By Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi

Today many Jewish leaders and philanthropists are trying to figure out how to convince more parents to send their children to Jewish day schools. Will an enhanced STEM focus or more scholarships help them fill the classrooms and enable Jewish day schools to thrive today and tomorrow? A key is better evidence – trained teachers, and more inclusive classrooms.

Recently, the day school movements all came together under one umbrella, Prizmah. Today that new collaborative and combined organization is uniquely positioned to share best practices with the field on these and other subjects. Their CEO, Paul Bernstein, wrote, “Prizmah supports increasing opportunities for inclusion and services for all Jewish students. There are great examples of high quality services for disabled students among Jewish day schools, but we need greater awareness and steps to keep improving, especially where such services are not currently available.”

Sulam at the Berman Hebrew Academy in Maryland, schools served by Gateways: Access to Jewish Education in Boston, as well as other Jewish schools in Chicago, Miami, New Jersey and beyond are using many best practices around inclusion of children of all abilities to strengthen their schools overall.

At the recent Prizmah conference, activist Shira Ruderman spoke on inclusion. (Here’s a link to an article about Ruderman’s presentation written by Alan Oliff, and in it there is a link to her presentation.) In her talk Ruderman posed a key question, “If 20% of our American population has special needs, can we afford to continue to exclude this significant segment of our Jewish community in our schools, synagogues, and programs?”

Of course, it is not only about fully welcoming and including people with disabilities in our Jewish community. It is also about their loved ones, who literally make up the majority of our community. Moreover, if children without disabilities spend their school years isolated from disability, they are not fully prepared for reality in their own futures. After all, people may only be temporarily without their own disabilities as – due to accident, disease or aging – disability eventually impacts most people if they live long enough.

But back to the good moves at the Prizmah conference. Importantly, Gateways also led a session on its B’Yadenu model, a whole-school approach to planning and implementing professional development to meet the needs of diverse learners. B’Yadenyu, funded by the Jim Joseph Foundation (JJF) and the Ruderman Family Foundation, is an effort to elevate the capacity of day school educators to differentiate instruction for those with learning challenges and, in so doing, enhance the quality of education for ALL students.

The B’Yadenu model was developed in collaboration with Boston-area day schools, but JJF has now extended the funding to disseminate the model in other communities. As a result of the Prizmah session, Gateways, and its partner Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP) are now actively exploring implementation of the B’Yadenu model in day schools around the country. This includes in my area with Sulam/Berman and Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Maryland, Gesher in Virginia and JPDS in Washington, DC. Both Sulam and MATAN are also involved in leading and assisting this cohort. MATAN, like Gateways and SULAM, are experts at training educators in how to work with children with differences. Collectively, these three nonprofits have tools and techniques that are desperately needed by other schools around the country.

The cohort of four Jewish day schools working together to upskill their teachers and be more inclusive is largely thanks to the outstanding leadership of the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington. They have made inclusion and professional development a hallmark of their efforts to strengthen the Jewish community and are truly a model to follow.

Nationally, one of the best developments is that inclusion of students with disabilities is now part of the conversation, the strategic planning, and the implementation of programs and services – within individual schools, and in forums across schools (i.e. Prizmah and other formal and informal networks).

One of the biggest changes in the field is the shift from a focus on the hiring of special educators and other service providers who take the primary responsibility for supporting students with special needs to a larger emphasis on training and supporting ALL educators in a day school to better differentiate instruction to meet the needs of diverse learners. Special educators and experts are still worth their weight in gold. However, the holistic training of teachers is a vital best practice for students with and without disabilities alike.

Teaching the teachers research-based best practices is vital. Jewish schools can further benefit from research based best practices gleaned from the latest in neuroscience. This can help ALL learners – whether they have a disability or not.

At St. Andrews Episcopal School in Maryland, for example, their innovative Center for Transformative Teaching & Learning (CTTL) is bringing the latest developments from neuroscience into the classroom. Indeed, research-informed teaching and learning has become the central focus of faculty professional development, curriculum and program design. Fully 100% of the teachers at St. Andrews have been trained in research-based best practices. Importantly, they did not do this on behalf of children with disabilities – they did it because the latest in neuroscience proves that children’s brains are still forming. Putting the right training and practices in place can help ALL children reach higher levels of intelligence and skills. CTTL’s work is so exciting that they are now offering training to teachers and experts from around the world.

