Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative

The Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative—a network of national and local funders who develop, fund, support and grow Jewish teen initiatives in ten communities—unveiled a new website that shares key lessons, specific program models, and research about Jewish teen education and engagement. Teenfundercollaborative.com is accessible to anyone and is designed to help advance a robust conversation about engaging teens in meaningful Jewish experiences that add value to their lives.

The website is a vehicle to share relevant and helpful information with anyone who cares about Jewish teen education and engagement. We want to offer tangible resources to help communities think strategically and creatively about their approach to teen Jewish experiences. By sharing our lessons learned through the last four years in the Collaborative, we hope to help others.
– Sara Allen, Director of the Funder Collaborative

 

New Resources

In addition to information about each community initiative within the Collaborative, extensive research on teens, and reflections from practitioners on the ground, the website shares two new items: the Year 2 Cross-community Evaluation that looks at outcomes across four of the community initiatives, and Preparing to Deepen Action: A Funder Collaborative Finds Its Way—the second installment in a series of case studies documenting the collaborative (the first released in 2015) and the result of 15 months of observations and interviews.

The communities in the Funder Collaborative are Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Denver, Los Angeles, New York, San Diego, and San Francisco. Teen initiatives that have been launched by Funder Collaborative communities include a range of Jewish experiences—from volunteer service to professional internships to surfing and more. Nearly all communities attribute early programmatic successes to their participation in the collaborative and its steadfast commitment to knowledge-sharing.  The evolution of the collaborative itself is central to creating an environment that fosters risk-taking, experimentation and ongoing reflection.

The Jim Joseph Foundation has invested more than $29,298,784 in teen initiatives and evaluations within the framework of the Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative.

A History of the “Future of Jewish Education”

This is part 2 of the series in eJewishPhilanthropy, Continuing Conversations on Leveraging Educational Technology to Advance Jewish Learning. The series is a project of Jewish Funders Network, the Jim Joseph Foundation, and the William Davidson Foundation. For an in-depth look at opportunities in Jewish Ed Tech and digital engagement, read Smart Money: Recommendations for an Educational Technology and Digital Engagement Investment Strategy. Later this year, Jewish Funders Network will launch a new website to help advance the field of Jewish educational technology.

In 1911, William Inglis, writing for Harper’s Weekly profiled Thomas Edison’s latest invention that he guaranteed would, “make school so attractive that a big army with swords and guns couldn’t keep boys and girls out of it.” The technology was Edison’s filmstrips, and the promise was that it would reduce costs and create a more engaging and effective educational experience for students.

Anyone who has sat through an educational filmstrip knows of course that this claim was overstated. Yet, the fact remains for over a hundred years folks have sought to ascertain the potential impact of technology on education. Unsurprisingly, the same promises that were made with filmstrips, radio, television, CD-ROMS, laser-disks, and the internet, are the same being made for 1:1 laptop programs, blended/personalized learning, and a wide range of other technologies. Before attempting to ascertain the potential impact on educational technology for Jewish Education today, it behooves us to look to the history of these technologically driven future visions of Jewish education from the past. They offer us tremendous insight as we look forward in our current time and place.

Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the Jewish educational world did not ignore Edison’s technological innovation. Gratz College, Yeshiva University, the NY Bureau of Jewish Education, the Reform & Conservative movements and others had active audiovisual departments producing content to “instruct students through the eye.” Thousands of filmstrips, and numerous curricular guides, catalogs “running more than 100 pages” and other materials were created “in great abundance, particularly on Jewish history, Israel, the American Jewish community, customs and ceremonies, and current events.”

The problem was, folks were so concerned with ensuring that they were keeping up with the latest and greatest technologies that these efforts were designed without much forethought, were fragmented, scattered, and often had significant problems of quantity and quality.

In 1976, (just before the new educational VHS craze was to come onto the scene) the Second Jewish Catalogue summed up the problem succinctly:

“There is a lack of quality media resources for fostering the Jewish knowledge and identity needed to ensure the spiritual survival of Diaspora Jewry… Visual images in living color have become the language of the day. Unfortunately, however, the majority of Jewish institutions in this country are still in the Dark Ages. While the world at large has moved on to multidimensional modes of transmitting oral tradition, the Jewish world remains bound to the page.”

But we persisted. Five years later in 1981, JESNA was launched with the explicit goal to make engaging, inspiring, high quality Jewish education available to every Jew in North America. One of their key focus areas was “Innovative Solutions: Developing creative new approaches to expand the impact of Jewish education.”

Just a few months later, they devoted their entire quarterly magazine, The Pedagogic Reporter to focus on how Jewish education can be enriched through the use of technology. This included articles exploring the advances in computer hardware and software, uses for multimedia (television and film) in Jewish education, and integration of computers into schools and libraries.

My personal favorite insight from that 1981 magazine on the potential impact of technology on education is from Ira Jaskoll’s article:

“The computer can introduce a new dimension into Jewish education, one that is extraordinarily geared to the reality of the students’ future lives. As the information explosion continues, a shift must inevitably occur from the old style of education that stressed the acquisition of facts: what will be necessary in the world of tomorrow to increased skill in sorting and analyzing the vast quantities of available information. As the computer has been widely employed at this task in the realm of industry, so it can be liberating in education and in the student’s personal life.”

Which I’m sure many of you readers have heard articulated in an almost verbatim way to justify educational technological integration today some twenty-five years later.

This growth of technology, paired with the desire of content-driven education paved the way for publishers to respond as well. By 1983 Torah Aura had produced Torah Tunes, a Thirty-six week parashat hashavuah curriculum, and Davka had produced two acclaimed educational video games for the newly released ultra-light 20lb Apple IIe computer. By 1986 there were over 100 Jewish educational software titles.

Foundations like the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture hired experts to research the phenomenon, others like the Revson Foundation made huge investments to produce and distribute content from the non-Jewish world like with Shalom Sesame, and the The Jewish Heritage Video Collection, and others like the Covenant Foundation sought to provide resources and knowledge sharing to innovative local communities trying to harness this brand new thing called the internet.

And so on…

We have extremely short-term memories and a lack of institutional knowledge of the history of these Jewish educational endeavors, and as a result instead of building on our knowledge, we often end up starting all over again as if these ideas (not to mention the educational philosophers who laid the groundwork for them) have never existed.

