Cross-Portfolio Research Study: Literature Review on Jewish Leadership

On behalf of the Jim Joseph Foundation, the Center for Creative Leadership is conducting a cross-portfolio research study of leadership development in the American Jewish community to support Jewish learning experiences. The Foundation defines Jewish learning experiences broadly as “experiences that draw upon Jewish wisdom, values, practices, culture, traditions and history to engage people in activities that guide them towards living more connected, meaningful and purpose-filled lives.” The primary research questions guiding this study can be paraphrased as follows:

  1. How have Jewish leaders developed through opportunities and learning experiences?
  2. What are best practices for leadership development in the Jewish community?
  3. How can understanding the learning journeys of Jewish leaders and state of the art practices in leadership development inform strategies to achieve greater impact through investment in leadership development in the Jewish community?

This literature review represents our first step to exploring these complex questions by researching the distinguishing features of Jewish leadership and highlighting the current day challenges faced by Jewish leaders.

Cross-Portfolio Research Study: Literature Review on Jewish Leadership, Executive Summary, Center for Creative Leadership, May 2019

Read the Foundation’s series of guest blogs reflecting on the CCL literature review:

 

Values at the Core of JFNA’S Next-Gen Engagement

Parker Palmer – an educator who writes about social activism, values, and community engagement – has spent his life trying to convince teachers, civic leaders, and influencers that finding one’s inner truth is the first step in helping people achieve greater personal and professional fulfillment. The idea resonates well with Generations X and Y (millennials) and often informs the Jewish community’s next-gen engagement work. Hard-pressed to make decisions about what they want to do and who they want to be, today’s young adults struggle to understand what it means to be human in a world that constantly challenges their humanity. The result, according to Palmer, is a crisis of identity, which must be addressed.

The lesson for next-gen Jewish professionals is to address the complex issue of identity before presenting a pathway to communal engagement. Palmer’s ideas are prominently featured in an 18-month fellowship program developed by The Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) in partnership with M²: The Institute for Experiential Jewish Education and the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL). He encourages an exploration of identity through truth – starting with one’s own truth – as a path to understanding where the most fruitful intersections with the world lie. It’s a version of the idea of “meeting people where they are,” but through Palmer’s lens, the success of “the meeting” can only be achieved through deep personal understanding. “Who is the self that teaches?” is the core question Palmer asks in his celebrated book The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life, which has become a mainstay for Jewish educators since its release in 1997. His ideas, which are derived from his Quaker roots, impart important lessons.

The JFNA fellows, 20 of whom will graduate from the program’s inaugural cohort in November, are young adults hired by local Jewish federations to lead next-gen engagement work. As representatives of the market, they were directed to follow Palmer’s recommendation to explore their own identities as a first step. Their self-exploration was complemented by a rigorous set of leadership questionnaires administered by the research-based CCL in Greensboro. CCL provides fellows with analyses of their leadership competencies, communication preferences, and tolerance for change through a battery of assessment tools typically used for top corporate CEOs. The goal is to allow the fellows an opportunity to understand the values at the core of their identities and how these values affect their performances and success at work. At the end of the 18-month program, these young professionals will be more intentional about how they engage their peers and also better positioned to guide their local communities.

From the start, the initiative was experimental. Next-gen federation professionals tend to have small budgets and operate several concentric circles away from their most senior federation colleagues and local board leaders. This significant investment in their professional growth and development is supported by a grant from the Jim Joseph Foundation. Also, each federation is giving their fellows time for training and learning as well as supervision and funding for an applied learning demonstration project. Taken together, this effort is unprecedented in the Jewish community and reflects the federation’s commitment to cultivating talent and finding new ways to address one of the community’s most pressing concerns: next-gen engagement with and commitment to Jewish communal life.

Commitment, including its connection to values and identity, was also discussed. What does it mean to be committed to the Jewish people? How much of myself and my individualism am I willing to give up in order to be part of a community? These questions are central to the identity of next-gen Jewish professionals and their peers.

Presented with an endless number of ways in which to express themselves, every decision they make is riddled with complexities of who they truly are. That amorphous reality often provokes indecision and inaction. The fellows are learning to interpret and address these questions head-on in their next-gen work. They are learning to think like educators and leaders by practicing various methods that will enable them to elevate conversations about Judaism, Jewish identity, and Jewish commitment through an exploration of values.

The fellows are learning that people only make lasting commitments after they have wrestled with difficult ideas or experienced conflict. They must fall and then rise, get pushed and push back. Yet, conflict often involves risk and possible dissention – ideas not always embraced by federations that pride themselves on representing a community that speaks in one harmonious voice. To be successful, the fellows will have to counter these entrenched behaviors and solicit buy-in for new engagement tools from federation leaders.

Palmer also wrestled with similar issues related to cultural reform. He recognized that, on their own, his wisdom and passion were insufficient to ignite change. Part of the challenge he accepted was to communicate his ideas in a way that others can understand, spread, and scale. For example, he often used the word spirituality, which is loaded with various meanings and assumptions. However, Palmer reasoned, “When I actually did get around to talking about spirituality, I would say to people, before you stop listening, let me explain what that word means to me: spirituality is any way you have of responding to the eternal human yearning to be connected with something larger than yourself.” Once he provided this definition, people seemed more at ease.

The JFNA next-gen fellows aim to address an audacious and timeless question: How do we make Judaism matter for the new generation? The answer, they are being taught, can be found only by looking inside and discovering what they truly believe, for once they truly believe, they can convince others to believe as well. It’s a journey few in the Jewish communal space have had the luxury of experiencing with such intensity and commitment, and JFNA has high expectations for this group. As one fellow explained, “Ever since I came to understand the value proposition, I have not been able to stop talking about it. I have trained my colleagues, members of our federation board, and, of course, the young professionals with whom I work. Perhaps finding ways to engage the next generation in Jewish life may be just the beginning.”

Rabbi David M. Kessel is the Associate Vice President of Young Leadership and Next Gen Engagement for The Jewish Federations of North America. The second cohort of JFNA’s NextGen Fellows began in May, 2019.

Learn more about the Next Gen Jewish Federation Fellowship program here.
cross-posted in eJewishPhilanthropy

Reflecting on Growth and Learning While at the Jim Joseph Foundation

I stepped into the Jim Joseph Foundation office for the first time as a Jewish philanthropy professional around 7:45 am on Thursday, October 15, 2015. On Friday, June 7, 2019, I exited the office for the last time as a Program Officer for the Foundation. Many of us come and go from various jobs and professions, so we know what it’s like to start work, do the work, and end the work. I was honored and privileged to work here, and part of what I loved so much was the opportunity to reflect and to learn. In fact, if there’s one thing I enjoyed and appreciated most about my funder colleagues, my grantee-partners, my peers in secular philanthropy, and our trusted consultants, is how much they taught me over the past three-and-one-half years.