Prizmah and day schools around the country can and should capitalize on its momentum in the Jewish day school community to educate Jewish day school leaders on best practices in special education – which is simply GOOD EDUCATION. But they should draw from outside of Jewish schools as well. Indeed, I just finished reading the new book Neuroteach: Brain Science and the Future of Education by CTTL’s director, Glenn Whitman, along with its director of research, Ian Kelleher. I recommend it highly to anyone who wants to improve education and the success of children.

One of the key principles of CTTL is the concept of “not yet.” You can learn something about it in a powerful Ted Talk by Carol Dweck, as well as one by Angela Duckworth on the power of grit. But it is larger than that. It turns out that simple changes, including changing what part of class times is used to give out the key educational content, and how and when teachers give out quizzes, can make big differences in the abilities of children to actually grow smarter and more capable.

National leaders in education today are those institutions that recognize that inclusive schools with well trained teachers widen the umbrella for ALL learners within the classroom. No longer is it acceptable to teach to the average, for there is no such thing as average. Neurodiversity is the norm, and schools must teach to a wide and varied range of learners.

When teachers reach the highest learners and the most challenged learners all within one classroom, the entire middle range of learners will be better reached as well. This is achievable with partnership and collaboration between general educators and special educators – all of whom take responsibility of EVERY child.

Let Prizmah and philanthropists lead the way to help Jewish schools become the national leaders of education, by facilitating the joining of forces between special educators and general educators in the use of research-based best practices. With this combination, the success and future of Jewish day schools can be unlimited.

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi is the president of RespectAbilityUSA.org, a nonprofit fighting stigmas and advancing opportunities for people with disabilities. She is also co-founder/director of the Mizrahi Family Charitable Fund. She can be reached at [email protected].

Source: “Strengthening Jewish Day Schools Through Better Trained & Inclusive Teachers,” by Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, eJewishPhilanthropy, April 21, 2017, 

NEW YORK (JTA) — In the upstairs sanctuary of a Manhattan synagogue, a group of rabbis is studying Jewish texts on pluralism and community. One floor below, 22 students are sitting in pairs poring over the book of Exodus.

The students spend all day, every weekday in the building, studying Jewish text and observing strict Jewish law in a gender-equal environment. The rabbis, by contrast, leave the building that afternoon and return to their communities across the country, which range from Reform synagogues that don’t observe traditional Jewish law to Orthodox ones that eschew full gender equality.

The two groups illustrate the dual mission of Mechon Hadar, a Jewish study institute now celebrating its 10th anniversary. As opposed to other Jewish schools offering college degrees or rabbinic ordination, Hadar hopes instead to form an educated, egalitarian Jewish laity and encourage rigorous Torah study across Jewish institutions.

On one hand, it has taught and trained cohorts of adult students who live the lifestyle it promotes — intensively learning Torah and observing Jewish law without discriminating based on gender identity or sexual preference. But more recently, Hadar has spread its net further, offering classes and programs for Jewish professionals who don’t necessarily share its Jewish worldview.

Rabbi Ethan Tucker, a co-founder of Hadar, speaking with rabbis during a seminar at the New York yeshiva, March 1, 2017. (Ben Sales)

“We would like to impact the Jewish community both from the bottom up and from the top down,” said Rabbi Shai Held, one of Hadar’s three co-founders. “I no longer believe in you just train rabbis and they change the world. You need rabbis, for sure, but you also need to inspire people to be responsible.”

Hadar was founded in 2006 by Held and two other rabbis, Ethan Tucker and Elie Kaunfer. Although Kaunfer and Held were ordained at the Conservative movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary, and Tucker earned his doctorate in Talmud and rabbinics there, Hadar — like Kehilat Hadar, the Manhattan minyan out of which it developed —  is a product of the movement of independent minyanim, or Jewish prayer groups unaffiliated with traditional synagogues or denominations. It offers resources on Jewish prayer and taught its first summer session of 18 fellows in 2007.

