of the 6 Points Creative Arts Academy in suburban Philadelphia, according to Director Jo-Ellen Unger.

The camp, which opens June 26 and draws inspiration from URJ’s sports camp in North Carolina and the science and technology camp in Massachusetts, will focus on creativity, curiosity, grit and craftsmanship.

Open to students in grades three through 10, the camp is designed to attract young people who may not have originally chosen a Jewish camp because they did not want to give up their love for the creative arts, Unger said. The camp aims to fill that void by providing a place where campers can sharpen their art skills, work collaboratively and have fun while exploring how Reform Jewish values connect to their love of art.

The idea of the camp is to connect art and Judaism through the disciplines of culinary arts, dance, theater, music and visual arts. Unger explained that by talking to campers, the academy has come up with a way for them to hone in on their fields of choice.

Campers in grades three through six, who are more likely to still be deciding on their field, will have the ability to choose two workshop otions per session, Unger said. On the other hand, “the older campers know who they are — ‘I’m a theater kid,’ I’m a culinary kid.’ They already have that focus.”

Because of that, campers in grades 7-10 select one major studio. The older campers are also able to select a session-long or week-long minor in areas such as piano, guitar, cooking, pottery and drawing.

Performances and showcases of both the campers’ work and work from visiting artists will be a prominent part of the schedule. In addition, all campers are contacted by their mentors prior to camp to set personal growth goals.

While auditions are not required, campers in grades three to six are expected to have experience in dance if they plan on choosing that workshop, and those in grades seven through 10 should have prior experience if they want to choose dance, music, theater or visual art.

Although the camp focuses on creative arts, time is provided each day for the campers to clear their heads. All campers participate in “kinesthetic arts” or, as Unger called it, non-competitive sports, which include swimming, Frisbee and soccer.

“If you want to play tennis badly, come find me,” she joked.

In the evenings, the programming includes luaus, bonfires and other classic camp activities.

Campers are given a break from their usual routines on Shabbat, and are offered electives named “Shabbat Shalectives” such as canoeing and tie-dyeing. They also are able to choose how they want to get involved in the community’s weekly Shabbat. Some may choose to bake challah one week and participate in the camp’s a cappella group the next.

The 6 Points Creative Arts Academy will be held on the campus of the Westtown School in West Chester, which features air-conditioned housing, a lake, a pool, a ropes course, nature trails and a working farm.

The farm is organic and the source for the produce eaten at camp. The school is a certified green center, which means the camp will be incorporating nutritional education into its meals so the campers grow to appreciate the food they eat, Unger said. That initiative includes sourcing food locally, with 37 percent of food coming from the community.

The camp’s price varies by the number of 12-night sessions attended, with one session costing $3,200.

There are scholarships to subsidize camp costs, such as the One Happy Camper grant from the Foundation for Jewish

Camp, which offers up to $1,000 in scholarship for a first-time Jewish summer camp experience. In addition, the Foundation for Jewish Camp provides assistance through its specialty camp incubator grant, which is funded by the Jim Joseph Foundation and the AVI CHAI Foundation.

Source: “URJ Aims to Fill Summer Void with Arts Camp,” Philadelphia Jewish Exponent, Melissa Birnbaum, June 20, 2018

What is the role of a rabbi in serving a community? 

“I think it’s the job of every teacher or leader to take Torah and translate it to our time and place. Connect heaven and earth — that’s it. It’s not an easy job but that’s our job. We have to know who we’re translating for.” 

These words from Rabbi Noa Kushner, founder of San Francisco-based religious startup The Kitchen, came during a discussion on “Post-Tribal Judaism: From Birth to Death and In Between,” at (Re)Vision: Experiments & Dreams from Emerging Jewish Communities, a conference co-hosted by the organizations of the Jewish Emergent Network from June 1–3. The gathering was attended by 150 rabbis, synagogue board members and lay leaders, funders and other Jews from across the country.

The three days of activities included interactive sessions, panels, guest speakers and opportunities for networking, davening, singing and creating community. Sessions were held at The Mark and Morry’s Fireplace, and Shabbat was hosted by IKAR, the L.A. member of the network, at Shalhevet High School. In addition to IKAR and The Kitchen, the network includes Kavana in Seattle, Mishkan in Chicago, Sixth & I in Washington, D.C., and Lab/Shul and Romemu in New York City. 

“These organizations came together out of a longing for camaraderie and then realized they could deepen impact and raise each other up,” said the network’s program manager, Jessica Emerson McCormick. At the conference, she said, “I heard conversations ranging from sharing best practices to ‘Let’s get on the phone before the chagim and connect in a spiritual way; let’s be there for each other.’ The networking that happened was very rich and very satisfying; we can only raise each other up, all of us.” 

The Jewish Emergent Network was founded in 2016. Its first program, a rabbinic fellowship, aims to create the next generation of entrepreneurial, risk-taking, change-making rabbis. (Re)Vision marked the conclusion of the fellowship’s first cohort and the beginning of its second. The network’s first four years were funded through a grant from the Jim Joseph Foundation. The Crown Family, the Charles H. Revson Foundation, the William Davidson Foundation, Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah, Natan, and Maimonides Fund have also provided support. 