I believe strongly in the ability of technology to help positively transform the Jewish educational field, but only if we commit ourselves to first understanding what it is we hope to achieve from harnessing these tools, developing a coherent educational vision for our institutions, and then to stop pretending that every discussion we have today about educational technology begins assuming that this is all brand new, and that we have no historical use, educational philosophy or evidence of efficacy of any of this stuff.

I wish to conclude with a series of recommendations moving forward, which admittedly I have basically plagiarized verbatim from Jacob Ukeles who wrote them for the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture thirty years ago:

  1. Investment in technology for Jewish education should incorporate older technologies as well as the latest and greatest stuff. In the appropriate excitement over the latest shiny stuff older proven tech should not be ignored.
  2. The design, production, and distribution of the new technology to schools must place teachers at the heart of the effort. Attempts to produce “teacher-proof” curricula for Jewish schools have been a dismal failure. Technology can only be seen as a tool for teachers not as a replacement for teachers.
  3. We should leverage our resources by cooperating with others on specific projects. Others might be individual philanthropists, existing media or computer-oriented institutions, other Foundations or other communal organizations.
  4. A concerted effort should be made to reach out and involve new sources of creative talent, particularly the kind of talent involved in the nonprofit world of independent technology. Many of the young developers and content creators are Jews who are not connected to the Jewish community. Involving them in experimental programs, whether through competitions or commissioned works, is a way to reinvolve them in the community as well as attaining lower cost, high quality products.

These recommendations, along with several others available at the link above, were written when I was three – ample time to put them into action to ensure that by at least my bar mitzvah they were implemented. Yet, they’re just as applicable to us today as my children start their day school experiences.

But the truth of the matter is that focusing on the impact of technology on education is the wrong frame. Frankly, electrification of schools and our ability to heat them in the winter and cool them in the summer is the single greatest technological advancement that has impacted education in the past century, but because it’s basically invisible to us, we take it for granted. And that’s ok, because instead of focusing on the stuff, we need to focus on outcomes. We need to teach how to be adaptive and resilient. We need to be agnostic about specific technology. Unless we do so, no matter how shiny the next ed tech innovation will be, it will end up as nothing more than another historical footnote in a history of the future a quarter century from now unless we are able to put it into practice.

Equally fluent in Yiddish and Javascript, Russel Neiss is a Jewish educator, technologist and activist who builds critically acclaimed educational apps and experiences used by thousands of people each day. His work has been featured in the Washington Post, NPR, the Atlantic, CNN, Teen Vogue, the Jewish Telegraph Agency, and other media outlets. Russel began his career as an itinerant Jewish educator traveling across the deep south and has worked in a variety of Jewish educational settings including day schools, supplemental schools, museums and archives. Russel lives in St. Louis with his wife Maharat Rori Picker Neiss and his kids Daria, Susanna & Shmaya.

INITIAL OUTCOMES ACROSS COMMUNITIES: First Fruits from the Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative

The formation of the Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative began in 2013, when more than a dozen local and national funders of Jewish teen programming were brought together by the Jim Joseph Foundation for an ongoing series of discussions about expanding teen involvement in Jewish life. Over the next two years, this group developed into a more formal Funder Collaborative, with the expressed aim of making grants to support comprehensive, innovative, and sustainable new community-based initiatives in ten communities across the United States: Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Denver, Los Angeles, New York, San Diego, and San Francisco.

In order to understand the process and outcomes of teen programs, both in individual communities and across multiple regions, two concurrent evaluation efforts were undertaken alongside the community initiatives. In each community, local evaluators were contracted to study regional initiatives; and, on a national level, a Cross-Community Evaluation (CCE) was initiated in 2015.

The CCE is designed to answer a set of primary evaluation questions centered on the learning and growth of Jewish teens in different communities, as well as to facilitate and encourage continual communication and sharing of lessons across communities. At its heart is an exploration into how, and to what extent, local initiatives are successfully engaging teens in Jewish learning and growth.

INITIAL OUTCOMES ACROSS COMMUNITIES: First Fruits from the Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative, June 2017

Procuring the Proper Software, Hardware and Teacher Training for Successful Educational Technology Integration – A Funder’s Perspective

This is part 1 of the series in eJewishPhilanthropy, Continuing Conversations on Leveraging Educational Technology to Advance Jewish Learning. The series is a project of Jewish Funders Network, the Jim Joseph Foundation, and the William Davidson Foundation. For an in-depth look at opportunities in Jewish Ed Tech and digital engagement, read Smart Money: Recommendations for an Educational Technology and Digital Engagement Investment Strategy. Later this year, Jewish Funders Network will launch a new website to help advance the field of Jewish educational technology.

When you care about successful technology integration in your local Jewish school, what is the most effective way to provide support? For today’s school leadership and school or community funders, the pathway forward to successful educational technology integration is murky at best. The many choices in this dynamic and still emerging field can be daunting.

One thing common to all (Jewish) schools today: technology is now (another) overwhelming responsibility for school leadership. Gone are the days of technology as merely a budget item relegated to the business manager, when tech costs were a part-time IT professional and some new desktop computers for the lab. Today, technology in education touches every aspect of school life, affecting teachers, students, educational administration and parents. Technology is no longer something used only for school-home communications and an occasional online research project. The field of educational technology has grown to complement teachers and schools in organizing and educating children beginning in the earliest grades.

In Seattle, WA where the Samis Foundation has invested more than $70M over 2 decades into our local Jewish day schools, technology use and integration was not a prioritized focus. To support our beneficiaries in this area, we researched and developed a technology initiative of our own, designing a 10-year, $2.5M initiative to support our schools in enhancing student learning experiences and improving outcomes in all academic areas, including through the acquisition of 21st century digital skills. What we sought was a cultural change in which educational leaders and their faculties were thoughtful experimenters and adopters of technology in service to their school mission and educational goals. But where does one begin when prompting this culture change? Here are some of the select steps the Samis Technology Initiative has taken, along with questions/challenges we are pondering going forward:

1. Site Visits: We made site visits to nearly 20 Jewish day schools and other independent schools to see a range of technology integration. Visiting schools and meeting educational leaders “new to you” provides learning and focus like no book or blog post can. The purpose of the trips was not only exploratory but was also to gain buy-in and excitement from school leadership. We saw Apple schools and Google Schools, cost-conscious schools and schools where donors were supporting a top of the line approach to technology. The best take away these visits taught us: there must be a designated educator in each school, responsible for technology integration, providing professional development to faculty and supporting student learning outcomes. A question we are thinking about: As technology sophistication has progressed in Seattle schools, should we consider another round of site visits?