In the decade since, Hadar, meeting at space it rents from the Reconstructionist West End Synagogue, has had 500 full-time students in summer and yearlong programs, as well as 1,500 others who have attended shorter seminars for rabbis, college students or other Jewish professionals. Its Jewish study resources have been downloaded more than a million times in the past two years — covering everything from the weekly Torah portion to podcasts on Jewish ritual like how to celebrate a girl’s birth. And its co-presidents have published books on prayer groups, Jewish law and gender equality, and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.

“[It’s] a place in which you can be your full Jewish self without compromising on questions of values and gender that is in line with tradition and really continuing that,” Kaunfer said. “Being a place that other people can point to and say, ‘Oh yeah, the kind of Jewish life that I believe in exists, and here it is.’”

Core to that Jewish life are its groups of full-time students, who spend either a summer or academic year doing what was once almost exclusively the province of Orthodox men: learning over pages of Talmud, Bible and philosophy from morning to night. The students also teach part-time across the New York City area and engage in social service.

“It’s fascinating and really important to our society today to have this in-depth exploration of all sides of issues, of opinions you ultimately end up rejecting or disagreeing with, hearing all voices,” said Johanna Press, one of this year’s fellows, who came to Hadar after becoming more Jewishly observant in college and then spending a year studying in Israel.

“The beit midrash is the best educational environment I’ve been in,” she added, using the Hebrew term for a study house. “It’s OK to be working. It’s about engaging in the process.”

Johanna Press, left, and Noa Albaum studying Talmud together at Hadar, March 1, 2017. Both are fellows in its yearlong study program. (Ben Sales)

Beyond the shorter seminars, Hadar has expanded its footprint with study programs in Israel, as well as engagement with other movements’ institutions. Its Community Beit Midrash, held every month, brings together teachers from Hadar, the pluralistic Israel-based yeshiva Pardes, a few liberal Orthodox schools and the Jewish Theological Seminary.

“I see ourselves in league with them in a very deep way,” Kaunfer said of the other schools taking part. “The Jewish world likes to categorize and distinguish, and I feel like we’re more in the world of looking at the points of unity between us.”

This weekend, Mechon Hadar will celebrate its first decade with a sold-out retreat at a hotel in Teaneck, New Jersey, that will include Shabbat prayer, study and a concert on Saturday night.

Looking forward, Hadar hopes to expand its study programs, as well as support communities that share its philosophy. There are already some 100 independent minyanim that broadly accord with Hadar philosophically. But Tucker, a Hadar co-founder, said the organization needs to work on leveraging its alumni and allies into sustainable, multigenerational communities.

“One of our great challenges and goals has to be how do we help foster a new generation of people, kids and communities that sort of grow up living out this vision,” Tucker said. “The next frontier, as I see it, is actually beginning to generate a community that way transcends our programs and our beit midrash.”

But Hadar’s leadership doesn’t feel that all of its alumni need to narrowly pursue its stance of religiously observant egalitarianism in order to advance its vision. One alumna, Zoe Jick, now runs an English-language, full-time study program at Bina, a secular yeshiva in Tel Aviv, partly with financial support from Mechon Hadar. While she does not observe traditional Jewish law, Jick says Hadar inspired her to encourage Jewish study.

“Hadar 100 percent convinced me that Torah was at the core of my identity,” she said. “I felt like all of a sudden I was provided not only context and content, but given language to the things I felt instinctual about but didn’t know where it was coming from.”

Source: “At 10, egalitarian yeshiva wants to expand learning among Jews in the pews,” Ben Sales, JTA, March 3, 2017

Jewish students across the country mobilized to create affordable solutions to improve lives.

Jewish students at CornellTech, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Berkeley, UCI, and Solomon Schechter Westchester are preparing for six TOM Makeathons ‘three-day marathons of making’ at five colleges and one high school where participants will work with people with disabilities to develop solutions for everyday challenges. The designs of the solutions will be developed further and made available for widespread use for other users worldwide.

The six Makeathons are being organized with the support of the Jim Joseph Foundation and will be the latest in activities launched by the global TOM:Tikkun Olam Makers movement (currently active in Israel, the US, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Vietnam, Australia, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, and Barcelona), an initiative of the Reut Group founded with the support of the Schusterman Family Foundation. TOM is a global community of makers, technology developers, and innovators who seek to solve unmet social challenges in disadvantaged communities and nations, fulfilling the traditional Jewish value of Tikkun Olam – repairing the world.

