Whether it’s Steven Covey who said “Interdependent people combine their own efforts, with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success” or……

Michael Jordan who said “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships,” the lesson comes through loud and clear and echoes one of the deepest and truest Jewish values.

“It is not good for people to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). We actualize our highest selves when working together.

Which is why it’s not surprising that we continue to hear more and more announcements for cohort-based professional development programs. They work. Fellowships, intensives, and other cohort-based service learning programs support the growth of participants while they simultaneously gain valuable work experience. These programs meet the diverse needs of participants who each are looking to make meaning out of a shared experience, but often do so in different ways (think learning styles). And they offer a structure for ongoing professional development and growth long after the intensive ends resulting in stronger programming and more effective staff. “Students who have the opportunity to develop and build their personal, social, and academic skills within a pedagogical community are more advanced in their ability to foster new communities within their professional careers” (Cohort Based Learning – College Quarterly 2005, v7).

But don’t be fooled, while many of the most well-known cohort base learning programs are offered by universities and larger organizations, smaller organizations can benefit greatly from the model as well.

I run a small afterschool program in Berkeley, California, and three years ago we launched our own modest fellowship program, attempting to address both the needs of the Jewish education community broadly, as well as our own organizational needs. We saw college graduates looking for full-time employment with an interest in education. We observed a field lacking entry level positions that included comprehensive training for emerging educators. And we in Berkeley needed well trained, less expensive staff for our programming.

We don’t have a big building. We don’t have a large endowment. But we know what we do well. With the generous support of the Covenant Foundation, and the willingness of our board to take a chance, we piloted the Jewish Learning Innovation Corps or JLIC, a full-time work study program launching the careers of a new cadre of Jewish educational innovators trained in our approach to Hebrew-intensive after school learning. Three years later, here are some of our biggest lessons.

The Model
While we believed cohort-based professional development would deliver the kind of transformative, long lasting learning we wanted to achieve, what we didn’t know was if the cohort based approach would work on a smaller scale. We knew our afterschool program would never be so large as to require 20 or 30 teachers, so we wondered if we could create the kind of social experience young adult participants are often looking for.
What we found was that our smaller sized program resulted in an intimacy and closeness that proved to be valuable and very special to the fellows. Our fellows grew close to one another quickly, and their care for one another and belief in one another’s’ abilities translated into a sense of calm, purpose, and confidence throughout the program – qualities the children responded to. “We are all learners” and “we are always learning” are words we hear a lot now.

The Applicant
Would a supplemental Jewish education program – an afterschool program – appeal to the kind of applicants we were looking for? Could such a program and opportunity overcome the bias against part time or after school Jewish learning?

The answer is yes. As we spoke with applicants from around the country we found that not only was the intensive work study model appealing to them, but they harbored few of the negative associations and assumptions of part time Jewish education we often hear from parents. If anything, they had been through supplemental programs as children and were excited to bring their experiences to bear.

The Financial Model
For years our afterschool program, like so many other part-time programs, hired part-time educators as staff. Competition for these educators is fierce. We were unsure what the trade off would be if we replaced part-time teachers making high hourly wages with a full-time staff engaged in intensive professional development, working for a lower hourly rate? After three years, this is the last and most complicated challenge to solve.

At first, it seemed like a simple question of arithmetic. We spent on average less than 5% more per staff person per year, to have less experienced, less expensive staff people working full-time as part of the JLIC program. But less experienced staff cost in different ways. Infrastructure was needed to support them in their training. Faculty had to be hired, and that costs money. While the direct staffing costs for a full-time fellow are essentially the same as the cost of a higher-paid, more experienced, part-time employee, the infrastructure costs – both one time and ongoing – to support the cohort remain high and difficult to sustain without dedicated funding for the program.

Impact on the program
There is no way to overstate the positive effect the fellowship has had on our afterschool program. Full-time positions message to employees that what they’re doing is important and that the organization takes them and their work seriously. Full-time employment comes with medical benefits, which are crucial for young adults as they work towards independence, and full-time positions professionalize the experience. For the field of part-time Jewish education, this is huge. This results in programming with more intention, much greater planning, greater dynamism, and a professional culture committed to the model and its strategies.

Cohort-based service learning programs offer a compelling model for aligning the needs of emerging educators with those of schools of all sizes – you don’t need a million dollars to make it happen. While the approach does require additional infrastructure, the investments are on par with the kinds of investments a school would make to ensure excellence.
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“One who studies Torah in order to teach will be given the opportunity both to study and to teach. One who studies in order to practice will be given the opportunity to study, to teach, to observe, and to practice.” (Pirke Avot 4:6)

http://ejewishphilanthropy.com/cohort-based-learning-on-local-scale/?utm_source=Feb+13%2C+2018&utm_campaign=Tue+Feb+13&utm_medium=email​

