Jewish Team Captains: observant at-bats by Morris Levin The season’s change from summer to fall brings Rosh HaShanah and, with the month of Tishrei, baseball’s postseason and the World Series. The timing is fateful: American sports have long occupied a unique role in Jewish American identity. A great challenge of Jewish living in the Diaspora has entailed the delicate balance between social integration into civil society and the maintenance of Jewish identity. Hanukah happens in Jerusalem whether one does anything or not; menorahs shine in the windows of virtually every home for eight days, and there is no end to jelly donuts. In America, however, bringing Jewish behavior into the mainstream can often be daunting. Naama Shafir of the Hoshaya yishuv in the Galil is in her final … Continue Reading
Jews of Siberia
Filed under In Case You Missed, Life in the FSU Countries, PresenTense Magazine
Jews of Siberia: in the jewish autonomous region by Jason Pressberg The Soviet Union was a terrible place to be a Jew, and Siberia was terrible place to be no matter what your background was. In 1934, Stalin created the “Jewish Autonomous Region” in Siberia. It was his attempt to solve the “Jewish question.” While a small number of Jews had been forced to Siberia under the Czarist government, Stalin took Jewish settlement in Siberia to a new level. Yiddish advertisements encouraging Jewish migration promised a better life for those who went willingly to this new region, where Jews would have autonomy and Yiddish heritage and socialism would predominate. In a historical anomaly, a small number of Jews even migrated from the United States. Until around 150 years ago, Siberia was mostly … Continue Reading
Gender Equality
Gender Equality: what you can do for your organization's success by Joanna Samuels It’s not just about the women, it turns out. The biggest and most pleasant surprise of my work at Advancing Women Professionals and the Jewish Community (AWP) is that it affords me a unique window into the inner workings of Jewish communal organizations. Through helping boards to create generous parental leave policies, coaching women on how to negotiate more effectively, and mentoring men on ways to bring action to their beliefs in gender equity and shared leadership, I have learned a lot about the Jewish communal sector and about the role of organizational culture in making change. But it starts with women and their allies. Savvy and idealistic professionals, female and male, are intent on effecting … Continue Reading
Do Leadership Programs Work?
by Nicky Goldman Perceived by some as traditional and risk averse, the mainstream UK Jewish community has nevertheless long devoted much resource to youth leadership development and empowerment. This is illustrated through substantial investment in leadership development for the Zionist youth movements and the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) through UJIA. This has enabled young people to take responsibility as madrichim (leaders) on a local level (age 15-16), to lead camps (age 17-20), and Israel tours (age 20-21); each year around 40 post-university graduates undertake paid positions as “movement or UJS workers” for a year or two, with financial responsibility for budgets of millions of pounds and human responsibility for thousands of young people at camps and on summer tours. The madrichim … Continue Reading
What Does It Mean to Be Affiliated?
What Does It Mean to Be Affiliated? bridging the gap between the affiliated and the unaffiliated by Jonathan Dickens The best way to address the gap between a person who is affiliated and a person who is unaffiliated is to define what it means to be affiliated. Jeff Fladen, Executive Director of the Jewish Federation of New Hampshire (JFNH), defines “affiliated as, “a person who pays dues to a synagogue and/or supports Federation.” Fladen’s definition has been widely accepted for years in the national Jewish community. With this definition in mind, over the years, there has been a large push in the Jewish communal field to target programming that engages the unaffiliated. This can, and often does, lead to the neglect by professionals to program for the affiliated. Whereas love … Continue Reading
Being a Global Jew
by Elan Ezrachi I recently traveled from Israel to Argentina to join my daughter who was trekking in South America. As we were spending Yom Kippur in Cordoba, Argentina’s second largest city, we wanted a meaningful Yom Kippur experience in a real Jewish community. A student from Cordoba who was studying in Jerusalem at the time connected me with the rabbi of the main synagogue (Conservative) and he immediately invited us to be his personal guests. When we arrived the day before Yom Kippur, we met the rabbi and he gave us an overview of the history of the 10,000-strong Jewish community and about the currents trends affecting the community. He then briefed us on the way the community celebrates Yom Kippur, so we would feel at home. More than 1,000 local Jews gathered in the synagogue in … Continue Reading
Art for a Change
Art for a Change: an under-tapped tool by Yael Miriam Over the past 10 years, Jewish arts initiatives have been expanding - with the potential to engage us in new and meaningful ways, support the expansion of a diversified community, and deepen understanding of our culture. Yet while the opportunities for those already engaged in both their Jewish and artistic identities are flourishing, there is even greater potential to develop educational opportunities and outreach - to allow art to be the great tool of social change it has the potential to be. For those interested in Jewish exploration, engaging with Jewish art has many advantages. The shared experience of engaging with art and artistic programming provides a focal point which brings together Jews from a variety of backgrounds. This … Continue Reading
Camps for Volunteerism
Camps for Volunteerism: reshaping the future by Anna Litovskaya While having tea with my groupmate Olga Savchuk at Paideia (The European institute of Jewish Studies in Sweden), we started sharing our backgrounds. I had just graduated from the International Relations department of the Linguistic University, Russia, while Savchuk is an ecology student at the Kyiv Mohyla Academy. Yet we had something in common: the experience of going abroad to volunteer at Jewish camps. I did social work in Spain and Israel, some farming in the Czech Republic and Russia, and volunteered as an interpreter, while she had worked as an educator for Jewish camps every summer. Then we came up with an idea: to create a volunteer Jewish summer camp that would reshape Jewish life in Ukraine. The vision behind the … Continue Reading
Not Just a Spoke in a Wheel
Not Just a Spoke in a Wheel: how young professionals can make an impact within the organized Jewish community by Jonah Halper I have been a fundraiser for the last decade, with my last two years working as a consultant specializing in next generation philanthropy and new donor acquisition within and outside of the Jewish philanthropic world. Because I was trained in the Jewish Federation system and then went out on my own, I hear from many young professionals in the organized Jewish community, both within the Federation system as well as other established Jewish organizations, that they are frustrated with their professional development and experience. A common thread is a feeling of despair; not being able to make meaningful impact when they feel like a spoke in a wheel. These professionals … Continue Reading
Left Behind: Why We Need Truly Global Jewish Leaders
by Naomi Sage Picture this. Almaty, Kazakhstan, 200 miles from China’s border. A majority Muslim country, Kazakhstan is home to a Jewish community of 50,000. The country’s Jews, along with their Muslim neighbors, suffered religious oppression for decades under Soviet rule. Today, Kazakhstan’s proud Jewish community is working to rebuild Jewish life. For most, the Jewish community of Kazakhstan is off the map. And yet, it was a visit to Almaty that inspired Ethan Prosnit, a 20-something from Connecticut, to seek a career in the rabbinate. He reflects, “We don’t cherish being Jewish in America. We rarely have to ask - why is it important to live a Jewish life? But when you go to these communities where being Jewish is a deliberate choice, it forces us to ask those questions.” … Continue Reading
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