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

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

[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.

The Foundation for Jewish Camp has added URJ 6 Points Sci-Tech Academy West to its Specialty Camp Incubator III cohort.

Building on the success of two previous incubators, the third one will lead to the launch of six new camps in the summer of 2018. The addition of the sixth camp (to be located in  California), as well as the entire program, is made possible by a combined grant from the S.F.-based Jim Joseph Foundation and the Avi Chai Foundation.

“Foundation for Jewish Camp has fine-tuned the incubator into a deeply effective model for creating dynamic, engaging Jewish immersive experiences,” said Barry Finestone, president and CEO of the Jim Joseph Foundation. “One of the great successes from the first incubators has been URJ 6 Points Sci-Tech Academy, and we are especially excited to see this camp come out west — a region with vast potential to blend this specialty with Jewish learning and values.”

Sci-Tech Academy West is an expansion of URJ 6 Points Sci-Tech Academy outside Boston, which was part of the Specialty Camp Incubator II.

Since 2010, the nine specialty camps incubated have served more than 6,000 campers, with nearly half reporting that they had never attended a Jewish camp before. The camps continue to surpass enrollment and retention goals, proving the demand for Jewish specialty options in the summer camp marketplace.

Incubator III will provide expertise and support to the new cohort of six individuals or organizations as they plan and implement their vision for expanded models of nonprofit, Jewish specialty camps. FJC expects that each of these new specialty camps will serve approximately 300 campers and 40 college-aged counselors per summer.

Other camps in the new incubator are:

JRF Arts, in Southern California, focusing on the film arts

Moshav Eden, a West Coast camp dedicated to teaching children, teens and young adults how to steward the earth and strengthen food systems

Ramah Sports Academy, an overnight camp in the Northeast

Sababa Beach Away, a surfing and watersports camp on the East Coast

URJ 6 Points Creative Arts Academy, in the Mid-Atlantic region. — eJewishPhilanthropy.com

Source: “Sci-Tech Camp to open in SoCal next year,” J Weekly, January 19, 2017

Dr. Ariel Roth

The fall semester has officially ended, but online courses are making it possible to keep learning about Israel from leading Israeli professors. This opportunity is available not only to college students but to anyone in the broader community with access to the internet.

Where to go for quality learning opportunities about Israel is a challenge for many members of our community. Many college campuses have a limited number of courses that tackle Israel in any capacity, much less in a comprehensive, multi-faceted manner. For adults who have long since graduated from college, finding good sources for understanding Israel is even more difficult. Technology offers a partial solution. Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are one model that can help address the community’s desire for in-depth, nuanced information about Israel that is accessible to a diverse cross-section of community members – from college and high school students to Jewish educators, other Jewish professionals, and simply members of the community interested in learning more.

Over the past few years, MOOCs have emerged as a popular form of learning in a range of disciplines. This alternative education model, which offers easily accessible and often free university-level course content, is an excellent resource that lowers the physical barriers to learning and opens the door for a wider audience to participate in robust study. MOOCs can thus be particularly advantageous to the growing field of Israel Studies, given the challenges many potential students, both on and off campus, face when seeking high-caliber content on modern Israel.

As part of our mission to advance knowledge of Israel, the Israel Institute, with the generous support of the Jim Joseph Foundation and the Leichtag Foundation, has worked in partnership with a number of leading Israeli universities to launch two MOOCs on the topics of Israel’s history, politics, and society. The goal of these MOOCs is to present academically rigorous information on Israel from multiple angles and perspectives – political, social, economic, and cultural – and, in so doing, expose both new and more seasoned scholars of Israel to high quality research on the country. These courses were launched through Coursera, an online platform housing courses created by accredited institutions of higher learning.