According to a 2013 JData article, there are approximately 1848 congregational schools in America, in addition to the other supplemental programs being run independently by JCCs and other community organizations. That’s over 200,000 students each year are enrolled in some kind of supplemental Jewish learning program. Twice as many children are enrolled in supplemental, part time Jewish learning programs in the U.S. than there are students in non-orthodox Jewish day schools. If the vast majority of children doing any formal or informal Jewish learning are doing so after school in supplemental programs, which begs the question: why aren’t more resources and attention paid to our largest demographic of youth learners?
In a recent article, “It’s Time to Invest in Part-Time Jewish Education,” Anna Marx made a few key observations about the challenges and needs facing supplemental Jewish education. First: supplemental schools and part time Jewish education in general need a lot more attention and resources. Second: the death of Jewish learning after school has been greatly exaggerated.
Anna’s article was part of a series that saw contributions from central agencies, foundations, and academic institutions. In the hope of adding to this important conversation, and contributing to what clearly must be a paradigm shift in the way we think about and value Jewish education, I am calling for a second round of articles, a response from the field. Great things are happening and we can be doing a lot more to understand and scale successful approaches.
To all the innovators among us, to those of us exploring new approaches and techniques, working in new ways to achieve transformative Jewish learning, the time has come to step out of the “innovation sector” and speak up in our communities. We need to start sharing good and successful practices, approaches, trainings, and even curricula. We have an opportunity and perhaps obligation to shape the future of supplemental Jewish education. To those direct service organizations that have recently launched fellowships, trainings, and so on: your voices are critical to building a movement of change and renewal in the field.
And I’m not just talking about those of us working with school age children. Whether you’re working in teen engagement, young adult engagement, and even adult learning, you have important experiences and expertise to share with the wider community. Good ideas that work in one part of the country, or resonate with one demographic group, just might work in another.
To start things off, I’d like to share some of what we’ve learned in our afterschool program, Edah, and why you might consider the model for your school, shul, JCC, or community. (For more information about the model and movement, check out the Nitzan Network.)
1. Kids are people, too
The elementary school kids who fill our programs, spend all day long at school. There, they must conform to structures: sit when they’re told, stand when they’re told, eat when they’re told, and stay focused until they’re dismissed. For any adult who’s ever taken a night class while working, working all day and then going to school afterwards isn’t fun. It isn’t fun for our kids either.
The afterschool model is in part about honoring the humanity of our kids. They don’t want to trade one desk for another. They need rest, agency, and the opportunity to slow down and be heard on their own terms after a long day of conforming. Our model focuses on meeting those needs first. Experiential education is preferred, frontal instruction is almost non-existent, student choice is prioritized, and “joy” and “fun” are key metrics in evaluating the program.
Most importantly, we listen to our kids, seeking to understand their needs and honoring and respecting how they want to spend their time. By embracing the idea that after school time is theirs and honoring the fact that kids are people too with their own sets of needs and interests, Jewish learning after school shifts from being an imposition to a time when the kids get to grow and develop as Jews and as people with guidance, but on their terms.
2. Parents also have needs
Scheduling is one of the greatest challenges for parents. At the beginning of every school year, parents are faced with the challenge of working out each child’s various schedules, transportation, and after school plans. Making room for, and working out transportation to and from religious school, soccer, ballet, play practice and so on is a perennial problem. The popular approach to supplemental or congregational models pits Jewish education against all the other extra curricular activities and imposes an additional transportation burden. The unintended consequence of that approach is Jewish education becomes complicated and burdensome as parents work to figure out the logistics.
By contrast, the after school model says to parents, “We’re open every day. Work out your schedule and use us to fill in the gaps.” And just like that, the program becomes an important resource to parents as they work out after school plans for their kids. When a program is able to provide transportation from school, it becomes an even more valuable resource.
As much as parents need Jewish education for their children, parents’ needs revolve equally if not more around after school care and scheduling. If you can align those two needs, as the afterschool model does, you reframe the entire family’s experiences of Jewish education in powerful and positive ways.
3. More is more
When it comes to learning, the more you practice, the longer you spend, the more you get out of it. Sure, at a certain point returns diminish, but when we’re talking about part time, supplemental learning, more is truly more; more time = greater impact. This is another huge reason why the afterschool program model should be considered by everyone. When afterschool learning is reframed, not as an extracurricular but as a five day a week resource, and when the model directly responds to children’s and parent’s needs, families engage more deeply and parents send their kids more often. Kids are happier and actually excited to go. Parents are happy to send their children and marvel at how different their own experiences in Hebrew school were in comparison to their children’s, resulting in many more hours a week of engagement in Jewish life and learning. It’s as simple as that. This translates into more learning, more joy, and more meaning as participants form communities similar to those found in Jewish camping and other immersive experiences.
If a child spends 3 1⁄2 hours a day, four days a week in a Jewish learning afterschool program, a lot of learning and exploration and growth can happen. Even compared to some community day school models that include one period of Jewish studies and one period of Hebrew studies along with six other periods devoted to general studies, the afterschool program model might just result in a more immersive and effective Jewish learning experience.
4. Teachers are professionals
The last strength I’ll share of the afterschool movement is the impact that more days a week, longer hours, and greater stability has on educators. Afterschool programs require more full time staff. A five-day-a-week program demands greater staffing, more people and more hours. When educators don’t have to pull together five different teaching gigs to make ends meet, the message is their work matters and we want to support them to do it well.
If we want to see supplemental Jewish learning thrive, professionalizing the field has to extend beyond heads of schools. That means offering people actual career opportunities. Full time employment with vacation time and benefits sends the message that, “Your job is real and we are going to set you up to succeed because your success is important to us.” Educators know what people say about Sunday school. They know the narrative we’re all trying to change as much as anyone. Only to them it’s even more personal. When we ask them to be baby sitters, when we don’t give them the time, support, and resources to achieve the goals we set for them, we imply that the goals, the learners, and even the educators themselves don’t matter that much.
Jewish learning afterschool programs are certainly not the only new approach in town, and they too have their limitations, but they work. If you’re interested in learning more about how they work, and how it might serve your community, we love to share.
So, who is next in the series? The community needs your voice. 