2. Community of Practice: We began to convene representative teacher-leaders from each of our schools. This group of teacher-leaders formed the core of a Community of Practice (CoP) which began three years ago, meets monthly and is still running strong. These teacher-leaders serve as part-time Technology Integration Specialists in their schools, a position for which we provide funding. This Community of Practice is tasked with directing their own technology driven curriculum, professionally facilitated by a local professor with expertise in digital teaching and learning. Our evaluations of this Community of Practice show that our teachers are growing their personal learning (technology) networks, know where and how to find information and support for technology in education,and are learning to play technology-leadership roles within their school communities. This year we are focusing on peer coaching – on training our committed technology teacher-leaders to work effectively with peers in their schools to strategically integrate technology. A question we are thinking about: Will the technology Community of Practice continue to have meaning and relevance as each school’s educational technology leadership strengthens?

3. Advisory Committee: We formed a Technology Advisory Committee comprised of a select number of thoughtful leaders who care deeply and are still learning about this issue. Our advisors have backgrounds in technology, education, day school leadership and philanthropy. This Committee has been invaluable in providing guidance and oversight.

4. Infrastructure Assessment and Upgrade: We conducted an audit and inventory of each school’s technology infrastructure including wiring, bandwidth, hardware etc. We used this audit and inventory in close consultation with each school to recommend upgrades in infrastructure given their educational needs. We approached this upgrade as a pilot and were careful not to fund them in their entirety. A question we are thinking about: what is the cost cycle of inventory upgrade/refresh at each school and what role will the Samis Foundation play in infrastructure assessment and funding the next time around? How can we promote school self-sufficiency in this area?

5. Professional Development: We have experimented with different models for professional development in the schools we support. This has included exposure to new technologies and a variety of presenters. It has helped carve out time for teacher-teams intra and inter-school to devote to technology dreaming and conversation. More recently, we have offered professional development devoted to the acquisition of specific skills in technology (creating screencasts, exposing faculties to widely used educational apps like Kahoot and Seesaw.) We expose the CoP teachers and others to new and emerging educational software – most of it free – and let each teacher and ultimately, school, determine whether a particular app or software is one that meets their needs and culture. We see clearly that professional development through consultants, conferences and our ongoing Community of Practice, has fostered a technology culture shift in schools. We have data supporting the value of professional development as central to this effort. A question we are thinking about today: Can data link Samis’ investment in Professional Development to increased student achievement? Will we see a marked improvement in student acquisition of 21st century skills such as communication, collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, character and citizenship?

6. Hardware Grants: We offered modest grants in hardware to each school. This was no more than $20,000 per school and in some instances, far less. The hardware basically outfitted one pilot classroom or shared devices among several grades. Using this approach allowed the schools and the foundation to maintain a balance between the shiny new computers and “toys” and a continued focus on how to use the technology in the service of learning goals. This approach has whet schools’ appetites and encouraged real consideration on their parts about educational effectiveness and cost. A question we are asking today: What will the next cycle of hardware funding for our schools look like? What percentage of a school’s budget might we reasonably expect each school to spend on technology including hardware?

7. Program Provider Partnerships: We have experimented with funding schools to partner with quality program providers. We have tried bringing in outside providers to teach coding and robotics but it was not successful. However, even our failed partnerships helped our initiative and each individual school to grow and learn. For example, a failed partnership with a coding company led a school that was previously skeptical of the value of teaching computational thinking to see the value and hire a teacher with coding skills. Another school, resistant to rearranging their Middle School schedule to accommodate coding courses has overhauled its model, making time for student learning in coding, engineering and a design lab. A question we are thinking about: How else can we partner our schools with one another and with (national) initiatives to provide excellence and support?

8. Teaching Technology Skills: A related area with which we are still wrestling is supporting teaching technology skills like coding and robotics. Our small schools largely do not have teachers on staff skilled in those subjects. A partnership with the Center for Initiatives in Jewish Education is exposing our schools in a professional and supportive way to the value of embedding some of these subjects in the curriculum. A question we are thinking about today: How can we provide support and know-how to teach computational thinking skills? How can we encourage schools to grow in-house experts in these areas?

In the not too distant future we hope to support our schools in technology planning. Now that the schools have some in-house leadership who are thoughtful and knowledgeable about “technology in education,” there is a team in place in most of our schools to lead this effort. A school with a doable technology plan that is rooted in measurable educational outcomes will be one of the Samis Technology Initiative’s greatest achievements.

If you’re thinking about supporting schools in this most worthwhile, cutting-edge area, I encourage you to be hopeful: you too can meet with success. Strengthening school-based educational technology leadership through professional development focuses funders and schools on the most precious technology resource: our teachers! Coupled with strategic financial support to provide both relief and guidance, funders can measurably impact the quality of education in Jewish day schools.

Amy Z. Amiel is a native New Yorker living in the Pacific Northwest. Amy serves as the Senior Program Officer of the Samis Foundation, a Seattle-based funder focused on local, quality Jewish day education and State of Israel funding. There, she develops and leads a technology change initiative designed to improve educational outcomes in schools through strategic use and integration of technology.

UpStart

As it marks its 10-year anniversary and completes a landmark merger, UpStart embarks on its next phase to support communities advancing innovation in Jewish education and Jewish life. A coordinated group of funders is helping to elevate UpStart’s role as a national intermediary supporting Jewish innovation and serving as a one-stop shop for the tools, network, and resources innovators need to succeed.

When UpStart adopted us, we had a vision and a couple of successful events, and we believed that our idea had what it would take to become an amazing organization. In truth, we had no idea what it would take and I don’t think we could have gotten here without UpStart.
– Julie Wolk, Co-Founder, Board Member, Wilderness Torah

UpStart recently celebrated the 10-year anniversary with a community celebration honoring its founding CEO, Toby Rubin, in San Francisco.  Originally launched as an Accelerator for early-stage Jewish organizations bringing something fresh and relevant to Jewish life, UpStart later expanded its services to support long-standing institutions in opening up new pathways for impact.

Within the first year of joining the Accelerator, KAHAL doubled in every conceivable metric, from participants, to dollars, to staff. That trajectory has only continued, and now we’re poised to serve thousands more students across the world.
– Alex Jakubowski, Executive Director, KAHAL: Your Jewish Home Abroad

Toby Rubin with alumni and current members of the UpStart Accelerator.