Chair Call: Drew McPherson, TOM:Berkeley Organizer at TOM:Israel in January designing a device to help call a power wheelchair to ones’ bedside. Courtesy of Tikkun Olam Makers

Students are taking part in a new initiative by TOM:Tikkun Olam Makers to train young leaders as local pioneers launching TOM Communities on their campuses. In late January, 20 organizers met for the first time in Chelsea, NY and participated in an intensive 48 hour training seminar preparing them for the logistical and social responsibility of launching a TOM Community. Each will be responsible for bringing together technologists, designers, therapists from their campuses and from Israel, together with people with disabilities who will develop ideas and products that address challenges of people living with disabilities, their family members, and health-care professionals.

Bradley Schwartz of TOM:Vanderbilt shared,  “I came to Israel on BBYO’s International Leadership Seminar in Israel (ILSI) summer program. I’ve been a Maker my whole life – when I heard about TOM I realized that this can really benefit people on campus, and makers, and the community – nothing else is going to do all that at once.”

“If you look around, we have the right people, talent, and resources to help people – but the interactions between all three aren’t happening enough. If I can help someone – I want to help. In this 72 hour event, we can help create devices that can make people’s lives better – it all starts with bringing people together.” Guy Zeltser of TOM:Northwestern

The Jim Joseph Foundation is championing the innovative efforts to mobilize young leadership by supporting the seminar training for campus organizers, supporting the development of a campus methodology and guidebook, as well as supporting each of the six Makeathons. These efforts are designed to create a scalable model to reach and engage even more young Jewish leaders, Jewish high schools, and college communities across the United States.

“This is a dynamic initiative that mobilizes young people to create change for good in an environment imbued with creativity and Jewish values,” says Barry Finestone, President and CEO of the Jim Joseph Foundation. “The Foundation is excited to partner with TOM, offering opportunities for young adults to connect with Israelis and to engage in projects that inherently reflect diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

“This will be my sixth Makeathon – I was at the first Makeathon organized by TOM in Nazareth, then Tefen, the Bay Area, San Diego, and Haifa. There is something unique about creating a solution with a Need-Knower (person with a deep understanding with a disability and its challenges) and seeing their smile and satisfaction. And you know this is going to help other people – and that you took part in making that happen. This is why I am here.” explained Oded Shorer of TOM:NYC.

TOM:Tikkun Olam Makers is a strategic initiative of the Reut Group (reutgroup.org), a Tel Aviv-based nonprofit creating and scaling models to ensure prosperity and resilience for Israel and the Jewish People. TOM was launched in 2014 as a global movement of communities, bringing together people with disabilities and Makers in order to address neglected challenges and develop open-source technological solutions for people in need around the world. Thus, fulfilling the traditional Jewish value of Tikkun Olam – repairing the world.

By investing in promising Jewish education grant initiatives, the Jim Joseph Foundation seeks to foster compelling, effective Jewish learning experiences for young Jews in the United States. Established in 2006, the Jim Joseph Foundation has awarded more than $440 million in grants to engage, educate, and inspire young Jewish minds to discover the joy of living vibrant Jewish lives. www.jimjosephfoundation.org

Source: “Designing Solutions For People With Disabilities,” The New York Jewish Week, New Normal Blog, February 20, 2017

Last month, over 10,000 young Jews joined Repair the World’s Martin Luther King day volunteering activities and the organization also held service projects and discussions in Washington DC.

As protests against President Donald Trump’s travel ban take place across the United States, some young American Jews have decided to volunteer to help marginalized communities.

One of the organizations that allows them to do so is Repair the World.

Founded in 2009 with the goal to “make meaningful service a defining element of American Jewish life,” the NGO aims to engage Jewish young adults with the communities around them.

The group operates across the United States, with a focus on programing in six cities: Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, New York, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. In each city, Repair the World partners with local NGOs and allows members to volunteer in their communities.