The program included sessions with titles such as “This, Too, Is Torah: The Spirituality of Branding & Marketing” and “Ritual 360: A Ritual Prayground Masterclass,” and “Dear Rabbi, %@$& You,” in which rabbis shared negative feedback they’ve received.

During the “Post-Tribal” discussion, Rabbi Shira Stutman, from Sixth & I, said the definition of “tribal” has changed, noting people also feel strongly connected to political perspectives, sports teams or even tattoos. “Judaism is not our only tribe. … Judaism has to look different.” 

Kushner added that she wanted to “start a movement of serious Jews. If you are for real, then I will stay up late and get up early to work with you,” she said, acknowledging that relational work “takes time and energy and there are no shortcuts.”

“Many people we serve are seekers who have been disconnected and are looking for ways to tap in,” Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie of Lab/Shul said during the session titled “Navigating the Minefield of the Great Jewish Taboo: Let’s Talk About Israel and Palestine.” “Israel used to be the connective tissue,” Lau-Lavie said, “now it’s the most divisive issue. Israel needs to be part of the recipe. We have to figure out how to do ‘both-and,’ giving people the connection of spirit so they can understand Israel in a nuanced and deep way.” 

Introducing “Pastor or Prophet,” a session on rabbinic roles, Rabbi Michael Adam Latz from Congregation Shir Tikvah in Minneapolis said, “All justice work is pastoral; it’s just done in public.” 

In this session, IKAR Senior Rabbi Sharon Brous referred to the Torah as a “fundamentally political document” and later noted that although people are “capable of hearing complex and nuanced ideas” they have to prioritize human dignity, and “there is no room in the tent” for those who do not.

Kavana’s founder, Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum, said, “All justice work begins deeply with self-work, being able to examine our privilege but implicate ourselves morally in the causing of traumas against other people.” 

“We need to deliver challenging information in doses and language that helps people take the next step,” added Mishkan founder Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann, who previously served as an IKAR rabbinic fellow.

Rabbi Chai Levy said she attended the conference looking for inspiration during a period of transition in her career. She is moving from Congregation Kol Shofar in Tiburon, Calif., to Congregation Netivot Shalom in Berkeley. 

“I was impressed and inspired by how clearly the leaders were able to articulate their unique vision for each of their communities,” Levy said. “Each one has a driving question that their community seeks to answer. … Traditional institutions can learn from their attention to ‘user experience.’ ”

Naomi Less, Lab/Shul’s associate director and founding ritual leader, said she appreciated “the myriad ways each community approaches spiritual practice. My soul is refueled when I pray with these cherished colleagues. The musical moments of spirit are beyond description.”

The core of the conference experience was the Shabbat hosted by IKAR, which included services, a multifaith program on Friday night, and on Saturday, a conversation with Congressman Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) on “What Does Moral Leadership Look Like in a Time of Crisis?” Lieu shared his frustrations with what he considered the lack of progress on gun reform, and he denounced the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

In other moments, the conference enabled participants to create their own havdalah spice jars or rituals for important life transitions. And Lab/Shul’s SoulSpa multimedia afternoon prayer program featured “Storahtelling,” a reading of verses from the upcoming Torah portion, with Lau-Lavie and Less guiding a dramatic, audience-engaging re-enactment of each verse after it was read. 

“I was really moved by how energized we all felt about what is possible in the Jewish community,” said IKAR executive director and Jewish Emergent Network chair Melissa Balaban following the conference. “Everyone left with a list of dozens of ideas to implement in their own communities, including me. It really felt like a gift to learn from and with such an extraordinary gathering of people doing creative and impactful work all over the country.”

Staff Writer Ryan Torok contributed to this report.

Source: Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, Esther Kustanowitz

JCC Association of North America has announced the inaugural Sheva Center Leadership Institute for Early Childhood Professionals with the acceptance of 31 educators into a program created to build a pipeline in the field of early childhood education of prepared leadership.

The Fellows are all currently educators and administrators in JCCs throughout North America. While participating in the three-year Sheva Center for Leadership Institute (SCLI) initiative, they will take part in six, week-long retreats and two international study tours through Israel and Reggio Emilia, Italy, each of which will incorporate aspects of the Sheva Framework – a toolbox for creating excellence in early childhood Jewish education – and the new “Growing Jewish ECE” platform, developed to nurture the entire JCC community along with the fellow. There will be monthly virtual learning seminars between the retreats.

The institute, funded with a $1.9 million grant from the Jim Joseph Foundation (JJF), builds on earlier investment by the Covenant Foundation, which founded the Sheva Covenant Directors Institute in 2014. That work showed the importance of advancing the professional development of educators in the field of Jewish early childhood education, paving the way for the expanded program funded by JJF. One goal of this institute is to build advocacy skills within the group – along with those in the Covenant-funded cohort – for continuing work in the field, focused on teacher recruitment and retention, salaries and benefits, and more.

Fellows will also focus on exemplary education practices in such areas a marketing, enrollment conversion and family satisfaction and retention. A personal mentor will work with each fellow and with the fellow’s JCC. The fellows, in turn, will complete a National Director Credential from the McCormick Center for Early Childhood Leadership at National Louis University.