One of the first assignments that I received upon donning the role of Program Officer was to meet with and speak with dozens of program officers from other foundations to hear their stories: What led them to where they are now? What challenges do they see in the field of Jewish education? What opportunities on the horizon excite them? For those who know me, you can imagine this being an assignment I relished. Set up coffee dates with those wiser and more learned than me? Sign me up! I was skimming through some of these notes recently, and I must have had 30-40 conversations in those first few months to get me up to speed in the vernacular of Jewish communal life (this was, after all, my first Jewish professional job, and my first job in philanthropy. My previous 10 years had been spent running a K-12 tutoring company, and before that I was a high school math and science teacher).

My first Jewish Funders Network conference was an exciting blur of camp-meets-summit, continuing to meet new colleagues, re-connect with folks I had met virtually, and connect with a few legends in the field who my assigned first-time mentor, Jon Woocher, z’’l, made sure I met: Cindy Chazan, Joni Blinderman, and Yossi Abramowitz. As I was already starting to carve out distinct portfolios in my grantee and project work, these three helped introduce me to the worlds of Jewish leadership, early childhood education, and educational technology.

As I progressed, my feet sank deeper into learning more and more about leadership programs: What’s out there, and what works? Who are the key players? Where does the Jim Joseph Foundation currently invest, and what might a more focused leadership investment strategy look like? I remember the first presentation and discussion I led with my Foundation colleagues, based on researching our current and previous grants in the space, creating a rudimentary leadership rubric to determine which grants are “leadership grants,” and proposing a few high level ideas to inform strategic investments going forward. While some of those early ideas stuck (we led a successful Leadership Retreat in summer 2018, and are considering leadership capacity grants), others are still in formation (what would it look like to provide a coach or mentor to every Jewish professional? What would it look like to fund CEO sabbaticals?).

From this initial research, I was encouraged to explore secular leadership programs and strategies, while also continuing to dig deeper into the concept of “Jewish leadership.” Similar to my listening tour to better understand Jewish foundation professionals, I embarked on a series of conversations, focus groups, conferences, and think tanks that explored leadership from myriad angles. I met Phil Li, President & CEO of the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, whose approach to networked leadership led to the creation of the Sterling Network to bring together cross-sector leaders in New York City. I met Claire Peeps, Executive Director of the Durfee Foundation, who provides leaders in Los Angeles with a Durfee Sabbatical, and other leaders with a longer Stanton Fellowship to support them to think deeply about a complex challenge. I met Holly Delany Cole, Director of the Flexible Leadership Awards, a Haas, Jr. Initiative that provides supplemental funding to core grantee organizations to more deeply invest in customized leadership capacity solutions. These three colleagues, and many others in the Leadership Funders Group, as well as Fund the People, helped nourish my soul and quench my thirst for knowledge, introducing me to new ways of thinking and new people to meet, all of whom focused their attention squarely in the leadership space.

There are too many books, articles, blogs, and publications to recount that also informed my thinking and helped me on my journey as a foundation professional learning about leadership. But a few that sparked lasting ideas around effective leadership investing are GEO’s Investing in Leadership Strategies, HBR’s On Leadership, and Bridgespan’s Leadership Pipeline Alliance Report, which led to the formation of Leading Edge. I am indebted to my friends and colleagues at the Schusterman Family Foundation and Wexner Foundation, for their continued teaching and meta-leadership in this arena. I will always be thankful to my friends and colleagues at the Jim Joseph Foundation for their patience with my numerous questions and their desire to also think big with me. And especially to the Jim Joseph Foundation’s two senior leaders with whom I worked—Chip Edelsberg and Barry Finestone. They each mentored and coached me in their own distinct way; I am eternally grateful for the opportunities they gave me.

This July, my family and I are moving to Long Beach, where I grew up, to be closer to our kids’ grandparents. It is a very bittersweet transition, not only to leave my colleagues here, but to leave my community in San Francisco, where I have lived for nearly 25 years. We will surely grow new roots in Southern California, with the gracious and generous help of our parents, friends and relatives. I feel good about the work we’ve done together. I remain optimistic about our future. The Jewish people are strong. We are resilient. We are creative, and innovative, and educated. We are not wont for leaders or leadership—they are sitting and standing among us. I know that the skills and relationships I have formed here are without a doubt some of the strongest I have made in my lifetime, and I will carry them with me into this next phase of my career. They are built on curiosity, on humility, on vulnerability. And perhaps that is what leadership must teach all of us—to be curious, to be humble, to be vulnerable—with ourselves, and with each other.

Godspeed, my friends.

Seth Linden was a Program Officer at the Jim Joseph Foundation for 3.5 years. He is now a philanthropy consultant focusing on board culture and governance, leadership and talent development, and designing and facilitating learning retreats. He can be reached at [email protected] and you can read more at www.gatherconsulting.org.

Study finds Jewish teens flourish socially, emotionally and spiritually when connected to youth groups

There was a time when “Don’t trust anyone over 30” was the mantra for the young. But if a new study of Jewish teens—the largest of its kind ever attempted—can be believed, the situation is much different today, news that will no doubt come as a huge relief to parents.

Eighteen-year-old Yael Berrol is intimately involved in Jewish life—be it in her Conservative synagogue in Oakland, Calif., where she teaches fifth-graders in the Hebrew school; during her 10 years at Camp Ramah in Ojai, Calif.; in Israel, where she rode with an ambulance crew; or at events at her B’nai B’rith Youth Organization (BBYO) youth group.

“The best part of BBYO for me are the conventions, a real connection with Judaism and a weekend away with a bunch of Jews,” says Berrol who’s one of a handful of Jewish students in her high school. “Being together is when I feel like my true self.”

Yael Berrol and her station partner, Evan, at the Meitar MDA station outside of Beersheva. Credit: Courtesy.

More than 17,000 Jewish teens like Berrol participated in an online survey, developed by the Jewish Education Project and Rosov Consulting. Most of the names came off lists from 14 youth groups representing Jews of all backgrounds, including Bnei Akiva, National Council of Synagogue Youth (NCSY), Young Judaea, CTeen (Chabad-Lubavitch), United Synagogue Youth (USY) and the Union of Reform Judaism Youth (URJ/NFTY).

“We were basically interested in the lives of Jewish teens and understanding the impact of youth groups,” says Stacie Cherner, director of learning and evaluation at the Jim Joseph Foundation which, with the Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah, and the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, funded the study.