“When we say meaningful service we mean work to improve equity and fairness especially within marginalized communities using tools that include direct volunteering, contextual education and reflection so the service comes through a Jewish lens,” CEO of Repair the World David Eisner told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.

This year, Repair the World expects to engage 25,000 young Jews across United States.

“We saw a beginning of a spike a couple of years ago around the Black Lives Matter movement when discussion of social justice and racial justice peaked in general,” Eisner said. “There is just an increased attention to this.”

He added that the group also witnessed a “very strong increase” in Jewish young adults moving into intercity multi-cultural, multi-racial communities.

“And of course the recent election has brought a lot of the discussions around equity and fairness, vulnerable populations and marginalized communities into focus in a way that there are more people that want to find outlets to stand in solidarity with [these] communities,” he went on.

Last month, more than 10,000 young Jews joined Repair the World’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day volunteering activities, and the organization also held service projects and discussions in Washington during the weekend of Trump’s inauguration.

Cheryl Pruce, 30, who has been living in Washington for the past seven years, is originally from Baltimore and became involved with Repair the World last November, just a few days after the presidential election.

That week, Pruce, who works in education policy research, joined other young Jews in Repair the World’s delegation to the Facing Race conference, a national gathering focused on racial justice, which took place in Atlanta.

“It was absolutely instrumental in my trajectory forward after the election of Donald Trump two days prior. It connected me to [other Jews serious about racial justice],” she told the Post. “That work with Repair’s Jewish delegation at Facing Race was very pivotal in solidifying my work in racial justice.”

Following that first interaction with the organization, Pruce recently worked to initiate a retreat with members of Repair the World to discuss racial issues further.

She said that growing up in Baltimore, these topics were always important to her.

“Race and class were extremely salient factors,” she explained. “These concepts have not been new to me. I’ve been interested in the intersection of race poverty and education for the last decade.”

Trump’s controversial appointments to key positions in his cabinet, she said, have amplified her motivation.

“It has made me very, very concerned and made me want to double down [my involvement]. I will absolutely push 10 times harder than I did before,” Pruce told the Post. “I’m not convinced that the people in power are going to protect all Americans.

“I am disheartened but extremely motivated to fight for my community and to fight for others,” she added.

Eisner explained that Repair the World sees significant Jewish value to volunteering and conducting the kind of work that Pruce has engaged in. One of the group’s main goals is to help young Jews make the connection between their passion for helping their communities with their Jewish identity.

“Loving the stranger because you were once a stranger in Egypt, taking care of the widow and the orphan and not putting stumbling blocks in front of the blind: these are not optional pieces for people that hold Jewish values,” he said.

“There is nothing more hopeful than watching Jewish young adults make change in communities that improves justice, that strengthens relationships, that builds community understanding and that strengthens their personal character and their understanding of their own connection to their Jewish identity,” Eisner said.

When asked whether volunteering is part of her Jewish identity, Pruce responded: “This is my Jewish identity. This is what it means for me to be Jewish in the world.”

Source: “In Tense Political Climate, Young Jews Turn to Volunteering,” Danielle Ziri, Jerusalem Post, February 3, 2017

[This article is the third in a series written by participants in the inaugural Senior Educators Cohort at M²: The Institute for Experiential Jewish Education.]

If we don’t know why we do what we do, then how can we expect anyone else to know?

One of my most cherished roles as a Jewish professional has always been that of barista. While I’ve been helping teens and families connect to the myriad of opportunities they can choose from while navigating their Jewish journeys, my preferred go-to has been to invite them to have a conversation over a cup of coffee or tea. Rooted in the foundational concepts of community organizing, I view this interaction as a critical first step in laying the groundwork of creating a relationship. Far too often teens exit the bar and bat mitzvah experience without having been asked directly: what does the next part of your Jewish journey look like to you? At that critical stage of development, adolescents and teens are laser-focused on being with their friends, cultivating their image, and trying to figure out who they are and who they want to be. Jewish professionals are typically charged with getting participants to a program, with a limited menu of opportunities and little flexibility. But what if we entered the conversation with the goals of developing a personal connection, helping to connect them in the way they wanted to be connected, and letting them know about some of the cool opportunities that exist?