The program required deep buy-in from the JCC’s that nominated their fellows. Each JCC is required to create a leadership team that will be supported during the three years by JCC Association. The team includes the JCC’s executive director, ECE director, the fellow, a JCC professional who works closely with the school, lay leaders, and parent and faculty representatives.

Source: eJewishPhilanthropy

In the early 1990s, Debra Sagan Massey was a young adult working as a youth director at Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos Hills, and Mike Friedman was one of her teen charges.

Today, 25 years later, Massey and Friedman are all grown up, and working together again — fittingly, with teens.

Massey is a senior consultant for teen education with S.F.-based Jewish LearningWorks, and as such is collaborating closely with Friedman, the director of a major new effort to engage teens in Jewish life in the Bay Area — the Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Initiative.

Part of a national push that started a few years ago, the initiative in the Bay Area is a five-year, $7.6 million endeavor with myriad Jewish agencies and entities involved. A press release in March announcing its launch noted that the program’s goal is “to provide innovative, compelling and sustainable opportunities” that get more Jewish teens of all stripes “engaged in Jewish experiences during their high school years.”

“My Jewish life was ignited when I was a teen. That set me on a life course of deepening my Jewish engagement,” said Danny Grossman, CEO of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation, one of the lead funding agencies. “Marrying Federation’s goal to ensure a thriving Jewish community in a positive way with the work of the Jim Joseph Foundation was an opportunity not to be missed.”

In 2013, the Jim Joseph Foundation provided seed funding to start the Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative, a network that now includes 10 U.S. Jewish communities, including Los Angeles, San Diego and the Bay Area.

From Boston to Atlanta to Denver, each of these communities has embarked on its own teen initiative — projects and programs that have been informed by the collaborative, local community stakeholders, local Jewish organizations and teenagers themselves.

In the Bay Area, the $7.6 million is coming from various sources: half is a 1:1 matching grant from Jim Joseph, with the S.F.-based Federation and other local funders committing to the other half over five years, including $1 million from the Lisa and John Pritzker Family Fund.

Other Jewish organizations in the Bay Area involved include the Jewish Federation of the East Bay, UpStart (an S.F.-based incubator for Jewish community innovation) and Jewish LearningWorks.

Dana Sheanin, chief learning officer at Jewish LearningWorks, said that while the Jewish community used to hope for teens to “stay Jewish, marry Jews, raise Jewish children and be active in Jewish life,” the current focus is on creating a place for teens to bring their struggles. She wants to see each Jewish teen become “a healthy, whole human being that is attached to Jewish wisdom.”

Added Massey: “For kids to have stable relationships [with adults] that aren’t necessarily a parent — that’s what the Jewish community can offer. It’s not just friends. It’s adults who can be there for them.”

To that end, one of Jewish LearningWorks’ main tasks in the initiative is to build a cadre of Jewish youth professionals who can support teens during difficult personal times and who have the knowledge and resources to do so.

Over the past few months, the agency has been working with local youth professionals on lessons they can pass down to Jewish teens. Some 90 teachers, educators and teen program leaders have taken part in text studies, Israel education sessions and workshops such as “Preventing the Next Generation of #MeToo.”

“As a youth, it’s inspiring to have someone to look up to who can inspire others to take action,” said Tevah Gevelber, a 16-year-old high school sophomore in Palo Alto and a member of the leadership council of the S.F.-based Federation’s Jewish Teen Foundation.

Professional development from Jewish LearningWorks is one of five components of the Bay Area’s Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Initiative. Another aspect is defined as an “innovation accelerator.” It calls for, among other things, the expansion and diversification of innovative teen program offerings, with the help of UpStart.

After the S.F.-based Federation’s board approved $3.8 million in grants (to be disbursed over three years), the first round of grants recently was handed out.

These include $150,000 to Camp Tawonga for its Teen Year-Round Engagement and Leadership Development Program; $150,000 to Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco for its “Gathering” programming; $145,000 to BBYO for its S.F./Marin Expansion and Enrichment Initiative; $125,000 to the Contemporary Jewish Museum for its teen council; and $150,000 to the Oshman Family JCC in Palo Alto for a program called Fun, Active, Community Service for Teens. Other grantees include the JCCSF, NCSY, Camp Ramah in Northern California, Jewish Youth for Community Action and Jewish LearningWorks.

Other components of the initiative include piloting and testing new program ideas; offering scholarships for teen participation in immersive experiences and trips to Israel; and an information hub that can be a resource center for teens, parents and the community.

“What it comes down to is, at this stage, teens need relationships with their peers,” said Terrah Yevilov, a 25-year-old who serves as the United Synagogue Youth chapter advisor at Peninsula Sinai Congregation in Foster City. She has been taking advantage of the professional development offered so far.

“I enjoy being able to foster and strengthen Jewish identity, especially for youth who may not have attended Jewish preschools or day schools,” she added.

As a teen in Orange County, Yevilov attended local USY events and as many regional USY events as “her mother would allow.” As she began climbing the youth leadership ladder, she was asked to staff the international convention in New Orleans in 2013. “What hooked me was seeing 900 Jewish teens together doing ruach [spirit] and tefilot [prayer],” she said.