The funders were especially interested in teens’ social and emotional development, “how these programs impact them in these ways,” says Cherner. One happy surprise: how many teens actually took the time to complete the survey.

The almost 18,000 respondents came in part from the youth groups that contributed and from a link pushed out through social media. “And we were all impressed with the honest, thoughtful answers we got,” replies Cherner.

Among the findings:

  • Jewish teens like their parents; they enjoy spending time with their family and often look to their parents for guidance and to demystify the world around them.
  • For most teens surveyed, Jewish beliefs and practices are closely linked with their family relationships and loyalties.
  • The respondents believe teens need help in coping with pressures like academic pressure, self-esteem issues and a fear of failure.
  • Jewish teens see social media as a mixed blessing, saying it can both cause stress and help them deal with stress, as well as connect with friends and help change the world.
  • Most of the teens (75 percent) identify as Jewish (and 16 percent claim to be culturally Jewish), but many of those who say they have “no religion” also hope to engage with Judaism at some point in the future.
  • Many (45 percent) rank anti-Semitism as a problem for today’s teens, though few feel personally threatened.
  • Most of the teens (71 percent) report either a strong or very strong connection to Israel, with the majority of those who have not yet traveled hoping to do so one day.

Most crucially, the study found that teens active in a Jewish youth group (regardless of denomination) tend to flourish socially, emotionally and spiritually as compared with those who are not. They also report feeling more connected to being Jewish, have higher self-esteem and better relationships with family, friends and other adults, and feel empowered to make positive change in their world.

“The parental issue was the big surprise,” says Rabbi Michael Shire, dean of the Graduate School of Education at Boston’s Hebrew College and a member of the study’s advisory board. And, he says, together with the results of a few other studies, it makes “a pretty good case for religious education and youth groups specifically. It seems that, along with a strong family and the belief in a higher power you’re connected to—this makes for someone who’s healthier in every way. It’s almost like these young people have a protective shell around them.”

Carl Shulman regularly sees these trends in action. “In our programming, we look at Jewish values, including how they were expressed in the civil-rights movement and other social-justice causes,” says Shulman, the youth engagement adviser at Temple Etz Chaim, a Reform congregation in Franklin, Mass. “And we make sure it’s tied to Jewish tradition—something in the Torah or Talmud that speaks to them.”

Shulman says youth-group advisers play a unique role in a teen’s life. “We’re a cross between a teacher, a friend and a camp counselor,” he says. “So they feel they can be open about their thoughts and feelings and confide in us.”

One feature of the study, giving the participating youth movements feedback on how their teens stacked up in a variety of ways, provided much-appreciated input, says NCSY’s international director Rabbi Micah Greenland.

“This is a terrific opportunity to learn about what our teens are gaining from involvement with us. It invites us to better understand and reflect on where we are relative to the field and where we have room to grow.”

Over at URJ, they’re also evaluating the results. “We knew it anecdotally,” says Miriam Chilton, URJ’s vice president for youth. “But now we have the data that demonstrates that participation in Jewish groups goes a long way toward achieving our goals of seeking meaning and seeing themselves as connected to both Jewish tradition and the world.”

Not surprisingly, adds Chilton, most NFTY/URJ teens ranked higher on social justice than on the ritualistic aspects of Judaism, she says. “It’s not good or bad, but it is reflective of Reform values.”

Participants in the Union of Reform Judaism Youth (URJ/NFTY) convention in Dallas. Credit: NFTY via Facebook.

Another take-away for Chilton: multiple points of contact result in maximum impact.

“Those involved in youth group, their temple, Israel and a Jewish camp, for instance, had the most positive impact,” she says. “And given the number of our families who have just one Jewish parent, whose connection may not be as strong, we can look to offer a wide variety of programming. It gives us a pretty compelling case for the best ways of working with the next generation.”

For David Bryfman, The Jewish Education Project’s incoming CEO, this study’s biggest gift is “giving organizers of Jewish youth organizations a good look at the outcomes they’re having in outreach today. Basically, the study shows the more kids doing Jewish activities the more engaged they are.”

The study was also designed to go well beyond the previous emphasis on youth groups as nurturers of Jewish continuity, he adds. “Here we’re looking at how their engagement makes them not just more Jewish but a better person, a better member of the community, more effective in the world and just more human. Some people might argue that this isn’t the traditional use of youth group, but if we don’t help them thrive, none of the rest of it really matters.

Besides,” he add, “when you can get the Reform, Conservative, Orthodox and even the unaffiliated to sign onto the same study, you’re already doing something right.”

The No. 1 finding, he says, is “even though we knew that youth groups have huge impact on teens, right up there with day schools, Jewish summer camps and trips to Israel, this study actually shows the power of that involvement.”

Looking to the future

“We got confirmation that generally speaking, we’re doing really good job in Israel engagement with our teens, with Jewish tradition, and how much Shabbat and the holidays matter to them, and even the extent to which they attribute these values to their NCSY involvement,” says NCSY’s Rabbi Greenland. “But we can also see that we are below average in the realm of taking responsibility for making a difference in the world at large. And, in addition to everything else we do, that’s something we’ve been talking about a lot since the results came out; it’s pushed us to look at ways to enhance that quality, too.”

“If we design programming that reflects the way young people see the world, we’ll be able to maximize personal development and Jewish identity and commitment,” says URJ’s Chilton. “This study also gives us a benchmark so if we adjust something now, we can look back in a few years and see how we’re doing.”

“The study sends a clear message that Jewish engagement doesn’t have to end at bar or bat mitzvah if you provide young people with programming they see as meaningful,” says Bryfman. “If the Jewish youth organizations can provide that, the teens will be there.”

It’s a message the funders are taking to heart.

“What we’ve learned from these teens is that they are very Jewishly identified, though their ways of expressing it may not be the same,” says Jim Joseph Foundation’s Stacie Cherner. “It’s confirming to us that we’re on the right path—that our investments are having a positive impact.”

As California teen Yael Berrol puts it: “We don’t have many Jews near us, but my parents have made it easy for me to connect. Our family friends are mostly Jewish, Camp Ramah is like my home, and my synagogue is where I go when I’m missing being with other Jews, when I need that grounding, in community and in my authentic self.”

To see the entire study, visit https://www.jewishedproject.org/genznow.

Source: “Study finds Jewish teens flourish socially, emotionally and spiritually when connected to youth groups,” Deborah Fineblum, JNS, June 6, 2019

Jews of Color are Chronically Undercounted, Researchers Find

(JTA) — The Jewish community has been undercounting the number of people of color who are Jewish, a new analysis found.

