Elevating Creative Capacity: Celebrating Ten Years of Jewish Studio Project

Jewish Studio Project gives me space to notice the feelings inside me and move through difficult moments. I always leave our sessions feeling shifted—more grounded, with renewed energy to move forward. – JSP Participant

As communities and institutions navigate uncertainty, grief, and rapid change, Jewish Studio Project’s distinctive blend of Jewish wisdom, creative process, and leadership development is more salient than ever. To celebrate the organization’s tenth anniversary and the growth of its national movement, JSP recently hosted We the Process—a unique livestream event with watch parties across the country that centered a bold idea: creativity isn’t extra, it’s essential for meeting the challenges of our time and imagining new futures.

Genesis opens with chaos and void. Creation doesn’t wait for clarity; it begins in the dark. At a time when fear constricts our collective imagination, creativity is how we participate in that original creative act again—bringing new worlds into being. – Rabbi Adina Allen, co-founder of Jewish Studio Project

Rabbi Adina and fellow co-founder Jeff Kasowitz, together with the JSP staff and board teams, welcomed more than 400 people to “We the Process” for a joyful, meaningful experience full of music, storytelling, deep learning, art-making, and more. The event featured inspiring reflections from Susan Magsamen, founder of the International Arts + Mind Lab and author on neuroaesthetics, and Báyò Akómoláfé, global speaker and author exploring posthumanist futures. Krista Tippett, Peabody Award-winning journalist and host of On Being, joined Rabbi Adina for a rich conversation about the spiritual power of creativity. All three featured guests emphasized that creativity is a core capacity to strengthen resilience, deepen moral imagination, and equip communities to stay in relationship across difference when certainty collapses.

It matters that we are creators now and healers now…Reinvigorating who we are with the depths of tradition in ways that speak to what the world needs and is longing for. – Krista Tippett at We the Process

This is the moment when we need projects like these, and communities like these, that can play at the threshold of a world with its striking fecund aliveness and its indeterminacy, to blast open new spaces of power.– Báyò Akómoláfé at We the Process

When we create together, we are not escaping reality, we are building capacity to meet it. We are literally reshaping our neural pathways and rehearsing new futures. – Susan Magsamen at We the Process

The celebration also marked a major milestone for JSP’s future: a successful fundraising campaign that exceeded its $500,000 goal with over 550 people donating, reflecting a growing recognition across the field that creativity is not a luxury, but a vital resource for Jewish life and leadership.
In its first decade, JSP engaged tens of thousands of individuals—including educators, clergy, artists, and institutional leaders—across hundreds of Jewish organizations nationwide. Now there are more ways than ever to engage with JSP’s work: through Creativity Circles (peer-led communities of practice); the Studio Immersive (a deep dive into creative process and Jewish learning); the Educators Studio (a Fellowship designed to revitalize Jewish educators); professional development offerings (for organizational teams, fellows, and alumni); and a growing national network of facilitators and partners. Moving forward, JSP is ready to scale its reach and impact, helping more Jewish leaders, educators, and community members unlock the creative capacity to not only navigate this moment—but to shape a more connected, resilient, and life-giving future.

Watch JSP’s New Feature Video

Learn more at jewishstudioproject.org. The Jim Joseph Foundation is a supporter of JSP.