Will others get “hooked” as a result Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Initiative in the Bay Area — or as a result of similar programs in the nine other Jewish communities under the auspices of the national initiative?

“That’s the $64 million question,” said Roxanne Cohen, senior program officer and philanthropic advisor at the S.F.-based Federation.

She estimated that Jewish LearningWorks’ participation in the initiative will reach 100 youth professionals, who each are regularly in touch with up to 100 teens — so the impact could be substantial.

“We are putting our toe in the water and seeing a ripple,” she said. “We are betting on the ripple.”

Source: J. – The Jewish News of Northern California, Elissa Einhorn, May 18, 2018

A new study conducted for Young Judaea (YJ) documents high levels of Jewish engagement years after the alumni participated in the youth movement’s programming. Conducted by Professor Steven M. Cohen, Research Professor of Jewish Social Policy at HUC-JIR and Director of the Berman Jewish Policy Archive at Stanford University, the survey reported high levels of religious practice, Jewish lifestyle engagement, and Israel attachment.

The study surveyed 1,937 alumni age 18 and above, for an 18% response rate. Among the US sub-sample (N=1,599) which set aside the many Young Judaeans who had made Aliyah and the few others living outside the US, the survey found:

• 90% of those married have a Jewish spouse
• 92% feel very or somewhat attached to Israel
• 93% attended a Passover Seder in the past year
• 42% of those with school-age children send them to Jewish day schools

“Young Judaea appears to strongly create a connected alumni community of individuals who are highly engaged in Jewish life and Israel,” said Professor Cohen.

Particularly notable were several comparisons of Young Judaea alumni age 25 to 39, and respondents to the 2013 Pew Research Center Portrait of Jewish Americans who were the same age, and similar parental and Jewish education background:

• 74% of young adult Young Judaea alumni reported that being Jewish is very important to them, versus 47% of Pew respondents of the same age, adjusted for parents’ inmarriage, denomination, and Jewish schooling;
• 59% of young adult Young Judaea alumni report having mostly Jewish friends, versus 35% for the statistically adjusted comparable Pew respondents of the same age.

Overall, for similar comparisons of all adults, the study also found sizeable differences between the YJ alumni and the sub-sample from the Pew study. Among YJ alumni, 68% have mostly Jewish friends, as compared with 38% in the Pew comparison group. Other indicators with sizeable gaps include Shabbat candle-lighting (54% vs. 28%), in-marriage (90% vs. 70%), and feeling very attached to Israel (63% vs. 44%).

These comparisons, and the influence of Young Judaea on its alumni, are even more apparent when compared to Pew study respondents at large (see: YJ Alumni Highlights Executive Summary / infograph).

“Young Judaea’s highly meaningful immersive experiences of summer camps and Israel programs, coupled with transformative peer leadership opportunities provides a holistic socializing and educational system that inspires life-long connectedness,” said Simon Klarfeld, Executive Director of Young Judaea and veteran Jewish educator.

Additionally, the levels of Jewish engagement from the 2017 survey nearly matched or surpassed that of the last study of Young Judaea alumni, conducted in 1998, on almost all of the major indicators of Jewish engagement. The only exception found was in lower levels of synagogue and Jewish organizational membership, reflecting larger trends in Jewish life and American society. “The parallels between 1998 and 2017 are particularly impressive given the many changes in the American Jewish community in the last 20 years,” said Professor Cohen.

“For those who are understandably concerned about the future of the American Jewish community, the policy implications generated by this survey are very clear,” said Klarfeld. “Young Judaea experiences – whether in America or Israel – continue to lead the field of pluralist Jewish and Israel programming in having a positive and lasting impact on former participants. Young Judaea offers a proven answer to the question of how we should be engaging and educating young Jews today.”

source: eJewishPhilanthropy

Boulder and Denver early learning educators from our Jewish Early Childhood Education (ECE) centers are sharing their talents and increasing their knowledge through a new Cross Community Learning Exchange to elevate the importance of Jewish ECE. Ten local ECE educators are taking part in a peer learning cohort with ten ECE educators from the Greater Chicago area to strengthen their teaching skills. The group met in Boulder in early April and will meet in Chicago later this year. Monthly virtual meetings will take place in between.

Jewish ECE is a key program area of JEWISHcolorado, supporting its mission of engaging the next generation in Jewish life. Studies point to the first five years of a child’s life as the most important years for building cognition, character and identity. With these developmental milestones in mind, Boulder and Denver Jewish early childhood educators strive to engage families and weave Jewish values and culture into daily experiences at ECE centers through top quality teaching.

JEWISHcolorado’s Director of Early Childhood Education, Judi Morosohk, said local educators are thrilled with this national recognition and excited to share their efforts with other communities. “Collaboration with others always provides a path to new insights and learning and we look forward to the impact this learning exchange will have on both of our communities and the overall field of Jewish ECE.”

The Community Learning Exchange is made possible by grants from The Jim Joseph Foundation and Rose Community Foundation. Rose Community Foundation Senior Program Officer Lisa Farber Miller shares, “Jewish ECE centers play an influential, yet often unrecognized, role in introducing children and their families to Jewish life and provide a venue for lasting Jewish friendships.”