Researchers at Stanford University and the University of San Francisco examined 25 population studies of American Jews and found that many failed to ask about race and the methods they used meant that nonwhite Jews were undersampled.

“The Jewish community has consistently been inconsistent with respect to how it attempts to account for Jews of color within the American Jewish community,” lead researcher Ari Kelman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in a phone interview Wednesday. Kelman is an associate professor of education and Jewish studies at Stanford.

Using three of the most comprehensive surveys that did ask about race and ethnicity, the researchers said they could roughly estimate that 12-15 percent of American Jews are people of color.

The surveys used to come up with the estimate — the American Jewish Population Project, or AJPP, and community surveys done in New York in 2011 and San Francisco in 2017 — found a range of 10-14 percent Jews of color. The three surveys included data on people who self-identify as nonwhite, mixed race or Hispanic. The AJPP counted about 11 percent of Jews in this category.

Since the researchers posit that surveys have undercounted Jews of color, they estimate the slightly higher range of 12-15 percent. Kelman said it is crucial to keep in mind that the data used to arrive at that number is problematic.

“We offer population estimates based on data that was gathered inconsistently, so they should be read, interpreted and shared as we wrote them, which is as estimates,” he said.

The report, which was released earlier this month, was commissioned by the Jews of Color Field Building Initiative, an organization that seeks to advance and educate about Jews of color. The report was funded with a $35,600 grant from the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation.

It comes at a time when the Jewish community is increasingly paying attention to questions of race and diversity. The Reform movement, the Jewish Renewal movement, the Jewish Women’s Archive and Repair the World are among the organizations that have launched initiatives or said they are focusing on educating and promoting diversity in the Jewish community.

The director of the Jews of Color Field Building Initiative, Ilana Kaufman, decided to commission the research because of the dearth of data available about Jews of color. Often when she works with community leaders trying to engage the cohort, she is asked to provide data but has none.

“There are all these questions that come up when talking about Jews of color and there’s a paucity of information,” said Kaufman, whose mother is an Ashkenazi Jew and father is African-American.

Presenting the results last week at the UJA-Federation of New York, Kaufman recalled speaking about racism in the Jewish community at an event two years ago. Following the presentation, an audience member questioned her, saying he had rarely come across people of color in the community.

“I think you’re really a unicorn and that this whole discussion around Jews of color and Jewish community diversity is much more an issue for the very few Jews of color in the Jewish community,” she recalled the man telling her.

Such statements show why data on Jewish community diversity is necessary, Kaufman said.

“That story illustrates the delta, the gap, the space between the perception and the reality of our U.S. Jewish community, and we have to use tools and data and facts to inform who we are,” she said at the event last week.

The researchers found that studies undercounted Jews of color in various ways, including by failing to ask about race and ethnicity, or doing so in inconsistent and incomplete ways. For example, some surveys asked if respondents were Hispanic or Sephardi without asking about any other racial or ethnic categories.

The way many studies sampled respondents was also problematic, the researchers said. Some recruited respondents who had “distinctively Jewish names” or by relying on Jewish community lists. The researchers said that disadvantages Jews of color because many of them do not have stereotypically Jewish names and often are underrepresented in communal organizations.

Kaufman presented the results this month at a conference in Washington, D.C., organized by the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, as well as at the UJA-Federation of New York event. Next week she will be speaking at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles.

Gamal Palmer, the Los Angeles federation’s senior vice president of leadership development, said the lack of data on the racial makeup of the Jewish community creates “a blind spot,” where organizations are not properly able to create programming to engage people of color.

“Our hope is that this will give us some tools and some perspectives to help us direct our work towards the JOC community in a way that is effective and meaningful,” he said.

In addition to federation officials, representatives of 70-100 communal groups, as well as city government staff, are expected to attend the Los Angeles event. Palmer, an African-American Jew, hopes the event will help communal leaders make sure Jews of color don’t feel alienated.

Creating inclusive spaces means “people going to synagogue or sending their kids to camp, and that there shouldn’t be a worry about whether they’ll be accepted, whether someone will say something offensive or make them feel like that they’re not Jewish,” Palmer said, adding that he had experienced such comments and questioning.

Kelman said that one reason behind the inconsistent data in past surveys is that the Jewish community has been operating with a certain assumption about what its members look like.

“For most of the late 20th century and into the 21st century, the default assumption is that Jews were white or that [there was] such a preponderance of Jews identifying as white that any percentage of Jews of color was so small that they didn’t matter,” he said.

Kaufman hopes the project will challenge that notion.

“We need to think about ourselves, see ourselves as racially diverse,” she said. “We need to think about all of our communities as environments that should function as multiracial, diverse environments, even if there’s limited racial diversity in the micropopulation.”

Source: “Jews of Color are Chronically Undercounted, Researchers Find,” Josefin Dolsten, JTA, May 30, 2019

Will it Last? Introducing A Tool to Assess Program Sustainability

“What would remain if Foundation funding disappeared?” This was a common question that former Jim Joseph Foundation Executive Director Chip Edelsberg posed to challenge the professional team during the early launch phases of Foundation-supported teen education initiatives. But really, the question itself reflects a guiding principle of the Foundation since its inception; that is, to support organizations and initiatives in ways that are sustainable so that Jewish learning endeavors live on—and continue to benefit young people—even after a grant period concludes.

This principle, essentially a goal for each grant, has informed grantmaking decisions and the lengths and structures of Foundation grants.  We have learned lessons over the years about strategies and approaches to make this goal more likely to be achieved, including awarding matching grants to encourage new funding sources, supporting grantee-partners’ strategic planning processes, open and frequent conversations with grantee-partners, setting expectations with grantee-partners, and providing grantee-partners with enough time to position themselves for success if and when Foundation funding ceased. We have also gained a deep understanding about the power of a capacity building grant to help a grantee-partner grow in a sustainable way. Through trials and errors—and some fail forwards—we have learned about both the benefits of growing and the potential risks when a grantee-partner or the marketplace simply is not ready.

These are all important learnings and strategies for the Foundation, and perhaps for peer funders as well. What they are not, however, are actual tools for the grantee-partner to use to help them on their path towards sustainability. Over the last couple of years, the Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative (FC)—a complex, multi-faceted grouping of different funders and organizations from around the country—elevated the goal of sustainability for each of its ten communities in very concrete ways. The FC’s ten community teen initiatives all worked diligently from the beginning to lay the groundwork for sustainability. Community stakeholders were engaged throughout so that our local funding partners, often Federations, designed initiatives that reflected the community’s actual needs and wants—not just what the local partner thought the community needed or wanted. Communities had conversations with program providers at the beginning stages of the grant period about expectations around sustainability. This complex community planning process helped develop teen initiatives that had broad buy-in from the start, thus also enhancing the likelihood of their sustainability.