http://ejewishphilanthropy.com/shifting-the-supplemental-jewish-learning-paradigm/

My first Grateful Dead Concert was in 1989. I was in the 7th grade and there was no turning back. I was hooked. When I was 15 I ran off with the band for the first time, much to my parent’s chagrin. When I was 17 I dropped out of high school to follow the band around full time, and today I continue to consider my Grateful Dead family as among my closest friends and community, and the music – the music of my soul.

So the recent article written by my friends and colleagues at Upstart titled Engaging With Empathy, published here on eJP caught my eye. First, because it began with a quote from a favorite Grateful Dead song of mine and then because of how I felt it misunderstood that song, and its relevance to the world we Jewish educators work in, and the struggles we face in adapting to a new engagement reality.

The article explored some of the ways in which we might more effectively engage young adults (the holy grail of engagement) in Jewish life. It posited that us Jewish professionals, our programs, and organizations are often confused, lacking focus as we try to “respond to the needs of an ever evolving community…” It went on to explore what might be at the heart of this phenomenon, touching on some recent cultural and sociological trends like the DIY culture and a growing discomfort with particularist identities, concluding with a couple suggestions for how “institutions” might respond to these challenges – human centered design and an evolved understanding of membership and affiliation that provides for the fluidity these new “consumers” are looking for.

Yes – young adults (and just about everyone else) have evolved into more sophisticated consumers. In order to successfully create and sell more and more products, businesses need to do just what the article is calling for. Design products that speak to real needs of users and structure the engagement experience of each of those products in such a way that enables customers to opt in and out as they see fit. This is the consumer culture.
But I don’t think that’s the lesson to be learned from the holy words of Robert Hunter nor do I think those are the lessons to be learned regarding engagement with Judaism and Jewish community.

In the for profit world, I could imagine the conversation taking the tone of an ever changing marketplace, one of fickle customers with no brand loyalty. Generations have grown up in a remote control world which made changing the channel as easy as pushing a button and channel surfing, a metaphor for the never ending search for the next best thing, for an upgrade.

But community works differently, and ultimately that is what we offer. In a variety of shapes, flavors, and sizes, Judaism and engagement is all about community. And community is not a commodity. While we might switch gym memberships or cable providers or cell phone brands on a whim, depending on our ever changing needs and interests, we don’t engage with community in the same way. Community is where I look for meaning and relationships, and the choice to engage or disengage is a profound one. The transactional relationship we have with things is not the kind of relationship we look to form with community, quite the opposite.

While we are more particular about how we spend our money and who and what we choose to affiliate with, “renting experiences” is not the metaphor we should be using to better understand how community does and doesn’t form today. Burners don’t typically jump in and out of Burning Man. One time participants might, but those engaged in the co-creation that is essential to the Burning Man experience do so because of a deep sense of connection and commitment to the vision. They are not renters. They are Burners.

But perhaps the best example of this can be learned from the Grateful Dead themselves, and their extended community. I am a Deadhead. It is the music, the culture, the society and it’s values that drew me in years ago and it was my feeling of kinship with other deadheads that inspired me to “co-create.” There was no renting. There was only deep engagement, and those weekend warriors who had the sense to stay in school and out of trouble knew they were only scratching the surface of something their souls longed for.

Now I run a Hebrew immersive afterschool program in Berkeley called Edah where we serve a number of families with a variety of needs and interests. I talk to parents all the time about what they want for their children and more specifically, what they want their children to get out of their Jewish education. While some parents talk about Hebrew language, others about Jewish practice, and others still about spirituality and prayer, the common denominator is always a desire for their children (and family as well) to find community. That’s why we call the program Edah. Jewish life and learning is fully realized in community, it’s what our constituents, participants, members, and students long for, and the deep engagement we’re looking for hinges on the promise that a meaningful connection to community is possible.

Community is the authentic expression of individuals who come together as a group and then identify membership to that group as an expression who they are as individuals. It requires engagement, results in relationships and is fully realized as kinship. But it’s only as good as the effort and engagement it’s members put into it.
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As Robert Hunter wrote and as Jerry Garcia sung, “Won’t you try just a little bit harder, couldn’t you try just a little bit more?” The quality of one’s experience in community is entirely dependent on that. The challenge is not to create an ever expanding body of programs, experiences, and products to meet shifting trends. The challenge is to work with individuals in either connecting them to, or helping them realize new expressions of Jewish community, and then inspiring them to engage deeply, to try a little harder, to try just a little bit more.

http://ejewishphilanthropy.com/community-is-not-a-commodity-a-response/

For at least 2,000 years, Judaism has been a text-based religion. Many would argue it’s been longer than that. And, with some exceptions, the language of our texts is Hebrew. Yes, Aramaic plays a part. The Talmud, lots of midrashim and ancient biblical translations often were written in Aramaic — but even then, written in the Hebrew alphabet. It shares many of the same words and cognates, and is at the very least a not-too-distant cousin of Hebrew. For as long as Jews have been calling themselves Jews, we’ve been doing all that Jewish stuff in Hebrew.
Which is why I was surprised to read the April 8 cover story in J., “Hebrew not required.” How can Hebrew and Jewish education be separated from one another?