Our inaugural course, “A History of Modern Israel: From an Idea to a State,” was launched in the fall of 2015 in partnership with Tel Aviv University and explores the evolution of Zionism leading up to Israeli independence. To date, over 8,000 students have enrolled in this course, which has received excellent user reviews. Following the encouraging success of our first foray into the world of MOOCs, Part II of the course was launched in October 2016, examining the “Challenges of Israel as a Sovereign State.”

We also partnered with Hebrew University’s Faculty of Social Sciences to release a political science survey course this fall on “Israel: State and Society.” Over 13 different sessions led by different academic experts, the class explores various aspects of Israeli statehood and society, including Zionism, demographic trends, Israel’s economy and political system, multiculturalism and social stratification, and Israel’s place in the Middle East, to name a few. For this course, students can choose from two enrollment options, including an option to earn credit from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Both of these courses are available on the Coursera platform for free, making them easily accessible to anyone with an interest in Israel’s domestic politics, historical challenges, and more. We believe that these courses are an important resource in expanding the reach of Israel-focused information and hope that interested members of the community will take advantage of them to enrich their knowledge of modern Israel.

Dr. Ariel Ilan Roth is the Executive Director of the Israel Institute.

About: The Israel Institute is an independent, nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to promoting knowledge and enhancing understanding of modern Israel by strengthening the field of Israel Studies. Founded in 2012, the Israel Institute works with universities and other research institutions to increase opportunities for the study of Israel and catalyze deeper engagement with the country in the academic, cultural, and policy sectors. The organization does not participate in advocacy efforts, but rather aspires to promote a flourishing and expansive field of Israel Studies through the sponsorship of visiting faculty programs, artist residencies, research grants for junior and senior scholars, online courses, public discourse events, and other initiatives. To learn more about the Institute’s work, visit: www.israelinstitute.org.

Source: “College Courses On Israel, Available to All,” Dr. Ariel Roth, eJewishPhilanthropy, January 5, 2017

The Louisville Jewish Community Center has had a garden for years, but never the staff to make the most of it. For Michael Fraade, a member of the first cohort of Hazon’s JOFEE Fellowship who is spending the year working on the JCC’s environmental programming, that garden has the potential to change the ways in which members of the community understand the rich relationship between the earth and Judaism.

“We’ve got summer camp kids at the JCC’s day camp who come in for programs,” Fraade said. “Seeing some of the kids’ faces light up when they realize that’s a mint plant and they can take a leaf and eat it and it tastes like mint, or hearing that that yellow flower is going to eventually turn into squash – making those connections is really gratifying.”

The JOFEE Fellowship is the first standardized professional training program for aspiring educators in the field of Jewish Outdoor Food, Farming and Environmental Education (JOFEE). Funded by the Jim Joseph Foundation, the fellowship is run through Hazon in partnership with the Jewish Community Centers Association of North America, Urban Adamah, Pearlstone Center, and Wilderness Torah. (The last three, along with Hazon, form a group called the J4.)

That collaboration emerged after the 2014 publication of the JOFEE Report, the first professionalized report on the state of the field. The report was based on interviews with JOFEE stakeholders, a survey of 655 adults who’d participated in immersive JOFEE experiences, and program histories from JOFEE organizations. While the report painted an impressive picture of the field’s achievements and growth – it grew from 6 immersive programs in 2000 to 41 in 2012; 63% of the study’s participants had at some point felt disconnected from Jewish life, and for 32% of them, a JOFEE experience proved their primary means of reconnection – it revealed some striking gaps.

The immersive experiences studied in the report included programs like the Adamah and Urban Adamah fellowships, 3-month long residencies for students and young professionals that introduce them to subjects like organic agriculture, urban farming, and food justice in a Jewish framework. Those programs tended to spark a passion for JOFEE in their participants. “These very talented, intelligent, great, creative people were coming into JOFEE through these opening programs,” said Yoshi Silverstein, the director of the JOFEE fellowship “but then would have some difficulty knowing exactly what happened next.”