In this vein, the communities came together to develop clear Measures of Success—one of which is to “Build Models for Jewish Teen Education that are Sustainable.” However, defining what success looks like without also offering a way to measure against it would somewhat render it moot. While complex surveys were developed for other measures of success—an appropriate approach in those cases—measuring a community’s readiness for sustainability required something different. That’s when Rosov Consulting, which serves as the cross-community evaluator, developed the Sustainability Diagnostic Tool (SDT) for communities to better understand the ways in which they were developing a sustainable ecosystem. This diagnostic process, which, importantly, communities can use themselves, offers community leadership and stakeholders the opportunity to assess and reflect on their progress towards sustainability.

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As seen above, the SDT offers clear indicators and a qualitative sliding scale for communities to gauge progress themselves. Taken together, communities will gain a deep understanding about their readiness to “make it on their own.” Particularly important is that this is a usable diagnostic tool that communities themselves can deploy; each community received instructions to conduct interviews with key community stakeholders. They posed questions to elicit answers that would inform where the teen initiative fell in different categories of the rubric: “To what extent would you say that the leadership of the community’s teen ecosystem has a clearly stated mission for its work?” To what extent would you say that the community’s teen ecosystem has strong and stable leadership?” “To what extent would you say the community’s teen ecosystem has secured a financial future?” With the indicators in mind, to what extent is there evidence in the teen ecosystem of demand for service?”

Like other funders, we have seen expensive efforts we supported grow and build momentum, achieve great programmatic outcomes, but then fail to build the kind of broader communal investment that an initiative needs to endure over the longer-term. The SDT is designed so that grantee-partners can help themselves develop that kind of staying power. We are sharing this now as some communities in the FC move towards the final stages of their grant period. They already planned initiatives, received their first grant, received a renewal, and are fine-tuning the most effective parts of their initiatives. The communities nearing the end of their grant periods are finding great value in the SDT. Equally as exciting is that other communities, in earlier stages of their grant period, are already using the SDT so that the rubric and accompanying interview questions inform their stakeholder conversations and related initiative planning now:

The Sustainability Diagnostic Tool has really helped keep us honest with respect to how we’ve measured inroads and impact in our community’s initiative. Having this rubric has been a great way to remind ourselves what we mean by ‘success’, and has enabled us to validate some paths we’ve taken, or think about course corrections when necessary. – Brian Jaffee, Executive Director of the Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati, the local funder of the Cincinnati Jewish Teen Collective.

The FC itself is a “big” story with many layers, organizations, and learnings. We’re telling one specific, yet critical, part of it now. We hope that by highlighting our Foundation’s learnings regarding sustainability and what we believe to be a critical new tool, other funders and organizations will be able to adapt the new SDT for any initiative that they want to see achieve sustainability. Having sustainability as a principle, as a goal, was important. But the SDT helps us and grantee-partners more definitively and accurately answer that key question: “What would remain if Foundation funding disappeared?”

Before using the SDT, please reach out to Sara Allen, Executive Director of the Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative, at [email protected] for full instructions and insights.

Aaron Saxe is a Senior Program Officer at the Jim Joseph Foundation.

Cracking the Programming Code: The New York Teen Initiative and Its Contribution to the Field of Summer Experiences and the Lives of Jewish Teens

Phase One of the New York Teen Initiative (NYTI) has been a four-year, nine-million-dollar endeavor to redefine the New York City area’s Jewish teen engagement through the incubation of new and innovative models for summer engagement, a robust online marketing platform (FindYourSummer.org), and the provision of scholarships to participating teens and their families. The Initiative is part of a national effort—spearheaded by the Jim Joseph Foundation—in which 14 foundations and federations are working together as a Funder Collaborative to expand and deepen Jewish teen education and engagement in 10 communities across the United States. Over its first four years, NYTI has been jointly funded by UJA-Federation of New York and the Jim Joseph Foundation, with The Jewish Education Project serving as lead operator.

A team at Rosov Consulting has partnered with NYTI to evaluate the efficacy of this endeavor. This report explores NYTI’s ongoing and lasting impact on the programs it has incubated, their sponsor organizations, and the many teens who have benefited from these programs.

In its first four years, NYTI has introduced to the field of Jewish teen engagement a diverse array of programmatic approaches, concepts, and models, some of which are now being replicated by other program providers. It has supported the personal and Jewish growth of hundreds of teens, many of whom would not have otherwise connected to Jewish life. And it has promoted hundreds of Jewish engagement programs through the implementation of FindYourSummer.org.

Cracking the Programming Code: The New York Teen Initiative and Its Contribution to the Field of Summer Experiences and the Lives of Jewish Teens, Rosov Consulting, May 2019

Counting Inconsistencies from Jews of Color Field Building Initiative

Jews of Color in the U.S. are a growing population but have been systematically undercounted in decades of American Jewish population studies, claims a new report by the Jews of Color Field Building Initiative, The Concentration in Education and Jewish Studies at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, and the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice at the University of San Francisco. Researchers of the report, Counting Inconsistencies: An Analysis of American Jewish Population Studies, with a Focus on Jews of Color, drew this conclusion after examining data from 25 national or local population studies, and the survey strategies deployed to collect it.

Given inconsistencies in how population studies have been conducted, researchers can, at best, make only an educated guess about the population of Jews of Color in the United States.

  • Based on the three most comprehensive data sets available (the 2013–2019 American Jewish Population Project, the 2011 New York Community Study, and the 2017 San Francisco Bay Area Community Study) researchers estimate that Jews of Color represent at least 12-15% of American Jews, or about 1,000,000 of the United States’ 7,200,000 Jews.
  • More younger people identify as nonwhite than older people do. With cohort replacement, this means that the future of American Jewry is racially diverse.
  • Even with data that undercounts Jews of Color, as younger, more racially and ethnically diverse cohorts replace older, more homogeneous ones, our understanding of the basic racial and ethnic makeup of the American Jewish community will change.

Everyone in the Jewish community, but especially the community’s leaders and organizers, must understand the full and diverse picture of the American Jewish population today. Our community is changing and evolving in many ways, including its racial composition. This change should have a deep influence in how we think about resource allocation, programming, outreach efforts and more. – Ilana Kaufman,  Director of the Jews of Color Field Building Initiative.