Boulder and Denver Jewish ECE currently involves 220 educators teaching 1,100 children in 11 schools. “These educators are working to build healthy, successful learners and provide current and future Jewish engagement for Colorado families,” said Morosohk.

Michele Weingarden is the Communications Manager for JEWISHcolorado. Founded in 1946 and formerly known as Allied Jewish Federation of Colorado, JEWISHcolorado is the umbrella community organization focused on stewarding and strengthening Jewish community in Colorado, Israel and the world. JEWISHcolorado is a member of the Jewish Federations of North America, which is among the top ten charities on the continent. JEWISHcolorado raises and distributes funds in support of a wide variety of programs and partner organizations both locally and globally. For more information, visit www.JEWISHcolorado.org

Source: Boulder Jewish News

First cohort of teen engagement professionals will build skills around new outcome–driven approach

From June 1 – 3, 2018 in Los Angeles, the Jewish Emergent Network will gather with thought leaders from around North America for (RE)VISION: Experiments & Dreams From Emerging Jewish Communities, a dynamic, content-rich, Shabbat-based conference held at IKAR and co-hosted by the Jewish Emergent Network organizations: IKAR in L.A., Kavana in Seattle, The Kitchen in San Francisco, Mishkanin Chicago, Sixth & I in Washington, D.C., and Lab/Shul and Romemu in New York.

“Conference participants can expect to encounter innovative approaches to ritual and prayer, experience a diverse spectrum of music, explore vibrant models of radically welcoming community engagement, develop strategies for navigating justice and moral leadership, and be immersed in the best practices of the Jewish Emergent Network communities and other pioneering Jewish organizations from around the country,” says Melissa Balaban, Chair of the Network and Executive Director of IKAR.

The three full days of content will feature laboratories, galleries, interactive experiments, panels, guest speakers and other creative learning modules, with plenty of time built in for networking, davening, singing and creating community. Registration is open to the public: rabbis, cantors, Jewish professionals, lay leaders, academics, philanthropists, activists and interested-folks-at-large are invited to nab the remaining spots at www.JewishEmergentNetwork.org.

(RE)VISION will also be the official introduction of the Network’s second cohort of select, early career rabbinic fellows and the farewell sendoff for the first cohort. The goal of the Network’s hallmark Rabbinic Fellowship is to create the next generation of entrepreneurial, risk-taking change-makers, with the skills to initiate independent communities and who are valuable and valued inside existing Jewish institutions and synagogues.

The second cohort will follow in the path of the first cohort to become steeped in the spirit and best practices of the Network organizations. Each will finish the two-year Fellowship poised to educate and serve an array of target populations, especially Jews not currently engaged in Jewish life, young adults and families with young children. While engrossed in the work of thriving Network communities, the Fellows will also receive in-depth training and immersive mentoring as part of a national cohort of creative, vision-driven rabbis eager to invest in the reanimation of North American Jewish life.

The just-hired cohort of Network Fellows includes: Keilah Lebell at IKAR in Los Angeles, Josh Weisman at Kavana in Seattle, Tarlan Rabizadeh at The Kitchen in San Francisco, Jeff Stombaugh at Mishkan in Chicago, Jesse Paikin at Sixth & I in Washington, D.C., and Emily Cohen at Lab/Shul in New York. (You can see their bios, here.) The outgoing cohort includes Rabbi Nate DeGroot (IKAR), Rabbi Sydney Danziger (Kavana), Rabbi Jonathan Bubis (The Kitchen), Rabbi Lauren Henderson (Mishkan), Rabbi Suzy Stone (Sixth & I), Rabbi Kerry Chaplin (Lab/Shul), and Rabbi Joshua Buchin (Romemu).

The communities in the Network do not represent any one denomination or set of religious practices. What they share is a devotion to revitalizing the field of Jewish engagement, a commitment to approaches both traditionally rooted and creative, and a demonstrated success in attracting unaffiliated and disengaged Jews to a rich and meaningful Jewish practice. While each community is different in form and organizational structure, all have taken an entrepreneurial approach to this shared vision, operating outside of conventional institutional models, rethinking basic assumptions about ritual and spiritual practice, membership models, staff structures, the religious/cultural divide and physical space.

Seed funding for the first four years of this program has been generously provided through a grant from the Jim Joseph Foundation. Additional support is provided by the William Davidson Foundation, the Crown Family, the Charles H. Revson Foundation, Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah, and Natan. Network members are continuing to secure additional program funding over the next two years.

Source: eJewishPhilanthropy

The iCenter for Israel Education, in partnership with the George Washington University’s Graduate School of Education and Human Development, is proud to launch a new Graduate Certificate in Israel Education. In this first-of-its kind Certificate program, cohorts of professionals will engage in serious Israel studies and integrate their learning explicitly with best practices in experiential education.

What is the impetus for this? Jewish professionals are thirsty for engaging with Israel education at increasingly academic levels. In recent surveys of over 700 alumni, 92% indicated interest in additional professional development in Israel education. This commitment for ongoing development, learning, and growth – beyond undergraduate and even graduate studies – conforms to trends in the broader marketplace for advanced academic certificate programs.