I understand why some are trying. Jewish day schools are also businesses. Schools need to end the year with balanced budgets, have cash-flow issues and need to make payroll. They have customers who want what they want — and these days, with the overabundance of offerings and opportunities, parents let their children’s schools know what they think they should be teaching more than ever before.

But is it really possible to deliver a Jewish education stripped of the Hebrew language?

In just about every synagogue in the world, Jewish prayer is done in Hebrew. If you ask a random Jewish person on the street, “What is the language of Judaism?” the answer will be “Hebrew.” Hebrew is not simply a second language. Hebrew language skills are the keys that unlock doors to participation in communal prayer and enable deep engagement with the central texts of Judaism. These are essential elements of a meaningful Jewish education. 
At Edah, a small Hebrew immersive afterschool program in Berkeley, we struggle with similar issues. Our families want us to achieve more for their children in less time. We started requiring children to attend four days a week. The market wouldn’t support that, so we reduced the minimum number of days to three, and next year the minimum will be two days. We also have a business to run and are worried about many of the same issues, though on a smaller scale. We move in response to what our constituents and customers ask for, just like any other school, and struggle with the tension between our educational philosophy and market trends. 

The question is: What is Jewish education without Hebrew? And what does a generation of Jews look like who don’t speak the language of our civilization?

http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/77353/opninions-what-is-jewish-education-without-hebrew-language/​

It’s Friday at noon. Five Jewish educators sit around a table discussing their recent experiences using Nonviolent Communication (NVC) to defuse tension among students. One educator tells a success story. Another questions the value of the NVC approach, “how do the kids ever learn that there are consequences to actions?”

A third listens to the two and then exclaims, “I didn’t give practicing the training a good enough chance this week, I’ll need to work harder on that next week.” Another educator sits quietly listening and taking notes while the fifth educator, who’s facilitating the conversation, continues to prod the group with questions about their experience experimenting with this approach.

After lunch the meeting transitions into a daily check-in before the kids arrive. In just over an hour 35 children will be dropped off from a variety of public schools in Berkeley to attend the Edah afterschool program, and the five educators sitting around the table make up a big part of the staff. Edah is a Hebrew-immersive, experiential, Jewish educational afterschool program in Berkeley, California and the five educators described above are part of a new initiative called the Jewish Learning Innovation Corps, JLIC, a two year, full time, paid work-study program for early career Jewish educators.

The Jewish Learning Innovation Corps is an attempt to realize a new way of identifying and investing in early career professionals with lots of potential but little formal training. Through professionalizing the experience of teaching in a part-time setting while providing the highest quality training and professional development, the Jewish Learning Innovation Corps hopes to shift the way we think about outreach, teacher training, and the development of new educators and, ultimately, Jewish educational leaders.

In a recent article titled Take A Chance On Me , Rachel Cyrulnik argued that the Jewish community struggles to afford emerging Jewish communal leaders opportunities for growth. She wrote, “And so our Next Gen leaders find themselves in a Catch 22. They need more leadership experience to be ready to lead, but they can’t get it without furnishing credentials that assure employers that they have the leadership experience required to take on new professional challenges.”

A similar critique can be made of Jewish education. There are lots of part time work opportunities for young people looking to make less than a living wage. There are a number of graduate and certificate programs ranging in price and focus, for those able and willing to make that kind of commitment. Teachers can cobble together a number of teaching gigs if full-time employment is required, but are left without health insurance and other benefits. And for the thousands of graduating college seniors looking for full time employment, interested in exploring career paths before deciding on one, Jewish education offers few opportunities.

This was the challenge that led to the creation of the Jewish Learning Innovation Corps. JLIC was designed to give recent college graduates an opportunity to learn skills often available only to graduate students who commit to a degree program, to practice those skills, and refine them in collaboration with the other fellows and their mentor. The JLIC curriculum provides fellows with intensive training from experts in some of the most exciting and innovative practices in Jewish education, including Philosophical Inquiry, Project Based Learning, Nonviolent Communication, and Hebrew Language Immersion. The fellows then have the opportunity to practice and hone these skills in the classroom, developing and implementing lesson plans, discussing outcomes with their cohort, and incorporating what they have learned into future lessons. This iterative and collaborative process affords Fellows the benefit of an academic and practical experience that allows them to reflect upon what they have learned and refine their new skills. In addition, each JLIC fellow has a particular area of interest and is matched with an experienced professional mentor to guide them in realizing their own professional goals.

We know students learn best through doing. JLIC provides millenials a pathway into Jewish education by introducing early career Jewish educators to a field that is professionalized, characterized by opportunity, and designed to meet the needs of these young educators as they navigate their entry into the working world. 

http://ejewishphilanthropy.com/learning-through-doing-the-jewish-learning-innovation-corps/

When we first decided we were “ready” for children, it was an exciting time.  I remember seeing friends with babies, small children at dinner parties, and thinking that it was my time as well.  I remember romantic dinners with my wife, talking about whether she was or wasn’t pregnant. Those first months were magical.  They were full of promise. 