The answer was the JOFEE Fellowship. A yearlong program that provides its participants with extensive experiential and pedagogical training, a living stipend, one-on-one training and a JOFEE position at a Jewish organization, it’s a first step in addressing the lack of clear professional paths in JOFEE. It’s also an elegant means of addressing two other issues: the need to strengthen and professionalize the field, which has until now lacked a standardized, articulated set of fundamentals for educators, and to expand its reach in Jewish communities.

“In the Jewish community, experiential education is not the dominant norm,” explained Jakir Manela, the executive director of Pearlstone Center in Baltimore. “It’s not deeply integrated across the Jewish community yet.”

At the Louisville JCC, Fraade is working toward achieving that integration. He helps run the Center’s garden, provides educational programming to everyone from preschool students to participants in adult education programs, and works on building community partnerships. Among those is a partnership with New Roots, a food justice organization that provides organic local produce to more than 1,000 Louisville families. It’s been operating since 2009, when a few friends founded the group to help address food disparity within the city.

For Fraade, who will help integrate the JCC’s food justice efforts with those of New Roots, the New Roots story helps illuminate the importance of JOFEE education. “One staff member of an organization or a committed group of volunteers can create something that really flourishes over time,” he said.

The Pearlstone Center’s Manela imagines those grassroots efforts, as a collective, having an enormous impact. He sees JOFEE as a means for American Jews, as well as those in other countries, to adopt more responsibility for the planet, live more sustainably and create a more inhabitable world for future generations.

That’s a lesson Zelig Golden is imparting to Wilderness Torah’s JOFEE fellow Daniella Aboody, who has joined the organization’s youth programming team. Every JOFEE fellow is paired with a professional mentor at their organization; Golden is Aboody’s mentor. Although their professional relationship just began, Aboody’s first connection to the world of Jewish environmentalism was a Wilderness Torah experience; in some ways, Golden, the organization’s founding director, has been a mentor to her for years.

Aboody spoke passionately about the impact of JOFEE on her ability to relate to Judaism. “I felt like I found my tribe that I didn’t even know I was looking for,” she said of attending one of Wilderness Torah’s signature Earth-based Judaism festivals in the spring of 2013.

Aboody has been in the JOFEE field since then, working in the Bay Area with Urban Adamah The Kitchen, a Jewish life startup. When she heard about the JOFEE Fellowship, she was committed to both the field and the Bay Area, but couldn’t see how to move forward in her career.

The fellowship didn’t just give her the forward momentum she was looking for; it also let her become a part of Wilderness Torah, which felt, in a way, like coming full circle. As a member of Wilderness Torah’s staff, Aboody is helping coordinate the center’s yearlong youth programs for grades K-5 and 6-7. She’s also helping design youth programming for some of the organization’s festivals, including this fall’s Sukkot on the Farm Festival.

Like Aboody, many of the fellows had a moment of clarity during a JOFEE experience – half spiritual, half vocational – that made them feel a powerful bond with the field.

“I spent time studying in Israel, and that was where I made the connection between my religion and the earth,” said Jessica Berlin, a fellow at Hazon’s Isabella Freedman Center in Connecticut. “I have this memory of harvesting hyssop to make za’atar, and I had this crazy moment when I realized that was the exact herb that was once offered as a sacrifice in the temple. Judaism became totally live and relevant to me in that moment.”

Adam Berman, the executive director of Urban Adamah, thinks those kinds of experiences are at the heart of JOFEE. “The long term goals of JOFEE are to make Judaism relevant, alive and compelling to humans on our planet in ever-deepening ways,” he said.

“Our relationship with the natural world and with all of creation is a primary part of who we are as Jews,” Manela said. As Fraade emphasized, agriculture and farming was central to ancient Jewish communities, and values and practices rooted in those communities are still central to the religion today. For both Manela and Fraade, JOFEE provides a tangible way to incorporate the spiritual environment of Judaism’s past with the American Judaism of today.