The last decade has witnessed the establishment of Israel education as a recognized dimension of North American Jewish life. Now the field of Israel Education is ready to take another leap forward – the professional development of a generation of Israel education professionals versed in academic Israel studies combined with skills in the implementation of Israel education in practice. Such professionals will combine deep Israel passion and rigorous Israel Studies – history, people, culture, and challenges – with leading-edge educational theory and practice in experiential education.

This program will include a renowned international faculty whose integrated vision and pedagogical approach represent a new direction in the creation of a professional Field of Israel Education. Participants in the program will explore the “big” questions of education theory along with shared case studies and field experiences so as to enable them to position themselves as field leaders to drive the agenda in this maturing and increasingly important field. This new Graduate Certificate program, with its potent mix of theory, practice, experience, and mentorship will create a new kind of Israel educator who is primed to meet the challenge of providing resonant Israel education head on.

The Graduate Certificate in Israel Education program is a cohort model in which students study with leading figures in Israel studies and in experiential education. This cohort framework enables collaborative and learning in an innovative student-accessible course delivery model (on-line, on-site and collaborative seminar in Israel with Israeli educators) as well as individualized mentoring. These platforms will enable: the development of an enhanced theory and practice of Israel education today; exploration of detailed case studies presented by program participants; consultations with leading communal figures in North America and Israel. This multi-dimensional program will both enhance the present and reimagine the role Israel in North American Jewish life for the coming decades.

We are especially excited about the opportunity for Israel education professionals to create an innovative connection with Israeli educational colleagues. This opportunity opens the possibilities of a new international community of Israeli and North American education professionals who share innovative practices as well as co-create an agenda, and shared components for the next decades of the Israel-World Jewry connection.

The Field of Israel Education has blossomed in the early part of the 21st century. We embrace this exciting next step by creating an accredited professional cadre to lead and shape the Field for the decades ahead.

For more information about the Graduate Certificate in Israel Education from The iCenter and the George Washington University, click here.

Anne Lanski is the CEO of The iCenter.

The Graduate Certificate in Israel Education is generously supported by the Jim Joseph Foundation.

Source: eJewishPhilanthropy

How much money does it take to change the landscape of early childhood Jewish education in the Bay Area? A $3.3 million long-term investment by the S.F.-based Jim Joseph Foundation, in partnership with the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation, might be doing the trick.

Now in their seventh year, the grants are funding myriad programs, including Jewish Resource Specialists (a program of the S.F.-based Federation), development training for selected JCC and synagogue early childhood educators, independent mentoring and coaching, retreats and a seminar on Israel.

Is it working? Organizers say yes. To wit, an independent evaluation of the JRS program revealed several positive findings, such as greater parent-family participation in Jewish community life, the integration of Jewish content into secular families, and new opportunities for teachers to explore Jewish early childhood education as a career path. The report was released in January.

“We see success after success of teachers infusing deeper learning for children, teachers and parents,” said Seth Linden, a program officer at Jim Joseph who oversees what is officially called the Jewish Early Childhood Education Initiative. “It’s a triple whammy.”

The pilot program launched in 2011 with three-year cohorts at five Bay Area sites; a second cohort, at 10 sites, followed in 2014.

A third cohort began in 2017 at eight sites: the JCC of San Francisco, South Peninsula Hebrew Day School (Sunnyvale), Peninsula JCC preschool (Foster City), and synagogue preschools at Temple Beth Abraham and Beth Jacob Congregation (Oakland), Congregation Beth Sholom (S.F.) and Peninsula Temple Beth El (San Mateo).

“Even though some schools had an excellent approach to the secular curriculum, the Jewish curriculum was not following suit,” pointed out Janet Harris, director of the Federation’s Early Childhood and Family Engagement Initiative. “A decade ago, Jewish educators knew about the Jewish curriculum. [But in recent years] we were finding fewer educators who are Jewish and going into early childhood education.”

To chip away at that problem, the Jewish Resource Specialists program shifts away from a traditional teacher-centered classroom to an approach that involves collaboration among children, teachers and parents.

For example, at Congregation Beth El in Berkeley, a recent Passover program for young students went beyond a teacher simply reading stories about slaves, plagues and parting seas. Here, the children made costumes and straw bricks, and were treated to a mock seder with a variety of interactive stations. One was a haroset bar (with Ashkenazi, Sephardic and Persian recipes) at which the kids prepared their own creations, put them in a jar and affixed a “Made in Egypt” sticker.

Jodi Gladstone, the early childhood education director at Beth El, said being a participant in the Jewish Resource Specialists program was key.

“Schools with a [Jewish Resource Specialist] influence a greater community, because we are digging deeper into Judaism and what we’re bringing to children and families,” Gladstone said. “It’s more meaningful. We’re building bonds with our children, and making relationships with children and parents as a community.”

Parents play a key role, as well.

Alison Poggi León of Belmont said the special programming brought “a sense of intention and consistency to Jewish learning” at the preschool run by Peninsula Temple Sholom in Burlingame.

“The JRS program allowed us to give extra education to teachers around values and themes,” said the mother of 5-year-old Maya, a “graduate” of the PTS preschool. “Events outside of the core preschool events brought the community together. It seeded what was possible for the future and set the stage for what’s to come.”

Gladstone said the JRS program is helping establish Jewish identity at a young age.