And at first when the months would pass I thought nothing of it.  Neither did Claire.  It takes time, we’d say to each other, and laugh at some joke about having to practice more.  We’d plan romantic weekends and try to just relax, reading that the biggest issue for couples trying to get pregnant was that they were just too high strung to let it happen.  And yet the ends of months would roll around and silent conversations and knowing looks were shared, with promise and excitement dwindling. 

But we kept at it.  We read all the normal stuff and learned that it can take time and it was no big deal.  But it didn’t happen.  For months it didn’t happen, and a year, and everyone else was pregnant.  What was wrong with us.  Was something wrong with Claire?  Could my sperm be the problem?  Ahhhhhh, there was a problem!

This week is national infertility week. So many of us are silent about our experiences. We tell our pregnancy and birth stories, not our infertility ones. Our communities celebrate birth and newness and life. For many of us, that feels out of reach. 

How can we be more sensitive? What can we do to offer support?

Claire and I successfully got help, we’re lucky, and blessed. Many other people are just like us, also lucky, and many others are not.  This week is about telling our stories and sharing so that we can all feel a little less alone.  

In a recent blog post by Chavie Kahn, To Thrive, Day Schools Need to Make Parents Feel Heard, the case was made for greater engagement of parents in day schools through the solicitation of regular feedback. The argument was a sound one. When parents say great stuff about our schools their friends listen. The best kind of marketing is grassroots; the best kind of marketing is word of mouth.

And this is really true. For a while now the for-profit world has understood that long-term satisfaction is best measured through an individual’s willingness to stand by a brand. In a 2003 Harvard Business Review article, The One Number You Need to Grow, Fredrick Reichheld explained that “…the percentage of customers who were enthusiastic enough to refer a friend or colleague – perhaps the strongest sign of customer loyalty – correlated directly with differences in growth rates among competitors … evangelistic customer loyalty is clearly one of the most important drivers of growth. While it doesn’t guarantee growth, in general, profitable growth can’t be achieved without it.”

One strategy Kahn suggests to build that kind of loyalty is to solicit regular feedback through surveys. The more we ask the parents of our students how things are going, the more parents will buy in to the program and consequently evangelize the program to their friends.

Then comes what is likely the most important point of the article and one easily missed as Kahn doesn’t expand on it. He warns against inaction and the dangers of soliciting feedback irresponsibly. “Parents are too often told that their concerns will be addressed, even if there is no plan to address them in a meaningful way.” While soliciting feedback demonstrates that a school values its students and their families considering them partners in the learning process, if that feedback is not followed up with it can have the opposite effect.

The reason to engage parents in our schools is because that’s how we make better schools. When we take parent feedback seriously, we position our schools to offer better experiences for our students. When we listen to what the parents of our students think about their children’s experiences, whether that has to do with the learning in the classroom, or the culture of the schoolyard, we’re afforded a new lens through which to evaluate how we’re doing. Parents hear and see things we educators and administrators often miss.

That’s why parent involvement has long been understood as the secret sauce or x-factor distinguishing the good schools from great. It’s not the only ingredient but it’s a critical one. If our schools engage parents and families in the planning and learning process, if we foster cultures of open communication and regular dialogue with parents, our schools will be more exciting and dynamic centers of learning. The trick is not to make parents feel heard, it’s to hear parents.

Rabbi Joshua Fenton is Associate Director of Jewish LearningWorks.

I never cease to be amazed by the seemingly endless opportunities we have to put our feet in our mouths. Over 2,000 years ago, the sage Shammai cautioned, “… say little, do much and greet everyone with a happy face.” Those words are as true today as they were then, perhaps even more so.

Because the Jewish people may view themselves as one big family, we may cross the line into a familiarity that can be hurtful, often because of a carelessly uttered remark. I was reminded of this just the other day when I was speaking with a neighbor. We were talking about our children and, knowing he had only one, I chided him as I’ve done a number of times. “It’s about time for one more, no?” It was at that moment that his wife, who was gardening near us, got up abruptly and went inside.

I thought nothing of it until I looked up to see my neighbor’s face. “Listen, man” he said. “Please don’t joke about that anymore. We’ve suffered two miscarriages this last year and it’s been really tough.”

Open mouth. Insert foot.

With the best of intentions, I managed to cross the line from being friendly to being insensitive and hurtful, without even trying. Why did I think it was appropriate to say what I did? Why is it considered OK to even inquire about another couple’s family planning process? Was my neighbor the first person who had to endure my well-meaning pokes and chides, forcing him to make light of a terribly personal and painful experience? Almost certainly not, but he will be the last.

In our communities, our schools, parks and synagogues, there are couples struggling to achieve the families they’ve dreamed of. According to the Centers for Disease Control, a growing number of couples, more than 15 percent, struggle with infertility. They are our friends, our neighbors and us, and it’s time we decided to be a lot more considerate and a lot less stupid and clumsy about how we try to express support and encouragement to couples who want children.

Of course, when we ask, we mean well. The question “When will you have children?” may be an expression of confidence and support: “I think you are great and would make a wonderful parent. I think you’ll raise wonderful children, and I think our community and world would be better off if you did.” This is often the intention behind the question. But it’s heard differently.

“When will you have children?” can just as easily be heard as: “When will you become full members of our community? When will you realize your full potential? What’s wrong with you anyway?”