The JOFEE Fellowship, which began in June, will undergo extensive professional evaluation in its first year. Anecdotally, though, the fellows are already starting to understand what that might look like.

“A few weeks ago, I did a farm tour with a group of young Jewish professionals from New York City, and for a lot of them, it was the first time they ever saw food growing,” Berlin said. “It was so cool to see their eyes like light up when they really made that connection of the thing that they’re eating and the way that it grows.”

Talya Zax is the Forward’s summer culture fellow. Contact her at [email protected] or on Twitter, @TalyaZax

Source: “The Earth Moved For Them — Did It Move For You?,” The Forward, August 28, 2016

“What are we hearing from families about choosing Jewish early childhood education?” “What are common challenges and opportunities in congregational education?” “How do macro trends impact Jewish learning/life programming and choices?”

Some 150 educators, clergy, lay leaders, administrators and other stakeholders gathered May 10 to tackle these and other big questions, hear about innovation approaches from national experts, stimulate one another’s thinking, and empower each other to effect change.

Convened by JUF’s Community Foundation for Jewish Education, “Thinking Together: Communal Conversations about  Jewish Congregational and Early Childhood Education in Chicago” focused on national ideas and local challenges in the field, which engages nearly 8,000 students enrolled in 40 schools in the metropolitan area.

The participants began their day of learning and idea exchange with an overview of key data points relating to enrollment trends, capacity utilization, teacher compensation and professional development, funding and costs, and other vital information.

(From left) Rabbi Scott Aaron, CFJE executive director; Buddy Schreiber, recipient of the CFJE-Grinspoon Foundation Award for Excellence in Jewish Congregational Education; Claudine Guralnick, recipient of the Sue Pinsky Award for Excellence in Jewish Education; and Sue Pinsky. (Photo by Robert F. Kusel)

“2015-2016 was the first year Chicago’s Jewish early childhood programs participated in a community wide, systematic data collection. The results offer a first view of the landscape and serve as a baseline for future tracking,” said CFJE Executive Director Rabbi Scott Aaron.

The data study was facilitated by CFJE and conducted by JData, a research program operated by Brandeis University with generous support from the Jim Joseph Foundation.

With information in hand, the conference participants broke into two interest groups, one focusing on early childhood education and another centering on congregational education. Both sessions offered case studies of innovative approaches and programs designed to address the challenges of engaging families and youth in Jewish education.

“The passion and energy in the room was unstoppable,” said one participant of the interaction with other professionals.  “Although we have a long way to go [in advancing the field,” said another, yet another educator stressed how “empowering [it is] being in the room with passionate Jewish educators.”

Guralnick, Schreiber receive Jewish education awards

Following informal conversations during lunch, CFJE presented its second annual Sue Pinsky Award for Excellence in Jewish Education to Claudine Guralnick, of Oak Park, an educator at West Suburban Temple Har Zion in River Forest.

Members of her congregational community described Guralnick as “understanding, perceptive, patient, and fun… Her support [for children and families] is unwavering, and her engagement with the children is constant and active.”

The Pinsky Award honors Sue Pinsky, a Jewish educator who was instrumental in the founding of the North Suburban JCC. Her son, Mark Pinsky, and his wife, Lisa, generously established an endowment fund in Sue’s honor to ensure the award in perpetuity through JUF’s Agency Endowment Program.

CFJE also awarded its first annual CFJE-Grinspoon Foundation Award for Excellence in Jewish Congregational Education to Buddy Schreiber, who teaches at Am Shalom in Glencoe.

The award celebrates successful innovation in Jewish education and was awarded to Schreiber, in part for “the quiet way [he] impacts students…[and] his determined presence and desire to bring them a high level discussion about higher level ideas.”

To learn more about the groundbreaking work of JUF’s Community Foundation for Jewish Education of Metropolitan Chicago, visit www.cfje.org. 

Source: “Congregational and early childhood educators talk innovation, recognize innovators,” JUF News, May 12, 2016