The Shalom Hartman Institute’s Beit Midrash for New North American Rabbis (Rabbanut North America) is training visionary leaders in the Jewish texts, ideas, and skills they need to lead the North American Jewish community as cutting-edge rabbis.
From the Foundation Team
As we wade into uncharted waters as a country, I want to try and step back just a bit to explore what I believe is an especially essential quality for organizations and organizational leaders within our field to exhibit at this moment: genuine leadership.…
From the Foundation Team
The Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative invests, with local funders, in new approaches to Jewish teen learning and growth in ten communities around the country. One strategic element of this endeavor is that each community builds…
From the Foundation Team
That seems like the perfect title for this first blog. As I continue to settle into my role as President and CEO at the Jim Joseph Foundation, I feel welcomed by my colleagues, the Foundation Board, and so many of you who have sent congratulatory notes…
From the Foundation Team
On a Sunday earlier this month, I witnessed the burgeoning future of Jewish teen education in San Diego. As part of the new Motiv Initiative–the Jewish Teen Initiative in San Diego supported by the Jewish Federation of San Diego County, the Lawrence…
From the Foundation Team
This past summer, at the first ever Jewish Outdoor, Food, Farming, and Environmental Education (JOFEE) gathering at Isabella Freedman Retreat Center, a group of practitioners and foundation professionals came together around the shared purpose of building…
From the Foundation Team
When the Jim Joseph Foundation was founded in 2006, board members and other leaders in Jewish education held a series of meetings to determine a set of “strategic funding priorities.” While the foundation’s generous benefactor, Jim Joseph, z”l,…
From the Foundation Team
I bet my parents are not surprised that I work for a Jewish organization. How could they be? After all, I have been an active member of the Jewish community from my earliest days. Attending Congregational School, spending summer after summer at Jewish…
From the Foundation Team
In mid-September, we attended Service Matters: A Summit on Jewish Service hosted by Repair the World. We were there with more than 200 participants and 35 organizational partners committed to elevating the place of volunteer service in American Jewish…
From the Foundation Team
In this, my penultimate blog as Executive Director for the Jim Joseph Foundation (read the first blog in this series here), I revisit a theme I have discussed numerous times in the past decade. For years, I have asserted that foundation personnel who…
From the Foundation Team
One of the many privileges of having served as Executive Director of the Jim Joseph Foundation has been ample opportunity to contribute to the field of Jewish education. In personal conversations; at convenings, forums and conferences; through the Foundation’s…
From the Foundation Team
Growing up in a Jewish home, engaging with various Jewish organizations, living in Israel, and working at a Jewish foundation have allowed me to feel connected to Judaism and the Jewish Community. Participating in the Moishe House Ignite Retreat, a retreat…
From the Foundation Team
I realize that one of the first rules in communications is, “Don’t bury the lead!” And yet, I feel compelled to begin with a bit of context before actualizing my metaphor. As a five-year transplant to the Bay Area, to say that I entered Warriors…