The Talmud in Tractate Sukkah reminds us, “If regarding matters that are normally performed publicly, the Torah commands us ‘to walk modestly,’ how much more so in matters that are usually performed in private.”

In a conversation, we may be circumspect about bringing up work for fear someone is about to be laid off, and we may shy away from asking about school or that last test because we don’t want to put someone on the spot or cause discomfort. Think about how much more cautious we should be about inserting ourselves into the areas of people’s lives that are deeply private and personal.

So the next time you’re about to open your mouth and insert your foot, think again.


Rabbi Joshua Fenton is the associate director of Jewish LearningWorks.

7 Lessons on Family Engagement

For the last three years, we at Jewish LearningWorkshave taken a close look at families with young children in the Bay Area. What we’ve seen are a growing number of families looking for opportunities to connect to Judaism and Jewish community, but in non-traditional ways.

This might not sound like news. The Jewish community has been hearing for years about the emergence of alternative, non-traditional, post-denominational Jewish communities and congregations. What’s news is who these alternatives are attracting; simply put, everyone. Even though traditional institutions (shuls, day schools, JCC’s, and so on) strive to remain interesting and attractive to families, the trend is clear. People are connecting in entirely new ways and we need to understand what motivates 21st century families if we hope, as a community, to remain relevant to them.

Recognizing this change in the way families engage with and connect to community, we began asking ourselves, “how can we support these families in the creation of Jewish lives that work for them?” Initially our work focused on two new initiatives, Shalom Explorers – an alternative parent-led learning program for young children, and Kesher – a community concierge and outreach program. As part of these two initiatives, we spent time speaking with parents, professionals, and community leaders. We surveyed the field of Jewish family engagement and education initiatives nationally, and in the process learned some valuable lessons about how 21st century families think and feel about Judaism, and how our communities can be a lot more effective at reaching them and playing more meaningful roles in their lives.

Lesson 1
Program for real people. We are professional educators, rabbis, and academics, and the truth is, when you get us around a table we seem to know just about everything. Don’t believe it. We continue to find that the best informants and partners in program creation are the end users, and we apply that to all of our work. That means before you create any program or class, first speak with potential program participants to make sure that what you’re designing is what people are looking for.

And then go back to those very same people and talk to them some more. Engage them in the creative process and through them, your programs will grow stronger and more relevant. Never stop asking yourself and your students/families/customers, “Is this really meeting your needs and wants, and how can we do better?”

Last year we piloted an at-home learning program for children, designed to be taught by parents. Our pilot groups were active participants in the evaluation process and after the three-month pilot, their feedback allowed us to make significant tweaks, which are now resulting in a much stronger, more resonant, and more meaningful program. We were able to do this because we listened.

Lesson 2
The affiliated/unaffiliated dichotomy is unhelpful at best. Synagogue membership is not the single most important marker of connectivity, and a donation to Federation might say more about your age than it does your Jewishness. Synagogue membership is also no longer the only reasonable option for families who wish to create Jewish lives or connect with community. Think of the growing number of educational organizations offering content to families outside of an institution. Take Godcast, Hazon, InterfaithFamily, and Kveller; these organizations are all becoming hubs of activity from which new kinds of Jewish communities are emerging.

As the number of alternative engagement opportunities and ways to connect grow, opting out of traditional modes of affiliation tells us less and less. Nowadays, opting out of synagogue life might simply mean you want something deeper and more meaningful than a one size fits all shul. As we try to better understand families in our communities, we need to revise the assumptions we make about synagogue membership, and what it implies about families who do and don’t join. In a DIY world, people are looking for experiences that uniquely speak to their specific interests and they’re more likely than ever to build something new for themselves rather than settling.

Lesson 3
To build on the previous point, membership is an old model. More and more people are limiting their memberships to fitness centers and Netflix. For JCC’s that run gyms, this is no big deal. They’re Jewish organizations invested in businesses and revenue streams that meet needs beyond the spiritual/social/communal. I’ve always believed that a Jewish person who joins the JCC does so as a Jew, making a Jewish choice.

But for the rest of us, families want to know why they need to be invested in a synagogue when all they want is a Jewish education for their children. People are looking for community and connection without the burden of dues, the building fund, and so on. More and more families are doing Jewish stuff, less and less as members of Jewish institutions. It’s time for us to rethink, as a community, how membership does and doesn’t work, to investigate new models, and most importantly, to engage our constituencies in this conversation about investment and financial sustainability.

Lesson 4
Identities are complicated. If the Pew study did nothing else, it showed us how our understandings of Jewishness and the labels that go along with it are pretty much completely off the mark. For example, the Pew study found that 4% of Jews with no religion attend synagogue services monthly. As we continue to get to know this new and different American Jewish community, we must embrace the many new ways of expressing identity. Judaism is a facet of people’s lives and the ways they see themselves. The question is no longer whether “Jewish” or “American” comes first. The question is, “what else is in there?”

I don’t have to choose between environmentalism and Judaism, between a hike andShabbat services; I can be a part of the eco-Jewish movement or hang out at Urban Adamah. Or perhaps I’m a foodie, or an athlete, an amateur gardener, or even a Phish fan. Rather than competing, innovators are looking for more and more ways to integrate, celebrating the amalgams that make us who we are. With this comes a growing disinterest in distinguishing between interfaith or patrilinealism, a desire to claim “post-denominationalism,” and a growing discomfort with older definitions of Judaism. As we work to better understand these 21st century families, we need to be much more nuanced in our understandings of what they are all about, what moves them, and what language and terminology best reflects who they are.