In both the synagogue and communal spheres, we hear similar responses when teens were asked the infamous question, “Hey, want to come [to this program]?” Unless their friends are signed-up and in the loop, it is usually a non-starter. Meanwhile, Hillel International took note of a similar challenge: the vast majority of Jewish students on campuses nationwide were not participating in campus Jewish life, and provided the same common reasons: they weren’t asked or didn’t know something was happening, they didn’t have anyone to go with and they were intimidated by their perceived lack of Jewish identity. In response, Hillel created an internship program where they trained college students in community organizing, outreach and building relationships, and empowered them to connect to their peers. To say that the results have been successful would be an understatement. This model of peer-to-peer engagement has galvanized broader and deeper engagement on campuses throughout the country.

Knowing that we wanted to turn the teen engagement conversation upside down, the North Shore Teen Initiative (NSTI) has partnered with Hillel to bring this approach to our teens in the Greater Boston area. Having launched this past fall in the North Shore suburbs of Boston and launching in the Metro West suburbs this spring, NSTI’s Sloane Peer Leader Fellowship trains teens to be the communal connectors – reaching out to their marginally or under-connected peers, building those relationships and connecting them to opportunities which relate to their interests. With the emphasis on the relationship rather than program attendance, the pressure is off. NSTI is the first teen partner in the country to adapt and use Hillel’s model, and the early results coming in from the fellows have been exciting and has provided direct insight into a new group of Jewish teens. By recruiting and hiring gregarious and diverse teen leaders, representing public and private schools and numerous synagogues in the community, we have begun to get answers to what the perceived barriers have been and how we can remove them. Other teen initiatives around the country are excited and eager to adapt this innovative model of peer engagement.

With some help from Simon Sinek, we started with WHY, and asked our teens what inspired them. Similar to how we might train counselors at a camp, or many other groups of Jewish nonprofit professionals, the conversation began with our mission and values and a series of questions: If we don’t know why we do what we do, then how can we expect anyone else to know? It was then that we emphasized the importance and power of our work together: we believe that we will be able to engage hundreds of teens who are currently not on the radar. How will our values-driven work bring this to a reality? By investing and training our peer leadership fellows, helping to identify and develop their passions and social networks, and creating multiple opportunities for leadership and connection.

Our first step was to have the fellows identify and map out their social networks, followed by a peer-to-peer engagement training with Hillel International, and now they are connecting with underserved/disengaged Jewish teens in their communities, helping them to identify possible connections to Jewish life. Local synagogues are an important partner in the conversation as well, enabling us to reconnect with teens that have been off the map since they became b’nai mitzvah. This investment in our teen leaders is significant. Monthly group training seminars and individual virtual check-ins provide opportunities for skills-based training, supervision, reflection, mentorship and community building. Fellows live in varying geographic areas rather than affording the advantages of living together on a college campus, so the Hillel “coffee date” often takes the form of phone calls, FaceTime conversations and text message follow-ups between the teens.

As we have developed and adapted this model, one of our greatest learnings has been that our program and approach can only become better if we work and learn collaboratively from other organizations. Hillel’s groundbreaking work in this sphere has inspired us to turn the youth engagement conversation upside down – moving away from the assumption that teens need to be engaged first by a staff person – and, based on their success, we are able to test out a new strategy and approach in our communities. Collaborations such as this one have been at the heart of my experience with fellow educators in the M² Senior Educators Cohort (SEC), where we are constantly discussing and brainstorming new ways to learn from one another. Through our experience together in the SEC, my fellow cohort members and I have formed a deep and powerful community of practice in which we continually share ideas and best practices from our work.

The message we want to give to our teens is simple: No secret or hidden menus. Everyone is a rewards member with their name spelled correctly. Free substitutions and add-ins. Welcome to the Jewish community. We’re glad you’re here and excited to be on this journey with you.

Brett Lubarsky is the Associate Director at the Jewish Teen Initiative of Greater Boston, a Birthright Israel Fellow, and a current participant in the inaugural Senior Educators Cohort (SEC) at M²: The Institute for Experiential Jewish Education. SEC is generously supported by the Maimonides Fund.

Applications are now open for Cohort 2 of the Senior Educators Cohort. For more information and to request an application visit www.ieje.org.