With the new coordinated funding, UpStart is poised to complete the merger with Joshua Venture Group, Bikkurim, and the U.S. programs of PresenTense; to embark on critical planning processes; and to continue UpStart’s and the other merged organizations’ current programs. At the same time, the organization will work to fulfill its new and expanded vision: Expansion of programs to nurture innovation at every stage of organizational life; Increase in resources flowing into Jewish innovation, including more seed funding for innovative programs/initiatives; Investment in field-based research and evaluation of impact; Harnessing the power of a larger, more diverse innovation network; and Connecting a growing network of independent cities through regional hubs covering North America.

Now with offices in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver, and New York, UpStart hosts programs in 13 communities across the country and has plans for expansion. Since their inception, UpStart and its three merging organizations have fueled the impact of over 1,300 organizations and trained nearly 3,000 of the Jewish community’s most inspiring leaders. The collaborative of funders cumulatively awarded $3.2 million, a portion of which is allocated as matching grants designed to spur other giving.

UpStart’s 10-year anniversary event

“Over the three years that I was an UpStarter, UpStart accelerated Edah’s development—providing us with substantive, emotional, and financial support at key junctures in our organizational trajectory. Talented UpStart staff combined just-in-time coaching, content-rich seminars, and connections with a cadre of other creative Jewish Social entrepreneurs to inspire innovation and support sustainability.”
– Rena Dorph, Founder and Board Chair, Edah, a program of Studio 70

The collaborative of funders includes previous and new donors, such as the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, The Crown Family, The Diane P. and Guilford Glazer Fund of the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles, Jim Joseph Foundation, Joyce and Irving Goldman Family Foundation, Kaminer Family, Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah, Lisa and John Pritzker Family Foundation, Marcus Foundation, Natan Fund, SeaChange-Lodestar Fund for Nonprofit Collaboration, and the Walter and Elise Haas Fund.

Making the most of technology in Jewish education

You’ve seen the advertisements: A fit young woman pedals a stationary bicycle while an instructor on a video screen shouts encouragement. The company, Peloton, promises “fitness at your fingertips,” and both “live and on demand” spin classes and “world class instructors,” all from the comfort of your own home.

What does a stationary bike company have to do with Jewish education?

We believe that Judaism, a 4,000-year-old endeavor, has something important and timeless to say about building character and values; about dignity, persistence and survival skills; about humor, art and joy — all necessary attributes to build that better future. And we believe that media and technology have a place in this process to engage, model and teach.

An Israeli working with campers at the Union for Reform Judaism’s 6 Points Sci-Tech Academy in New Jersey. (URJ 6 Points Sci-Tech Academy)

What if Jewish funders and educators were to adapt the Peloton model to Jewish learning, offering long-distance classes as well as opportunities for in-person connections and interactions? Such a combined model could provide opportunities for learning and community building, for families with young children or college-age students, building on already existing physical institutions such as JCCs.

The Peloton model is only one of dozens we explore in a new report, Smart Money: Recommendations for an Educational Technology and Digital Engagement Investment Strategy. Together with several colleagues, all who work in the world of secular education and entertainment media, we advised the Jim Joseph and William Davidson foundations on the potential of ed tech and digital engagement to help the foundations’ missions to create meaningful Jewish learning experiences — for people on the margins of Jewish life and those deeply immersed — and vibrant Jewish communities.

The report provides a detailed roadmap for Jewish funders as they consider investing in this area and look to leverage new technology and media in Jewish learning. Here are some key points:

 Define your mission, a vision of what you want to accomplish.

  • Jewish educators and researchers tell us that American Jews have decreasing connections to other Jews, Jewish communities, institutions and Jewish life. Technology provides a means to reach all Jews with Jewish wisdom related to values and character, and “life lessons” on topics such as patience, showing kindness to others and managing emotions. Jewish community building and social interaction are essential, technology cannot replace them — but it can be used to enhance them.
  • Balance the need to engage Jews who are uninterested and uninvolved in Jewish life — providing them with authentic learning experiences — with deep educational experiences for those already interested and invested in Jewish learning.

Media is not an end. It is a means, a tool that can reflect reality, but with imagination, can also shape a new reality.

  • Nurture young and established talent to experiment fearlessly.
  • Insist on quality and dream big.
  • Infuse a spirit of innovation into all efforts.
  • Be willing to fail and learn from failures.
  • Engage and educate through joy, humor and fun.
  • Perform research that is formative, iterative and summative.

You can’t teach if you can’t reach. Be market knowledgeable and sensitive.

Create a solid distribution plan: all successful impact is dependent on reach and scale. In fact, it is as important as the quality of the content created.

With these guiding principles, we hope creative minds and funders will consider developing these types of Jewish ed tech opportunities:

A blended Jewish lifelong learning academy

The Khan Academy is an educational organization that produces short video lectures, practice exercises and tools for educators in math, science and the humanities. Envision a Khan Academy-like resource with personalized instruction on Jewish education topics taught through video, and supplemented by virtual and in-person mentoring and community meetings.

Narrative stories to engage audiences and link them to an eco-system of learning and community

Just as masterful storytellers have adapted Shakespearean classics for the stage, film and television, so should Jewish educators and ed tech producers adapt Jewish stories, whether biblical, historical or contemporary, for digital media distribution.

Innovative Israel education and partnerships

Advisers stress an urgent need to address the changing views toward Israel and Zionism. They explain that though it is difficult, ignoring these ideas will be detrimental and lead to a decline in especially young people’s positive feelings for Israel and, by extension, Judaism.

Create partnerships with Israeli tech and media companies, schools and universities for mentorship, exchange programs, virtual courses, joint storytelling and productions, and more.

A “J-Game Lab” that focuses on integrating curricular content into a game format

Experiment with virtual and augmented realities (VR and AR) to teach Jewish history, values and conflict resolution to give a sense of presence and empathy. VR and AR can be used for virtual visits to Israel, important Jewish sites and landmarks, or for virtual interactions with events in Jewish history. They can also be used to build empathy and an understanding of others through virtually walking in someone else’s shoes.

These could serve as stand-alone experiences or supplement others as introductions to or follow-ups for programs such as Birthright Israel, camp or Poland trips.

Empower and appeal to young people’s comfort with creating and using technology

Encourage young Jewish talent by building a pipeline for Jewish college students and graduates to professionally explore new technologies in a variety of ways — for example, by creating a Jewish Imagination Fellows Corps.