Lesson 5
There is a huge marketing issue. Families can’t figure out what and who is really out there, what programs, events, and institutions might work for them, and they often shy away for fear of ending up in the wrong place. There is too much noise coming from the Jewish world. How many websites can a person check? How many Facebook groups can someone be a member of?

Families with young children are more open to and interested in engagement than just about any other demographic group. These new families are looking for opportunities to try out different experiences. They’re actively looking for us. And unlike other demographic groups that might require some careful PR and messaging, the parents we’re talking about are waiting for an invitation – an effective communication plan that is comprehensive and clear is the way to go.

Lesson 6
Community, community, community! Families long for community above everything else. Let’s be honest, that’s what everyone is looking for and it’s really one of the most compelling things we Jews have to offer. Everyone knows we do community well, and families want in. Across all of our family engagement programs, after hearing from hundreds of families, community is the common denominator. They might sign up for a Family Ed program or something for their kids, but in the end parents almost always say they are looking for other families to be friends with.

Families want to be part of a group they can call their own. Parents want friends for their children and for themselves; they want to socialize with other families with young kids. These groups or communities aren’t synagogue communities, though they may be found in them. They aren’t affinity groups connecting people with common interests. These are small groups of like-minded friends who parent similarly, share similar values, and appreciate the ways in which their kids play together. This is the Holy Grail for families, a small social network to grow up with.

Lesson 7
Parents and their children are sophisticated consumers. Organizations have to put their best feet forward if they want to compete in the crowded Jewish education and engagement marketplace. That means not only having great products, programs and initiatives that deliver on promises, but also savvy marketing materials that send the right messages. To continue to keep families engaged we need to be as particular about our marketing, branding, and communication as we are about the content.

Parents and kids look for signs of excellence. Whether we like it or not, our website design and the ad in the local Jewish newspaper has to look good and be on trend or folks will simply pass it by. Without high quality marketing and messaging, we risk folks making the same judgment they’ve always made about Jewish education and engagement, that it isn’t serious, doesn’t take itself seriously, and is therefore, likely of low quality.

Jewish families are ready to take American Judaism into an entirely new and exciting place. They bring new ideas to the table, they value Judaism and Jewish identity in mature and interesting ways, and they’re looking for opportunities to realize Jewish lives that work for them. We just have to meet them where they are, in the 21st century.

Rabbi Joshua Fenton is the Associate Director of Jewish LearningWorks

“It doesn’t matter where you come from, it matters what you do”.  I heard this coming from the TV the other day as my kids watched, mesmerized by the Care Bears and their message of acceptance and love.  As their eyes glazed over I found myself a little bothered.  Yes, TV is garbage, but that wasn’t it this time.  “It doesn’t matter where we come from…”  I thought…yes it does!

It’s important that my children know where they come from, that they are the descendents of freed slaves. It matters that they appreciate and understand the experiences of those who came before them, those that fought to survive so that generations later, they could live.  It matters that my children know where they come from because we are Jews and have been for thousands of years and that means something.  It means something to me so it should mean something to them!

In Shaul Magid’s new book American Post Judaism, Magid observes an American Jewish community embracing the very same ethic now resonating with my kids.  He argues that more and more Jews have come to value our national, historic, ethnic identity less and less.  This, he writes, is the effect of Americanism on American Judaism.  An exclusive identity feels un-American.  If I can’t join your group simply because my parents weren’t in it, that’s a problem.  America is all about equal opportunity.  Our national religion, if you can say there is one, is the celebration of the individual and his or her ability to do…..anything.  So, are the Care Bears right?  Is Magid speaking of the death of Judaism?  How will we survive?

Lineage and history have always been the basis upon which Jewish identity is formed. In all the major Jewish movements, you can't simply join.  Without a fairly intensive conversion process, if your mother, or in the case of patrilineal descent, your father, isn’t Jewish - you’re not either.  Further still, you can only be a Cohen if your father was a Cohen and his father before that and his father before that.  Take Passover as another example.  This central Jewish holiday, perhaps the most celebrated holiday on the Jewish calendar, is a day on which we recall the story of the Exodus from Egypt as if it were our own.  Of course telling the story is not enough.  We go to great lengths to identify with that historical event which happened thousands of years ago, because where we come from matters.  If you don’t know the story, how can you call it your own?

Maybe this simply speaks to the need to further strengthen the Jewish narrative in our educational programs?  Perhaps if we only did a better job telling and teaching our story, Jewish identity would be immune to the corrosive effects of Americanism?  The truth is we don’t know.  Magid explores a number of responses to this phenomenon, ultimately arriving at no best practice or tried and true method by which the particularism of Judaism transcends the impact of living in this country.  As educators and leaders in our community, we can no longer ignore the tension between what is now our two inherited traditions, Judaism and Americanism.  Our challenge then becomes one of either retelling or reimagining. Retelling asks us to come up with more impactful, dynamic, methodologies by which we connect Jews to the historically based, ethnically determined, Jewish identity which has always been. 