“If students feel connected to Judaism,” she said, “they will have a memory that will follow them into old age.”

Source: Elissa Einhorn, J – The Jewish News of Northern California

Foundation for Jewish Camp launches new safety program

Summer camp is an entirely immersive experience.

That is a jargon-y way of saying that when you are a child or a teenager or a young staff member, and you’re in camp, camp is your entire world. It surrounds you; you breathe it and you move through it and it coats your skin and it’s all you see and hear and touch and feel and know. While you’re at camp, nothing else matters except vaguely; if camp works for you as it does for so many campers, the rest of the year is a countdown toward camp.

Jewish summer camping is one of the most effective ways of teaching and socializing and orienting young Jews. During the time they’re at camp, Jewish campers at Jewish camps live entirely Jewishly. Their parents can choose from a range of Jewish camps — Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Zionist, progressive, Yiddishist, artsy, sporty — and their children will come home with an understanding of that part of the Jewish world bonded at the molecular level.

The Foundation for Jewish Camp (not Camping, or Camps, just plain stark Camp) understands that and supports that range of Jewish camps. This week, the foundation held its seventh biennial conference, the Leaders Assembly; this year, it met in Baltimore.

Jeremy Fingerman (All photos courtesy FJC)

The camp leaders, educators, and foundation heads who met there explored the interplay of camp and the outside world, which waits right outside every camp’s borders. This year, “we had just shy of 800 people,” the Foundation for Jewish Camp’s executive director, Jeremy Fingerman of Englewood, said. “At this conference we unveiled a new initiative to prevent harassment and abuse and bullying and inappropriate language and behavior in camp communities.”

The Foundation plans to spend $100,000 on what it calls the Shmira Initiative, to “change camp culture on all levels, implementing a shift in staff programming, training, policy and enforcement around issues of gender, sex and power,” according to its press release.

Shmira means guard duty; in Jewish summer camps, it’s the counselors’ job, making sure that their charges are safe at night. The Foundation will take that term from the literal to the metaphoric level as it “embodies the social and individual responsibility every community member has to ensure a safe environment.”

So what does that mean?

“We believe that our mission at the Foundation is to help the field adapt to rapid, unprecedented change,” Mr. Fingerman said. “We are helping to create camp communities that reflect the best of Jewish values.

“Right now, in North America, we have been experiencing a breakthrough of consciousness of sex and gender and power and violence, and for sure there has been a new spotlight shining on power and exploitation,” he said. “These issues affect all our communities, and we have to address them. Working in partnership with parents and authorities and all our Jewish institutions, we believe that we really have a chance to define what prevention and response plans are, and to lead the discussion of cultural changes in our community.”

To begin, he continued, “We will raise the awareness of camps as they go through their staff programming to create camps that are caring and safe. This is something we have been talking about for a while.”

It is important to remember that the problems that the Shmira Initiative will address are not unique to camps, he added. They’re culturally pervasive, and to some extent they’re generational — millennials feel pressured in ways that their elders did not, and the generation below them, the iGen, as Mr. Fingerman called them, who are today’s campers and young staffers, feel that even more profoundly.

A panel discussion features, from left, Julie Beren Platt; Lisa Eisen, Barry Finestone, Rachel Garbow Monroe, and Deborah Meyer.

And although the problems the initiative is set to tackle are society-wide, “we had a panel, moderated by our board chair, of foundation heads, powerhouses in the Jewish world,” come to talk and to offer help. Those leaders included the Foundation’s own new board chair, Julie Beren Platt, Lisa Eisen, vice president of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation; Barry Finestone, president and CEO of the Jim Joseph Foundation; Rachel Garbow Monroe, president and CEO of the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation; and Deborah Meyer, CEO of Moving Traditions. (Irrelevant but totally fun fact — Ms. Platt is the mother of actor Ben Platt of Dear Evan Hansen, who has credited Camp Ramah in Ojai, California, as one of the places where he began to refine his craft. Don’t miss the YouTube video of him on Late Night with Seth Meyers, singing “Luck Be a Lady Tonight” from Guys and Dolls in Hebrew; he learned it, he said, by playing Sky Masterson at a Ramah production.)

“I am so proud they came to our conference,” Mr. Fingerman said. “I am so proud that they can see that we in the field of Jewish camp really want to step up and address this issue in an important way.”

Deborah Meyer

“Moving Traditions has been focused on moral development issues for a long time,” Ms. Meyer said. “How do we help understand who we are? We have been working with experts on healthy sexuality programs for years.”

Now, “we have gone to camps to train the staff, who are mainly teenagers or young adults, on issues of body image, bullying, sexuality, and the pressure to hook up,” Ms. Meyer said. It’s complicated.

For one thing, campers and counselors live in the outside world, they bring the attitudes they learn in that world, or online, with them to camp, Ms. Meyer said. For another, what she called “the pressure to hook up” often can be reframed as the communal desire to have young Jews date each other, which is in itself a good thing. “But on the other hand it can be inappropriate and problematic,” she said, insofar as it pushes often age-inappropriate sexuality on kids who are not yet ready for it. “We have come to understand that more in the last few years.”