Launch community building projects around Jewish and general social activism

Create a Jewish Community Virtual Boomer Corps where retirees virtually mentor younger people and the younger people mentor the boomers, helping to improve their use of technology.

Invest in educator training

Support Jewish learning through training educators, specifically teachers who work in schools. If educators are not well trained, confident and competent in their use of a technology, the technology will not be used.

We are living in a complex world filled with information, accessibility and opportunities on the one hand, and with uncertainty, intolerance, fear and upheaval on the other. The need to empower children and adults to build a better future could not be more dramatic and urgent.

Our vision for this report is to stimulate funding to harness ed tech to transform Jewish learning and engage all Jews, whatever their beliefs and practice, with knowledge about Jewish values, legacy and teachings. How else will we transform this world for the better for our children and grandchildren?

(Dr. Lewis Bernstein had a 40-year career at Sesame Workshop, with roles ranging from executive vice president of the Education, Research and Outreach Division, to serving as the Emmy Award-winning executive producer of the domestic “Sesame Street” series. Shira Ackerman has worked in education, educational technology and media for over 15 years as a teacher, a director of educational technology at a Jewish day school, and at Gonoodle, Scholastic, Amplify and Barnesandnoble.com. They both served as researchers for Smart Money: Recommendations for an Educational Technology and Digital Engagement Investment Strategy.)

originally appeared in JTA

High-tech, low barriers: new study advances the digital future of Jewish learning

By day, Liora Brosbe is the family engagement officer for the Jewish Federation of the East Bay in Berkeley, Calif., where she reaches out to the community with a menu of opportunities for “connecting to Jewish life and each other.”

But when she’s not at work, Brosbe’s main job is raising three kids, ages 2, 6 and 8. Their home? A laboratory for Jewish learning strategies.

“Yes, they’re little petri dishes,” their mom, who is also a psychotherapist, says with a laugh. “Like most families, screen time is a huge issue at our house, both for time and content. But I tell families it’s also an amazing opportunity for low-barrier Jewish engagement.”

With the avalanche of new technologies, many of them being tapped for Jewish learning, educators, funders and parents are often befuddled about where to invest their money and their kids’ or students’ time. A new report on the implications of the wave of educational technology and digital engagement is designed to guide the Jewish community through this complex space.

Sponsored by the Jim Joseph Foundation and the William Davidson Foundation, “Smart Money: Recommendations for an Educational Technology and Digital Engagement Investment Strategy” examines many of these innovations and provides suggestions for navigating the high-tech world.

A picture that is included in “Smart Money,” a newly released study intended to help the Jewish community navigate the high-tech world. Credit: Lewis Kassel, courtesy of Moishe House.

The study’s recommendations include: using virtual and augmented reality—a user could, for example, experience the splitting of the Red Sea; creating games based on alternative scenarios for “Jewish futures,” such as rebuilding Jewish life after the Roman destruction of the Second Temple; offering opportunities for students to learn coding and other technological skills, which can foster connectedness among Jewish youths and introduce them to Israeli high-tech companies; and increasingly using video, music, podcasting and other platforms.

The report is garnering far more attention than expected, according to the sponsors.

“We did not originally intend for this to be a public report,” says Barry Finestone, president and CEO of the Jim Joseph Foundation. “But the substance of the findings and recommendations really challenge us, as funders, to think strategically, creatively and collaboratively about how we can utilize educational technology and digital engagement to advance our Jewish educational missions.”

For the report, Lewis J. Bernstein and Associates interviewed 50 experts, investors and educators from both the Jewish and secular worlds to create the recommendations.

“It’s a huge media marketplace out there and most Jews are exposed to the same information as the rest of the world,” says Lewis J. Bernstein, a former producer of Sesame Street and the report’s lead researcher. “Parents and educators have difficult choices to make, and Jewish learning and wisdom compete with the secular world.”

Regarding technology’s potential value to the Jewish world, the Jim Joseph Foundation has “certainly dipped our toe in, but we knew there was so much more to understand,” says the foundation’s chief program officer, Josh Miller.

“The report is giving us a roadmap for how to focus our efforts,” he says, adding, “Training a good educator doesn’t change but, as educational technology and digital platforms do, teachers and tech producers are working together to create educational opportunities.”

For example, as the number of Holocaust survivors dwindles, the Los Angeles-based USC Shoah Foundation recently initiated “New Dimensions in Testimony,” a program that uses artificial intelligence to answer students’ questions from a pool of 2,000 pre-recorded survivor responses.

“It looks and sounds like you’re talking one-on-one with the survivor,” says USC Shoah Foundation spokesman Rob Kuznia.

“The gigantic opportunity for the community is the new ways we can access Jewish wisdom,” says the Jim Joseph Foundation’s Miller. Ironically, he says, that means disconnecting once a week “because of our 4,000-year-old tradition called Shabbat, which reminds us that that life isn’t only about the little rush you get every time you get a text.”

Like all powerful forces, technology should be utilized in moderation, one observer notes.

“There is no question that high-tech, which is so much a part of the lives of young Jews, needs to be part of their Jewish educational experience as well,” says Brandeis University’s Dr. Jonathan Sarna, a leading expert on Jewish education and American Jewish history as a whole. “History suggests, however, that these new technologies will certainly not substitute for effective teaching. Now, as in the past, educators should look for modest gains from the introduction of new technologies, and should be wary of high costs and hype.”

Lisa Colton—who specializes in implementing digital strategies for synagogues, day schools and camps—agrees that technology alone is not the answer.

“Technical savvy is the easiest thing to find and hire, but smart design requires you to put yourself in your user’s shoes,” says Colton, chief learning officer for See3 Communications and founder of Darim Online. “But the [‘Smart Money’] report does give educators a new way to understand today’s audience, implications for innovative design, and the all-important relationship between content and technology.”

At the same time, there is already a growing field of Jewish organizations specializing in educational technology and digital engagement, including Sefaria, Reboot, BimBam and Let it Ripple.

“The report is the start of legitimizing the technical Jewish world and the practice of investing in it,” says Brett Lockspeiser, co-founder and chief technology officer of Sefaria, an online library of Jewish texts that welcomed 460,000 online users last year. “It’s helping everyone become more comfortable taking that risk.”

Back in Berkeley, Liora Brosbe recommends a four-minute Jewish 101 video on BimBam for first-time parents who are welcoming new babies. Meanwhile, as she cooks dinner in her own home, her children engage with Jewish music and content through the Spotify app.