Reimagining asks us to tell a new story, a new version of what it means to be a Jew.  This new narrative could connect people with a past which they might share no ethnic or historical connection to.  This new narrative could be an American innovation in which the values of the Jewish people and tradition are rooted in a mythic past available to all. 

It’s unclear what the strategy should be because it’s unclear what the problem is.  Do Magid’s observations signal an existential crisis for American Judaism, or are they simply the birth pangs of the next phase in Jewish history, the abandonment of the particular for the universal….and is that Kosher?

As I prepared the conversation I planned to have with my kids after the Care Bears, to counteract the damage that this Americanism had done to my children’s impressionable minds, I heard my son yell from the TV room, “Aba, it’s true isn’t it?  What matters most is what we do. That’s just like how Abraham smashed the idols and became the first Jew”.

There has never been a time in the history of Diaspora Jewry where we have lived with such freedom.  We have had the opportunity to amass wealth and realize positions of power.  In these ways and in many more, Americanism has worked out well for us.  

It’s also true that we’re coming to grips with the changing world in which we live.  As we struggle to understand these changes, be it through scholarly works like Magid’s or through studies of Jewish identity by Pew and others, we should remember that Judaism is big, and deep, and old.  It has meant many different things to Jews for thousands of years and it is during these times of transition and change that the greatest innovations have been realized.  

When the episode came to an end, I chose to say nothing to my kids, my son was right.  As educators, parents, grandparents, and leaders it’s our responsibility to inspire those who look up to us to find the Avraham in themselves.  The stories we tell to achieve that will characterize Jewish Education for a long time to come.   

"It doesn't matter where you come from, it matters what you do".  I heard this coming from the TV the other day as my kids watched, mesmerized by the Care Bears and their message of acceptance and love.  "It doesn't matter where we come from..." I thought...yes it does!
 
It's important that my children know where they come from. It matters that they appreciate and understand the experiences of those who came before them, those that fought to survive so that generations later, they could live.  It matters that my children know where they come from because we are Jews and have been for thousands of years and that means something.  It means something to me so it should mean something to them!

In Shaul Magid's new book American Post-Judaism, Magid observes an American Jewish community embracing the very same ethic now resonating with my kids. He argues that more and more Jews have come to value our national, historic, ethnic identity less and less. This, he writes, is the effect of Americanism on American Judaism.  An exclusive identity feels un-American.  If I can't join your group simply because my parents weren't in it, that's a problem.  America is all about equal opportunity.  Our national religion, if you can say there is one, is the celebration of the individual and his or her ability to do.....anything.  So, are the Care Bears right?  Is Magid speaking of the death of Judaism?  How will we survive?

Lineage and history have always been the basis upon which Jewish identity is formed. Without a fairly intensive conversion process, if your mother, or in the case of patrilineal descent, your father, isn't Jewish - you're not either. Further still, you can only be a Cohen if your father was a Cohen and his father before that and his father before that.  Take Passover as another example. This central Jewish holiday, perhaps the most celebrated holiday on the Jewish calendar, is a day on which we recall the story of the Exodus from Egypt as if it were our own. Of course telling the story is not enough. We go to great lengths to identify with that historical event which happened thousands of years ago, because where we come from matters. If you don't know the story, how can you call it your own?

Maybe this simply speaks to the need to further strengthen the Jewish narrative in our educational programs?  Perhaps if we did a better job telling and teaching our story, Jewish identity would be immune to the effects of Americanism? The truth is we don't know. Magid explores a number of responses to this phenomenon, ultimately arriving at no best practice or tried and true method by which the particularism of Judaism transcends the impact of living in this country. As educators and leaders in our community, we can no longer ignore the tension between our two inherited traditions, Judaism and Americanism. We can recede into a Jewish cocoon and try to ignore the wider culture in which we live. We could toss aside our heritage and dive head-first into the sea of American secularism. Or we find a third way - reimagining our Jewish narrative in authentic ways that embrace the open and fluid American reality in which we live.

Reimagining asks us to tell a new story, a new version of what it means to be a Jew. This new narrative could connect people with a past which they might share no ethnic or historical connection to. This new narrative could be an American innovation in which the values of the Jewish people and tradition are rooted in a mythic past available to all.

As I prepared the conversation I planned to have with my kids after the Care Bears, to counteract the damage that this Americanism had done to my children's impressionable minds, I heard my son yell from the TV room, "Aba, it's true isn't it?  What matters most is what we do. That's just like how Abraham smashed the idols and became the first Jew".

There has never been a time in the history of Diaspora Jewry where we have lived with such freedom.  We have had the opportunity to amass wealth and realize positions of power.  In these ways and in many more, Americanism has worked out well for us.  

It's also true that we're coming to grips with the changing world in which we live.  As we struggle to understand these changes, be it through scholarly works like Magid's or through studies of Jewish identity by Pew and others, we should remember that Judaism is big, and deep, and old.  It has meant many different things to Jews for thousands of years and it is during these times of transition and change that the greatest innovations have been realized.  

When the episode came to an end, I chose to say nothing to my kids, my son was right. As educators, parents, grandparents, and leaders it's our responsibility to inspire those who look up to us to find the Avraham in themselves. The stories we tell to achieve that inspiration will characterize Jewish Education for a long time to come.

What would you have done?  

Rabbi Joshua Fenton is the Associate Director of Jewish LearningWorks