Counting Inconsistencies notes that at a minimum, more than 20 percent of “Jewish households” include people who identify as nonwhite. If the population trends along the same lines as the U.S. Census, then some decades from now Jews of Color will become the majority of U.S. Jews. Yet, American Jewish Population Surveys have largely neglected to systematically and consistently ask about the racial and ethnic identities of U.S. Jews, resulting in a dearth of information about the composition and size of the population of Jews of Color. By extension, Jews of Color have been omitted from Jewish communal life, due in part to the socially constructed notion that the vast majority of American Jews identify as “white.”

There simply is no guiding principle that researchers used in these population studies with respect to accurately asking about and subsequently counting Jews of Color. As more American Jews identify as non-white, the survey inconsistencies and lack of clarity in this area becomes a more critical problem that needs to be appropriately addressed. – Dr. Ari Kelman of Stanford University and the lead researcher of Counting Inconsistencies.

Some previous Jewish population surveys did not ask about race or ethnicity at all. Other survey designs sampled respondents in ways that likely result in undercounting Jews of Color, including sampling “distinctive Jewish names,” relying heavily on Jewish community lists, and/or only including “Jews by religion.” And some survey questions inconsistently inquired about race and ethnicity. Sometimes, both questions and responses confuse family origin, racial, ethnic, national, and even denominational identities.

Even with past survey issues, we have a picture now of what the American Jewish community will look like over the next several decades. The simple fact is we will be more diverse than ever. How are we going to welcome in and engage people from different backgrounds, interests, and experiences? Those are the big questions facing our community. – Ilana Kaufman

Counting Inconsistencies includes a set of recommendations for future research to follow to ensure more accurate counting of Jews of Color, including using more racially inclusive, sensitive sampling strategies and frames that do not rely significantly on self-identified “Jews by Religion,” “Distinctive Jewish Names,” and/or community organization affiliations; partnering with other regions or organizations to, as teams, develop language for racial identity questions; and developing consistency across survey question language reflecting best practices and how Jews of Color identify rather than how researchers identify Jews of Color; among other recommendations.

Kaufman shared the findings in Washington, DC at the Religious Action Center 2019 Consultation on Conscience, and at the UJA-Federation of New York. She will share them June 6 at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, and June 26 via a webinar with Dr. Ari Kelman.

Along with Dr. Kelman, researchers included Dr. Aaron Hahn Tapper, University of San Francisco; Ms. Izabel Fonseca, Stanford University; and Dr. Aliya Saperstein, Stanford University.

This research is the result of a partnership between The Jews of Color Field Building Initiative, The Concentration in Education and Jewish Studies at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, and the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice at the University of San Francisco. The Jews of Color Field Building Initiative is funded by the Leichtag Foundation, the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, the Jim Joseph Foundation, the One8 Foundation, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, and the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation. The study was supported by the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation.

Counting Inconsistencies is a meta-study that examined 15 local and community studies (Los Angeles 1997, Seattle 2000, Phoenix 2002, Atlanta 2006, Denver Boulder 2007, Philadelphia 2009, Chicago 2010, Cleveland 2011, New York 2011, Miami 2014, Boston 2015, Pittsburgh 2017, SF Bay Area 2017, and Washington DC 2017); seven national population studies (National Jewish Population Study (NJPS) 1970, NJPS 1990, National Survey of Religious Identity 1990, NJPS 2000, Heritage and Religious Identification 2002, Pew Research Center Survey of U.S. Jews 2013, and the American Jewish Population Project), and four population specific studies (Generation Now, Generation Next, Jewish Futures Project, and Hillel International Research on College Students.)

A Funder Approach to the (Seemingly) Limitless World of Online Learning

[This post is the last in the series on the new report, The Future of Jewish Learning is Here: How Digital Media Are Reshaping Jewish Education, by Stanford University’s Ari Y. Kelman. The report, commissioned by the Jim Joseph Foundation, was released in conjunction with the recent Jewish Funders Network conference. The series shares multiple perspectives on the findings and questions raised in The Future of Jewish Learning.]

The Future of Jewish Learning Is Here is an admittedly ambitious title for a report. Yet it seems to capture both the seemingly endless opportunities that new technology presents and the critical reality that people are utilizing many of these technologies to learn and to positively influence their lives. Digital media, specifically for Jewish learning purposes, are being consumed on a meaningful scale, in different ways, and by diverse groups of people, and are changing how we, as a field, should think about Jewish education.

For the Jim Joseph Foundation, this report offers much to unpack and to reflect on. A decade ago, digital media was in its nascent stage of opening new and more opportunities for Jewish learning. Yet, the Foundation shied away from any significant investment. The space, for the Foundation, presented too many unknowns. At the same time, our approach and understanding of Jewish education admittedly was not yet broad enough to include some of the very real learning that was in fact occurring online. Thus, The Future of Jewish Learning Is Here is indicative of our own evolution in thinking and recognition that the nature of Jewish learning has, and continues to, evolve – and that it is driven in part by digital media opportunities today.

A few years ago, the Jim Joseph Foundation and the William Davidson Foundation released Smart Money: Recommendations for an Educational Technology and Digital Engagement Investment Strategy, which shared both a landscape report of the trends and tools used in Ed Tech and a set of recommendations for our foundations to consider about how we might invest in them. Following the report, the Foundation made several new grants to support some new “digital-first” Jewish education platforms as a way to expand our reach and deepen our learning and involvement with the tools of online learning. Our most important insight from getting to know these platforms is affirmed for us in this new report – people are learning online and those online engagements should be viewed as educational. While of course online learning looks different than learning in a classroom, summer camp, or beit midrash, we now see how online learning can be deeply meaningful and substantial – and often much more accessible than more traditional learning experiences.

By growing our understanding of online Jewish learning and of how these platforms are used, those of us interested in designing or investing in these learning experiences can make better informed decisions to address learners’ needs. Expanding beyond the landscape analysis in Smart Money, the Future of Jewish Learning report provides rich, compelling insight and information into how, why, and when people learn online. People turn to online Jewish learning because the experiences are accessible, can be tailored to their personal needs or questions, help connect them to a sense of community, and for many other reasons.

Advancements in digital Jewish media have minimized, if not outright eliminated, the concerns of physical space, time, teachers, and other factors that impact a person’s ability to learn. Moreover, while these previous limitations often are rendered irrelevant when a user learns through any kind of online platform, The Future of Jewish Learning makes clear that Jewish content providers offer a particularly specialized experience, replete with an “imprimatur” that provides a sense of credibility. At the same time, these uniquely Jewish platforms can also serve as vehicles for powerful real-life connections among people.