“They’re going to have screen time anyway,” she says. “So why not Jewish ones?”

Source: “High-tech, low barriers: new study advances the digital future of Jewish learning,” Deborah Fineblum, JNS, May 2, 2017

Rebooting Judaism

Do the Innovative Communities of the Jewish Emergent Network Hold a Key to the Jewish Future?

On a summer Shabbat in 2009, Rabbi David Ingber stood under a chuppah (canopy) with his son at a synagogue on New York City’s Upper West Side. The celebration was not a wedding, however; it was a naming ceremony for the rabbi’s newborn. The baby was placed on a stack of prayer shawls inside the open Torah, and blessings were recited in a ceremony described by Rabbi Ingber as affirming that “each child—every human life—is as holy as one of the letters of the Torah.” This rite, blending traditional Jewish practice with creative elements, has become a staple of Rabbi Ingber’s community. His congregation, Romemu (meaning “elevated” in Hebrew), began in 2008 with 75 people. Today, it boasts 600 member families.

Read the entire story in the spring 2017 issue of Beacon, the magazine of the National Museum of American Jewish History,

iCenter Fellowship Encourages Broader Approach to Education About Israel

You know iPhones, iPads and iTunes — now meet the iCenter.

Although the name could easily be that of a new Apple product, the “I” in iCenter stands for Israel.

The iCenter, a North American nonprofit based in Chicago, provides learning opportunities and tools for Jewish education professionals to enhance Israel education.

There are more than 150 iFellows across North America who participated in the iCenter fellowship, a yearlong master’s concentration program in Israel education.

The goal of the program is to fashion an approach to Israel education grounded in a complex understanding of modern-day Israel and its history, combined with an inventive educational methodology.

The program includes three intensive seminars in Chicago, the guidance of a mentor and a trip to Israel.

Anne Lanski, iCenter executive director, said the program provides learning materials to graduates to continue promoting education on the Jewish state, but sometimes the first thing they help graduates with is finding a job in Jewish day schools, synagogues or summer camps.

The iCenter approach to Israel education, she said, is relational.

“Excellent education is excellent Jewish and Israel education,” said Lanski, which she added ensures strong Jewish identities and a future for the Jewish people.

By equipping these fellows with the right tools and knowledge to teach Israel education, the iCenter makes Israel an organic part of children’s education and who they are, she said.

“In the days before the iCenter, you could go into a day school and say, ‘OK, if I register my children here, where is he going to learn about Israel?’ And normally, they would say, ‘11th grade, second semester.’ And Israel Independence Day and maybe one other place,” Lanski said. “As a result of our students, the learning that they’re doing, Israel is infused throughout everything in the school.”

Michael Soberman, iCenter senior educational consultant for Israel education, runs the iPods program, which determines how to integrate Israel education into different communities, or pods, across North America.

Two local iFellows, Terri Soifer and Ben Rotenberg, completed the iCenter fellowship and are doing just that in Philadelphia.

“Our belief is that the more people in the Jewish educational, communal world who understand our approach to Israel education will find a way to take what they’ve learned and apply it to their setting in a way that suits what that particular setting it,” Soberman added.

Soifer, community engager at Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel, used her studies with the iCenter to incorporate Israel education into workshops with the Center City Kehillah.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia awarded the Center City Kehillah a grant to do a series of professional development workshops last fall and winter.

As Soifer earned her master’s degree in Jewish education from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America while doing the iCenter concentration in Israel education, she thought the iCenter’s ideas would be a good fit.

“Israel is a much different subject” than what the Kehillah usually covers, she said, “so there was this uncertainty of how to move forward.”

But because she was familiar with the iCenter, she suggested using its resources to become a “community of practitioners and use this grant to use some of the iCenter’s ideas.”

She led two workshops in which the group talked about encounters between Israelis and non-Israelis as part of the Israel experience, as well as Israel from a personal standpoint.

People brought in a picture or an item that they associated with Israel and shared the stories behind them.

“It was a nice way for people to start to talk about Israel in this very relational, emotional approach where there’s not exactly right or wrong,” she noted.

“The biggest misconception is that everything needs to start with politics in Israel,” she continued, “and sometimes we don’t always take a moment to think of the educational best practice. We just jump right into what is the hot-button issue that we think people want to hear about. So what the iCenter is really great at doing is giving these tools and resources … to approach it in a space where people can share different perspectives.”

Rotenberg’s role with the iCenter differs from Soifer’s. His work takes a more direct approach: He is a Jewish studies teacher at Perelman Jewish Day School.

“[The iCenter is] not specific to one type of institution. It’s a broad approach,” he explained.

Outside of elementary school, Rotenberg often leads classes at synagogues. In the summers, he works at a Jewish summer camp in Massachusetts.

The iCenter’s philosophy on Israel education complements his teaching, he said.

“It’s a meta level at looking at Israel,” he said. “The iCenter is looking to develop the field not through products but through people.”

It’s not about creating content about Israel, but rather bringing together the best education about Israel by producing “thinkers without an objective in mind.”

“Perelman also is starting to talk about Israel education and re-examine what we do and how we teach Israel,” he added.

Before the iCenter, Rotenberg admitted that he had a hard time relating to Israel as a college student. He felt pressure to lean a certain way toward Israel and define himself by it, which forced him to “step back rather than step forward.”

“I don’t want my feelings or conversations about Israel with my friends or family to define who I am as a Jew,” he recalled of his initial feelings.

But the turning point was the iCenter. Through it and building connections with people, it helped him see the Jewish state differently.

“Israel is not just a place. It’s an idea and it’s a framework for building deep connections to community,” he said. “That’s a gift that the iCenter gave me, this new perspective and new framework to really think about Israel that way.”

Contact: [email protected]; 215-832-0737

Source: “iCenter Fellowship Encourages Broader Approach to Education About Israel,” Rachel Kurland, Philadelphia Jewish Exponent, April 26, 2017

The Value of the CEO Onboarding Program

By Dov Ben-Shimon and Stefanie Rhodes

Once you accept the role of CEO at a major American Jewish organization, there’s no road map for how to become a leader.

In theory, our past experiences had prepared us for new positions. No one prepared us, or our colleagues in Cohort One of the CEO Onboarding Program, for that first day walking through the door into our new roles.

We came in with so many questions. What are the obvious missteps to avoid? What are the quick victories that could set us up for success? Who’s rooting for us to succeed? What questions do we not even know to ask?