Any kid — any person — who has access to a computer — in other words, just about everyone — sees deeply disturbing things that they cannot fit into their understanding of the world, and it can be warping. “Any kid who has a smart device today is seeing pornography, either looking for it or stumbling across it,” Ms. Meyer said. “And they are freaked out by it. We have had boys say, ‘Do I have to choke a girl?’ What they see is so aberrant.

“And girls don’t know that sex is something that they can enjoy. They learn online that sex is something that girls and women do for boys and men. They don’t know that it’s intimacy, that they do for and with each other, and they do it for love.

A scene from the Special Olympics at the JCC Camp Chi in Chicago.

“That is where Jewish values come in,” she said. “We don’t want to say that the body is bad.” And camp is embodied.” It’s physical; it’s not a disembodied intellectual experience. “You are living there, all summer long, inside your body. It’s an opportunity to teach the right values. “Sexuality is about intimacy,” she said. “You don’t get a kiss, or steal a kiss. You kiss with somebody.” It’s about choice and caring.

When Moving Traditions works with staffers, either as they get to camp to prepare for the summer or once camp has started, there is a two-step process. “The first part is when the staffers find out about the camp’s stated policies and the second part is when they talk about how things really happen,” Ms. Meyer said. “They find out that they have great policies and values but they are not always fulfilled.” Sometimes the language of teasing can be hurtful; “the words can be homophobic or gender stereotypes, and full of body image objectification. And it is not conscious.”

What does she mean? For example, campers often are encouraged to pair off for Shabbat walks; when a boy gets back to his bunk, his friends “might put a chair in the middle of the room, and he is asked to sit there and tell them exactly what happened on the walk.” Hand-holding, kissing, the sort of intimacy that is appropriate for teenagers but not meant to be shared with anyone else.

“It is not a conscious thing,” Ms. Meyer said. “It is not as if they are pushing boys to push girls to have sex. But it comes out of their tradition, out of the camp culture that has developed over many decades.

Campers at Ramah in the Poconos celebrate Israel Day.

“It is inappropriate,” she said. “This counselor may be a 19-year-old and this is what happened to him when he was in this camp. He might not remember that not all boys want to do this. It is not coming from a place of venality, or of consciously trying to pursue an agenda. He would have thought that it was funny and sweet.” But it’s not.

These exercises help the staff assess the differences between the camp’s beliefs, policies, and goals, and the reality of camp life. The fact that it falls short isn’t shocking — it’s a human institution — but pointing it out helps staffers keep their real goals and values in mind.

“We work with counselors to help them see the issues for themselves, and then we help them figure out how to approach the kids,” Ms. Meyer said.

“In the earlier grades, we find that crushes are kind of pushes. This is an unconscious agenda, not a planned curriculum, but somehow the culture fosters the ‘Who do you have a crush on? Who do you want to be a couple with?’ when you are 8 or 9. But you’re not necessarily interested then, so why push it? Even when the kids get older, how do we foster a healthy sexuality?

“When I say sexuality, I am not just talking about intercourse,” she added. “I am talking about feelings. Feeling interested. Feeling excited. For most people, this starts happening around puberty, and we want to be able to acknowledge it and celebrate it, and also set boundaries around what is ethical and what is normal and what is not.

“Judaism is about discerning differences and setting boundaries. It is about what is Shabbat and what is chol.”

Welcoming Shabbat at URJ Camp Harlam in Pennsylvania.

There is a balance that it is necessary to remember, Ms. Meyer added. It is easy, when you talk about the Shmira Initiative and the problems it has been established to counter, to forget the joys and overwhelming value of Jewish summer camp. That would be a huge mistake.

“We have aspects of our tradition that are so beautiful, and we can access the best of comprehensive secular sexuality education and social and emotional learning, and we can connect those things,” Ms. Meyer said. “That is what Moving Traditions does. Our approach to Jewish teaching and Jewish wisdom is to show Jewish counselors and Jewish educators how to bring this teaching, this understanding of what it means to be a Jewish person into the teenage years, and then young adulthood.”

In trying to help young Jewish campers and counselors deal with the issues of sexuality that the Me Too movement has unearthed, we must not overlook the value of camp. “The good news is that we are paying attention to these things,” Ms. Meyer said. “We are working with camps across the country that really want to do it right, to integrate a healthy way of looking at it. That’s because camp culture can be so positive. We are working with camps across the country to truly foster a very positive and healthy camp culture.

“The good news is that we are paying attention to these things. How wonderful for Jewish families who send their kids to camp, who are looking to address issues from our secular world that impact our children, whether they go to public school or day school. Camp is where kids really learn to be members of a community, which is such a good thing for the Jewish community.

“We are looking at how to create a community that is based on ethical, respectful, positive behavior.

“When you think about it, the role of Judaism is redemption,” Ms. Meyer said. “It is about bringing God into the world. When we pray, when we do acts of lovingkindness, we are tapping into the divine.

“At Jewish summer camp, we want to make more of that happen. We want to make it more and more clear that we are created b’zelem Elohim — in God’s image. So how fabulous — how excellent! — that the Jewish community is investing in creating a camp culture that allows us to greet each other b’zelem Elohim.”

Source: Joanne Palmer, New Jersey Jewish Standard