As a funder, we welcome these key findings while recognizing the call to action they seem to present. First and foremost, we know we need to learn more and to better understand how this form of learning integrates into peoples’ lives. While this report sheds light on ways in which online learning makes people less reliant on traditional institutions, offers comfort in exploring questions about Judaism, fosters connections and a sense of connection, and often follows the rhythm of the Jewish calendar, there is still much we don’t know. We are eager to continue to learn with others in the field about the communities that evolve around online learning; the types of platforms best suited for certain learning experiences or people; how educators can be further utilizing online learning tools for themselves and with their students; what this means for Jewish family experiences; and how these tools can help us reach more diverse populations of learners. These are timely and big questions that we are eager to explore.

More and more, the Foundation approaches its own learning by investing in R&D to pursue innovation and to try new experiments. This approach is warranted both in traditional learning and in online learning experiences. In the limitless world of online learning, R&D is an important way to push the field forward and to bring offerings to scale. The possibilities for where, when, and how learning can happen is entirely different than a decade ago. Let’s explore these new opportunities together, as a field, so that anyone can engage in Jewish learning – wherever, whenever, and in whatever way is meaningful and conformable for them. The future is here.

Josh Miller is Chief Program Officer at the Jim Joseph Foundation. Seth Linden is a Program Officer at the Foundation. The complete report, The Future of Jewish Learning is Here: How Digital Media Are Reshaping Jewish Education, is available for download here.

originally posted in eJewishPhilanthropy

JPRO19: What Connects Us

For individuals working in Jewish organizations in the U.S. and Canada, JPRO is the leading professional association working to ensure that the field attracts, develops, and retains the talent needed to thrive. JPRO Network maximizes the potential of the 80,000 professionals who are a part of this field, nurturing, sustaining, and developing them so that Jewish engagement and education efforts fieldwide are elevated. Every Jewish communal enterprise depends on highly motivated, well-trained professionals who feel valued and are positioned to do excellent work.

The JPRO WellAdvised program is an amazing opportunity to connect with a person who is thoughtful and dedicated to work in our field with a perspective different than that of the people with whom we directly work. The hour can jump-start a new idea or reinvigorate the energy dedicated to an existing endeavor.
– JPRO WellAdvised participant

This August, JPRO19: What Connects Us—the seminal conference for hundreds of Jewish communal professionals—will be a catalyst to connect and to reimagine what thriving Jewish institutions will look like, who will lead them, and what impact they will collectively have on the world in the 21st Century. Along with networking and learning opportunities, skill-building workshops and master classes, and immersive experiences throughout Detroit, JPRO19 will feature four themes of great relevance and interest to professionals in the field: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; Building Resilient Communities; Designing Workplaces for the Future; and Civil Discourse in Complex Times.

The session was incredibly insightful. It will help me change the way I manage both myself and my team; and thereby will help increase our effectiveness and impact. It was wonderful to be in a room with colleagues from across the Jewish organizational world. And the facilitator was herself so amazing; on top of the content she modeled some excellent facilitation techniques.
– Participant in JPRO Management course in New York

In the spirit of a network that shares knowledge, the conference’s Steal This Stage* (supported by The AVI CHAI Foundation and UpStart) will highlight some of the biggest ideas and boldest work coming from Jewish institutions and communities across North America. Each presenter will have up to 5 minutes to present their “big idea.” At the conclusion of the conference, all JPRO19 attendees will get access to the ideas so they can be “stolen” and implemented within their organizations or community. Do you have a big idea or innovation that you want to share with your colleagues? Tell JPRO about it here by May 17—you might be selected to share it on the Steal This Stage during JPRO19 in Detroit.  

Building on the network’s 120-year history, JPRO19 is indicative of its continued growth. Over the last 18 months, JPRO expanded programming and strengthened its organization. New programs such as WellAdvised and JPRO Master Classes exceeded projections and generated enthusiastic feedback. The number of JPRO affiliated organizations—those who have joined the network and thereby extended membership to their employees—has nearly tripled, from 95 to more than 250, and JPRO has surpassed 5,000 affiliated staff members. The future of Jewish communities relies on vibrant institutions — and on the talented, dedicated professionals who build and sustain them. JPRO is a key part of this support system, advancing connection across communities, organization sizes and types, professional roles, generations, and the diverse identities and backgrounds of professionals, strengthening the connective tissue of the sector as a whole.

* The Steal This concept was “stolen” from 100Kin10, a network preparing 100,000 excellent science, tech, engineering, and math teachers in the US by 2021 and addressing the underlying reasons for the STEM teacher shortage.

The William Davidson Foundation is supporting this year’s conference. JPRO is partnering with the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit to bring JPRO19 to Detroit. The Jim Joseph Foundation, the Max and Marjorie Fisher Foundation, and many others are also supporting JPRO19.

 

 

 

 

Asking Questions As a Powerful Way to Learn

Whether in the realm of business, journalism, relationships, or of course in our non-profit and social sector, the act of “questioning” can be powerful. A piece in the Harvard Business Review last year noted,  “Questioning is a uniquely powerful tool for unlocking value in organizations: It spurs learning and the exchange of ideas, it fuels innovation and performance improvement, it builds rapport and trust among team members. And it can mitigate business risk by uncovering unforeseen pitfalls and hazards.”

In other words, to “question” makes sense. This is why the Jim Joseph Foundation, for over a decade, has invested in the process of defining and pursuing questions. We have seen this process lead to important learning opportunities. But, who exactly are these learning opportunities for (that is a good question!)?  In the past, we emphasized the critical nature of supporting the capacity of grantees to answer questions they create – “what will we achieve and how will we do that?” “did we see the changes we wanted to see?”  “how could we be more successful in the future?”

Now, however, we are beginning to ask what questions the Foundation should be creating for ourselves. Many of them are questions similar to those found in evaluations of grantee-partner programs, but adapted to a larger, cross-portfolio level.

Blending Past and Future Priorities

Recently, in a facilitated team exercise, members of the Foundation’s program team were asked to examine the assumptions we make in our work and then to consider how we might test those assumptions.  The exercise was valuable in that it opened us up to realizing there are many assumptions we all make, and even that there are assumptions only some of us make. These include, but aren’t limited to, assumptions about elements of immersive and ongoing learning experiences, issues of depth and breadth in programming, and the value of risk taking.  Which of these would we want to actually test to see if our assumptions about grantmaking, Jewish education, and young Jews bear out?  Which questions could we seek answers to that would lead to meaningful learning that would inform future grantmaking endeavors?

Certainly, moving forward, the Foundation will continue to ask many of the same questions our grantee-partners know well:

  • Did a grantee-partner do what they said they would do?
  • Were desired outcomes achieved? Why or why not?
  • What could be changed or improved in a grantee-partner’s programming or organization to reach better results in the future?