The North American Jewish communal “system” has an array of programs for new hires and mid-level managers. Until now, we’ve not had a framework that takes new CEOs of American Jewish organizations and gives them a peer network for guidance, mentorship, coaching opportunities and skills development.

We’ve been incredibly fortunate to have participated in Cohort One of the CEO Onboarding Program. The different levels of experience each cohort member brought to the group, along with their unique skills and expertise, transcended the size of each organization and the issues with which we work. We each learned from one another over the past year, and we know we’ll keep learning long past the last day of the program.

The past year also has been a journey in understanding how we bring our own personalities and strengths to our roles, and how these qualities play into our individual successes, now and in the future. As part of the program, our time at the Center for Creative Leadership provided an individualized picture of our personal leadership styles. The support of an Executive Coach helped us build on that piece of the onboarding puzzle. For many of us, the combination empowered us to bring our whole selves into our new roles in a way that could strengthen our impact and set us – and our organizations – up for success.

As this incredible journey draws to a close, we find we are all better CEOs for having had this opportunity (others can have this opportunity too by applying for cohort 2 now). Our organizations, and the Jewish world, are the ultimate benefactors of this incredible investment.

Here are some key insights from our year in this program.

1. Collaboration is key to success. Not only have we built meaningful relationships as a cohort, we’ve also used those connections to create new professional ties between our organizations. These ties reflect the vibrancy and diversity of our American Jewish life. At a time when so much in our community is fragmented and divisive, we’ve formed a group that has collaborated and cooperated on everything from funding to programming.

2. Size matters, but value matters more. One of us (Dov) is the CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ, one of the largest Jewish Federations in the country. The other (Stefanie) is the Executive Director of Slingshot, one of the smaller-sized Jewish nonprofits in terms of staffing. Many of the issues we face, however, are similar. Learning from each other, and drawing on our varying backgrounds, offered new ideas and solutions for each of us.

3. Expert coaching is a special opportunity. One of the major benefits of the program was having a coach assigned for personal time on a regular basis. Coaching provided us with powerful, confidential guidance about holding difficult conversations, hiring and firing, and budgeting and planning. Anyone fortunate be a part of Cohort Two will experience the same highly personalized, ongoing elite coaching that makes this program unique.

4. Follow the wise. We were blessed to have meetings and discussions with great leaders of the American Jewish scene. They gave advice and perspective, and guided us through the process. In general, we don’t have enough opportunities to hear from those who came before us in our roles, and this was a well-needed resource.

5. The role goes with you, wherever you are. There were so many “real-time” learnings during the year. One that especially sticks with us occurred in Jerusalem. Outgoing U.S. Ambassador Dan Shapiro was briefing us on U.S.-Israel relations and their impact on the American Jewish community. At the very same time, we watched several colleagues deal with bomb threats to their institutions in real time. The lesson was clear: Our role as leaders never ceases.

We know it will be a challenging and enlightening year ahead for us, as we step away from the CEO Onboarding Program and continue to establish ourselves as CEOs of our organizations. We want to live up to the ideals of Jewish communal service and to set an example for those who come after us.

We’re grateful for the vision of Leading Edge and the generous support of the Jim Joseph Foundation, the Weinberg Foundation, the Schusterman Foundation, the Diller Foundation, and other generous funders. We’re thankful for our leadership and boards for supporting us and validating our participation.

Most importantly, we’re inspired by the message this program sends: The funders of the American Jewish community are committed to our future – and to the role of Jewish communal CEOs in getting us there.

Dov Ben-Shimon is Chief Executive Officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ.
Stefanie Rhodes is Executive Director of Slingshot.

Learn more about Cohort Two of the CEO Onboarding Program. Applications are open.

Source: “The Value of the CEO Onboarding Program,” by Dov Ben-Shimon and Stefanie Rhodes, eJewishPhilanthropy,  April 25, 2017

Launching an Investment Strategy in Jewish Educational Leadership

How might the Jewish world create, nurture and develop the next generation of Jewish education leaders? The professional staff and board at the Jim Joseph Foundation for the last 18 months have closely explored this question—drawing on 11 years of experience investing in Jewish educators, in Jewish learning experiences for youth, and in building the field of Jewish education to inform our answer. Through this exploration, we have gained an understanding that  supporting talented leaders is mission-aligned with supporting effective Jewish educators and helping to build the field in which they work. Specifically, investing in current and future leaders in Jewish education organizations is a leveraged strategy to achieve the Foundation’s broader mission.

Many are now familiar with the troubling statistic that in the next 5-7 years, 75-90% of Jewish organizations will have to find new executive leadership. This is the leading cause of what many refer to as a “nonprofit leadership deficit” in the field. Others observe this trend and suggest that the more appropriate way to define the challenge is a leadership investment deficit – there are plenty of leaders ready to lead, but there is a paucity of investment in talent development. By some estimates, foundations spend a meager 1% of their grantmaking dollars on talent development.

Whether it is a deficit in leaders or a deficit in investment, action is needed. As part of my onboarding process at the Foundation last year, I was charged with researching previous Jim Joseph Foundation grants to identify trends in our investments related to funding leadership training programs. I found a significant amount of funds helped to support programs or organizations that run leadership programs, whether for emerging leaders, mid-career leaders, service learning fellows, educator trainers, and senior executives. I was also fortunate to go on a “listening tour” to hear from funders, academics and practitioners who are steeped in this field of leadership training. I found examples of programs that provide sabbaticals to Executive Directors (Barr Foundation, Durfee Foundation); customized support for core grantees to develop internal leadership capacities (Walter and Elise Haas, Jr. Fund, Kresge Foundation); and programs focusing on leaders of color, LGBTQ leaders, and other dimensions of diversity, equity and inclusion (Hewlett Foundation, Irvine Foundation).

The development of the Foundation’s leadership investment strategy has been thoughtful and deliberate, guided by an overarching goal to learn more about the field of Jewish leadership and have greater clarity around the most effective ways to invest. From the Foundation’s research in this space, four strategic components emerged:

1) Continue learning from and with current grantees already in the leadership space.

2) Learn from and with new grantees, in part by releasing the Foundation’s first-ever open Request for Proposals (RFP) for Leadership Development.

3) Provide additional leadership capacity support to our current grantees so they can deepen the skills of their own staff.

4) Broaden the Foundation’s role as a convener in the field, bringing together professional and lay leaders of nonprofits, foundations and other experts.

