Elu v’Elu: The Power of the Voices for Good Fellowship

Professional development is often described in practical terms like “new skills,” “new frameworks,” “new tools,” and “new ideas.” Yet the most powerful professional development experiences offer more than just these tangibles. They create space for reflection, relationships, confidence-building, and sustained learning that changes how we work and how we understand ourselves as leaders.

This practice of Elu v’Elu, Hebrew for both/and, was woven throughout Jewish LearningWorks‘ Voices for Good Fellowship, in which we both had the honor of participating (Rachel from 2021-2023 and Jenna from 2024-2026). The Jewish concept honors the possibility that more than one truth can exist at the same time. In the context of leadership, it invites us to resist false binaries and to stay open to complexity. Rather than choosing between concepts like reflection or action, confidence or humility, and individual growth or communal responsibility, Elu v’Elu empowers us to think about our potential when we hold these values together.

At the recent siyum (Hebrew for “completion,” often referencing the culminating celebration of Jewish study) for Cohort 3 that Jenna was part of, we further explored both/and thinking with Rabbi Dr. Tali Zelkowicz of The Wexner Foundation. This learning reinforced that holding together seemingly competing values helped make Voices for Good so powerful. That approach created space to amplify women’s voices, strengthen the Jewish community’s talent pipeline, and foster meaningful relationships among participants.

In short, the Voices for Good Fellowship modeled the kind of professional development the Jim Joseph Foundation believes is worth investing in.

In separate cohorts, we each experienced the fellowship as an intensive two-year professional learning journey. Now we are connected to the same growing network of women leaders across Jewish communal life. The siyum illuminated that network, bringing together current and past cohorts to celebrate the 35 graduates of the program and the broader community of fellows who shape Jewish communal life. The ceremony itself reflected intentionality: diplomas, pins, photos, public recognition, and the chance to celebrate one another’s growth. These details matter and served to validate the time, commitment, and learning that participants invested.

When most effective, professional development is not a break from the “real work.” It is part of the work, and it strengthens the people who strengthen organizations, communities, and the field. Voices for Good offers a model and learnings that other professional development programs can draw from:

Learning Can Be Both Relational and Practical
The Fellowship carefully cultivated an environment where relational and practical learning could thrive together. Relational learning meant that growth happened through trust, shared experience, and sustained connection with peers. Practical learning meant that we left with tools, leadership frameworks, and skills we could apply in real time. While the relationships made the tools more usable, the tools also gave the relationships a shared purpose. We learned alongside other women leaders over time, building trust with each other. We were invited to bring curiosity, contribute our gifts, listen actively, speak from “I” statements, assume good will, embrace pauses, and celebrate together. These norms created the conditions for meaningful learning.

Coaching Helps Learning Go Deeper
One-on-one coaching through the Fellowship enabled us to move beyond general concepts and apply learning to our own professional contexts. Through coaching, we examined our work at this moment, including the values that inform actions in the field and choices we can make to take action too.

For example, we leveraged coaching to help design parental leave return-to-work plans and navigate increased professional responsibilities with young children. Time for individualized reflection with our coach helped learning stick and created accountability. It enabled each of us to test new communications practices and define and stretch our own boundaries.

Strengthening Adaptive Leadership Helps to Hold Tensions
Adaptive leadership helps leaders distinguish between “technical challenges,” which can be solved with existing expertise, and “adaptive challenges,” which require learning, experimentation, and shifts in behavior, relationships, or assumptions. Adaptive leadership is especially relevant in Jewish communal and educational settings where professionals often navigate ambiguity, competing priorities, and rapidly changing needs. Sometimes in our work we try to resolve tensions too quickly, such as choosing between content or connection and rigor or accessibility. Voices for Good helped us experience that strong professional learning develops leaders who have the capacity to balance these tensions.

The Importance of Women’s Leadership and Community
The sisterhood aspect of the fellowship was central to its power. Fellowship faculty, who are incredible leaders, educators, and facilitators, modeled different ways women can lead with wisdom, creativity, courage, and authenticity. Amy Tobin, for example, guided us through personal branding and storytelling work, helping fellows think about how we communicate who we are, what we stand for, and how we want to show up as leaders. Tara Mohr, whose book Playing Big was a core part of the curriculum, similarly encouraged us to examine inner barriers to leadership, identify the voice of the inner critic and distinguish it from realistic thinking, and practice responding to self-doubt with curiosity, grounding, and values-based action.

It was deeply inspiring and supportive to learn in a community of women committed to growth, leadership, Jewish wisdom, and one another. The Fellowship lifted up talented educators and leaders as role models. Being in conversation with women across roles, organizations, and career stages expanded our sense of what leadership can look like.

Carrying the Learning Forward

The Foundation’s support of our involvement in the fellowship reflects its approach to professional development for grantee-partners and the field. Professional development is both an investment in individuals and an investment in organizational capacity, field-wide learning, leadership pipelines, and communal resilience. The field becomes stronger as more people gain new knowledge, practice new skills, and join networks of peers committed to learning and leadership.

The many professional development programs, fellowships, conferences, and learning communities in our sector each have unique qualities and all offer opportunities to reflect, gain new skills, build relationships, and learn leadership frameworks to lead with greater purpose.

That is what we experienced in Voices for Good, and why we remain committed to professional development as a vital part of building a vibrant, effective, and enduring Jewish communal field.

Jenna Hanauer and Rachel Shamash Schneider are Senior Program Officers at the Jim Joseph Foundation. Learn more about the Voices for Good Fellowship.