Beyond this, in the near future we will begin to shift and prioritize other kinds of questions as well:

  • To what extent do cohorts or sets of grants help the Foundation achieve our goals?
  • Overall, do our investments across grantee-partners lead us to our outcomes? Why or why not?
  • What could be changed or improved in our grantmaking to get better results in the future?
  • What even are the best measures for our desired outcomes?

We’ve chosen a consulting firm, Arabella Advisors, to help us develop a framework of Foundation-wide outcomes measurement.  In short, over the upcoming nine months, they will design a structure for us to systematically learn from our grantmaking in order to 1) understand progress toward outcomes and 2) inform future grantmaking decisions. Specifically, they will work with us to:

  • Develop learning questions, indicators, and measures within and across our strategic priorities,
  • Create and pilot a process for collecting and analyzing data from grantees,
  • Build a system that communicates the results of our grantmaking, and
  • Map out a 3- to 5-year research agenda focused on our investments in Jewish learning that will benefit the larger field.

With newly finalized strategic priorities, defining the correct learning questions to ask and answer is an important next step.  Measurement, evaluation and research remain as consistent threads through our work.  All of this planning, questioning and assumption testing will lead to a better understanding of our aspiration to “best support more young Jews – with their families and friends – to find connection, meaning, and purpose through Jewish learning.” We look forward to formulating our questions and documenting our learning—and to keeping the field informed of our work along the way.

Stacie Cherner is Director of Learning and Evaluation at the Jim Joseph Foundation

A Chicago space for LGBTQ Jews becomes a ‘queer yeshiva for everybody’

In order to become a rabbi, Benay Lappe had to go back in the closet.

It would be nearly a decade after she was ordained in 1997 that the Conservative movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary would lift its ban on gay rabbis. So she spent six years during her studies hiding her sexuality and relationship status.

“It was extremely, extremely difficult and painful,” recalled Lappe, 59. “I had no idea it was going to be as hard as it was.”

The experience led Lappe in 2003 to found Svara, a yeshiva where she and other members of the LGBTQ community could be themselves and study Jewish texts.

“I was in the closet in school and never really had the chance to learn with my whole self present,” she told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency earlier this month at Svara’s headquarters in this city. “So when I got out of school I was a rabbi, but needed to learn for the first time in an integrated way. On a very personal level I started Svara to be that place.”

In its beginning, the yeshiva was just that. But things have changed as the LGBTQ movement has gained wider acceptance, including in the Jewish community. Today, all non-Orthodox Jewish movements ordain LGBTQ rabbis and allow same-sex weddings.

At an evening beit midrash program earlier this month called a “One-Night-Stand,” about two-thirds of the 42 attendees did not identify as part of the LGBTQ community. That is higher than usual — usually between half to nearly everyone at Svara events is queer depending on the type of program— but not entirely out of line.

Lappe traces the shift back to 2013, when she partnered with the nondenominational Jewish community Mishkan Chicago. Attendance grew, including by those who do not identify as LGBTQ.

“We evolved into becoming a queer yeshiva for everybody,” she said. “Our project is about changing the world through the insights of queer people but for the benefit of everybody, just like the feminist project isn’t ultimately for the benefit of women only.”

While Lappe still wants Svara to be a space for LGBTQ people, that in itself is no longer the singular focus.

“We’re not a ‘gay thing,’” she said. “We’re a Talmud revolution thing.”

Essie Shachar-Hill has been attending events at Svara for three years. (Jess Benjamin)

Svara now has a budget of $1.4 million, which comes from program fees and donations from individuals and organizations such as the Jim Joseph Foundation, Crown Family Philanthropies, the Walter & Elisa Haas Fund and the Natan giving circle. The yeshiva hosts a range of programs, including weekly Jewish learning programs, fellowships and a five-day Queer Talmud Camp, which attracted applications from some 500 people, mostly millennials.

Lappe also encourages former students to host their own learning events, and there are currently 11 informal study centers around the country created by Svara alumni.

The rabbi believes that the Jewish community needs to revitalize its approach to text study, making it more accessible to people of all backgrounds and abilities, and find new innovative ways to read the canon. Lappe says that many queer people’s experiences of being outsiders and on the margins make them “particularly suited” to do so.

“We’re focused on raising up queer and trans teachers and readers and beit midrash conveners and rosh yeshivas who have the life experience of what we call ‘crash,’” she said. “Crash” is what happens when people realize “‘the way I thought the world was ain’t the way it is, and the fact that I’ve survived means that I know a lot about how to deal with that.’”

Some people still come to Svara because it is the only Jewish learning space where they feel comfortable. That’s the case for 25-year-old Essie Shachar-Hill, who identifies as non-binary.

“I come to this one because it feels really low barrier, and accessible and inclusive, but I wouldn’t necessarily risk my own safety going into a more traditional” Jewish environment, Shachar-Hill said.

But for others, it’s Lappe’s accessible approach to Talmud study that draws them.

At Svara, texts are read only in the original language, and students are expected to look up in dictionaries any Hebrew or Aramaic words they do not understand. For some people that might be every single word, but Lappe is there to help.

At the “One Night Stand” event earlier this month, Lappe and another Svara staffer, identified by the sparkly purple fairy wings they wear on their backs, walked around to answer questions about the passage being studied.

Benna Kessler, 31, has been attending Svara events regularly for 3 1/2 years. She does not identify as queer but appreciates the focus on studying Talmud in its original languages.

“I think it’s a very empowering place to learn [and] also a very inspiring place to learn,” she said. “It has brought me back to my love of being a student.”

Benna Kessler never studied the Talmud in its original language prior to Svara. (Jess Benjamin)

It’s not always easy to find the balance between a space where queer people feel comfortable and one that is open to allies, Lappe said, pointing to the fact that at the “One Night Stand” event, LGBTQ participants were in the minority.

“For the trans folk in the room, it probably didn’t feel as much like ‘I can bring out some of my ideas and thoughts’ as much as it does on nights when it’s 70 percent queer and trans folk,” she said.

Ultimately, Lappe sees her yeshiva as appealing to people who feel alienated from the Jewish community, whether due to their sexuality, gender expression or something else.

“That’s what happens in a queer normative space, the folks that bring their full selves are not just the LGBT folks,” she said. “It’s folks who didn’t feel like they could talk about ‘X’ about themselves in another space. Now they can.”

Source: “A Chicago space for LGBTQ Jews becomes a ‘queer yeshiva for everybody’,” Josefin Dolsten, JTA, April 23, 2019