In the mid- to long-term, we hope these new initiatives that the Foundation may fund will expand the pipeline of excellent talent to fill leadership positions, increase retention and advancement of Jewish education leaders, and create more successful, sustainable Jewish organizations.

My colleagues and I are learning important lessons from the research and discovery phase of this new strategy area for the Foundation. For example, most successful leadership programs include these Four C’s: Coaching, Cohorts, Collaboration and Convening. Leadership programs also can have many audiences and different goals – it is critical to identify these up front with Logic Models and/or Theories of Change – and Grantmakers for Effective Organization’s (GEO) leadership investment matrix provides helpful suggestions depending on whether the target outcome is the individual, organization, or ecosystem. Similarly, a program can focus on everything from general leadership development (empathy and strategy), to management skills (board and staff), to technical knowledge (finance and fundraising), or some combination of them all. This should be identified in advance as well. Finally, there are opportunities for the Jewish world to partner with the secular world in the leadership arena, and some of the most effective programs are already doing this, including Wexner Foundation & Harvard’s Kennedy School of Public Policy, Weinberg Foundation & Aspen Institute, and Bend the Arc & Rockwood Leadership Institute, to name just a few.

The Foundation is working to uncover some big ideas and to tackle some big questions in the world of leadership development: How might we make working in the Jewish community as attractive as some people find working in the Tech sector? Would a bold strategy that includes more professional development move the needle in this direction? How might we support the arc of a career Jewish professional? Maybe by providing advancement opportunities and transitions within the organization and within the Jewish ecosystem? How might we provide for an ethical approach – a Jewish character, Mussar – to Jewish leadership development, and what are the values of Jewish leadership? Finally, how might we approach the Sabbath – the Shmita – to acknowledge the rest we all need, by providing a sabbatical year to re-energize, re-invigorate, and support the overall growth of senior executives, lay leaders and the teams who support them? Certainly there are no quick fixes or simple answers. But the Jim Joseph Foundation looks forward to working with other funders, key stakeholders, and practitioners to help us on this exciting new journey.

 

Unmasking the wild, unexpected faces of contemporary Israeli arts

Yair Dalal plays blues-inspired Iraqi tunes on the oud. Ibrahim Miari whirls like a Sufi dervish while wearing a gas mask from the Gulf War.

Raafat Hattab lip-syncs as his alter ego, the Bride of Palestine; Elad Schechter’s dancers throw bananas at their audiences in Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda market; and Iris Zaki films herself washing Arab and Jewish women’s hair in a Haifa salon.

This is the face of Israeli culture today, as expressed by a group of Jewish and Muslim artists, musicians, dancers and filmmakers brought to the East Bay this week for a three-day conference hosted by the Berkeley Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies.

The April 5-7 conference, which featured panel discussions as well as performances, examined how the arts express and influence critical topics in Israeli society today — faith, sexuality, politics and technology — while breaking down barriers between cultural and religious groups, celebrating an Israeli identity that is as multi-faceted as the country’s people.

“For many years, there was a focus on creating a collective idea of what Israeli art is,” said Sharon Aronson Lehavi, a professor of theater and performance studies at Tel Aviv University who spoke on one of the panels. “One of the things that is happening is an unmasking of hegemony within Israeli culture.”

“Whispers,” Nelly Agassi (Courtesy/Rebecca Golbert)

Dalal, a master of the oud and the violin whose performances highlight his Iraqi-Jewish heritage as well as his interest in jazz, blues and other music styles, says the days of cultural assimilation in Israel are over.

“When we grew up in Israel, everyone told us [we had] to be part of the melting pot,” he said. “But then you realize this melting pot doesn’t have any taste because it has no roots.

“It took years to break this melting pot. Now in Israel, everyone is trying to connect to his own culture that we left behind. This generation, they do it without any fear. When we did it, there was a lot of fear about what they would think of us. Nowadays, no one is afraid any more, and I think it’s because of something that has changed in the culture of Israeli society.”

Artists at the conference say they and their peers don’t hesitate to emphasize issues of gender or national identity, allowing them to create new artistic collaborations such as between Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews.

Miari, born in Acco to a Jewish Israeli mother and Palestinian Muslim father, not only illustrates that collaboration in his own biology, but makes it the focus of his autobiographical one-man theater piece.

“As a child, I thought everyone grew up with two cultures,” he told the audience after his April 6 performance. “Only later, when people began to ask me who I am, did I have to find my own identity. Theater helped me do that.”

One panel focused on Israeli artists grappling with questions of religion, gender and sexuality. Several talked about their use of the human body in light of their faith’s modesty traditions.

Schechter’s Jerusalem-based dance troupe performs in the open-air Machane Yehuda market, as well as other neighborhoods including the ultra-religious Mea Shearim, using energetic, often provocative movements to explore the importance of touch — literal and figurative — in human relationships.

“In Judaism there’s the idea of shomer negiah, that you’re not supposed to touch women,” he said, noting that his dance pieces try to subvert that paradigm. “We try to bring body culture into the public space and create opportunities for different communities to ‘touch’ each other.”

Hattab, an openly gay Muslim artist who rejected Islam in his teens, said that in his 30s, he made peace with it through his art. For a period of time, he said, he was “an obsessive knitter,” creating textile art with the craft.

“In Islam, like Judaism, the human figure is not allowed,” he explained. “There’s this notion of endless, empty space, which is God. When I knit, there’s an endless pattern; it refers to the Islamic idea of God that has no beginning and no end.”

For all of these artists, using their art to connect people is a key theme.

Textile and performance artist Nelly Agassi described how she stood inside the Tate Modern in London one afternoon and gave away 800 white tee-shirts she had made, each with the words “I am the one” written — in white letters — on the front. People took the shirts and put them on right in front of each other, laughing and talking, connecting in a more intimate way than might be expected of museum-goers.

“There I was, looking at all these little white-on-white dots milling around the museum,” she recalled. “They were all ‘the one.’ It’s important for everyone to feel that they are the one. You have to be for yourself first, before you can be for your lover, your family.”

While the artists featured at this conference borrowed from cultures and communities not their own, their art is successful, said Dalal, when they are grounded in their own first.

“You have to start with your own tradition,” he said. “There’s an Arabic phrase that says, ‘Without the old you cannot create the new.’”

Source: “Unmasking the wild, unexpected faces of contemporary Israeli arts,” J Weekly, April 7, 2017