The AVI CHAI Foundation has announced that it is allocating up to $1.15 million over the course of the next three years to four individuals and one team of two whom it has selected as the first recipients of The AVI CHAI Fellowship. The program is unique and constitutes the largest cash award to emerging communal and educational leaders within the North American Jewish community. It has been approved for three award cycles with a financial commitment of approximately $3 million. More than 40 nominations were submitted by twenty nominators (18 from the U.S. and 2 from Israel). The AVI CHAI Fellowship was kept under wraps and the nominators and selections committee remained anonymous so the integrity of the nomination and selection ...

MyJewishLearning.com is proud to announce the creation of its Editorial Fellowship program. The inaugural two-year fellowship will begin in September 2008, concluding in August 2010. The fellowship is open to recent college graduates interested in writing, editing, Jewish life, and new media. MyJewishLearning.com, a transdenominational source of Jewish information, is currently undergoing a major site redesign, ramping up technological capacities and integrating new features, including video and an Ask-the-Expert function. Qualified candidates should have strong writing and editing skills and an in-depth knowledge of Jewish history, culture, and tradition, as well as familiarity with the web and web publications. for more information click here

LIFE: an innovative tikun olam program for Jewish and Israeli young adults from all walks of life. It combines rich exposure to civil-society and leadership experiences in Israel with an intensive 3-month long experience doing international development work in an African country. LIFE: an eight-month long program being tailored by top Israeli and international experts in the fields of international development, Jewish-Zionist education and justice-oriented leadership development. To be launched this year, the program begins with a lengthy period in Israel combining community service, learning about civil society and international development issues and approaches, leadership development and group-building. LIFE: the first initiative of its kind that works simultaneously on two-tiers: bringing Jewish and Israeli young adults together in Israel in a rich ...

Applications for the 2008 ROI Summit, taking place in Jerusalem from the 15th to the 19th of June are now open. Join 120 young innovators and leaders for 4 days of networking, skill-building and inspiration. Think you got what it takes? Apply today! Deadline for applications is Friday, March 28th. About the ROI Community: ROI is an international partnership between Taglit-Birthright Israel and the Center for Leadership Initiatives, a U.S. based foundation with funding from Lynn Schusterman. Click the logo for a video made at last year's Summit and check this really great post on Jewlicious for a first-hand view.

Do you know someone graduating college this Spring? Think they could contribute to our Jewish world? Hillel's Schusterman International Center is accepting applications for its 2008-2009 Schusterman International Center Fellowships in Washington, DC. With its recent strategic plan and new mission to enrich the lives of Jewish undergraduate and graduate students so that they may enrich the Jewish people and the world, each of the five Schusterman International Center Fellowships is designed to align with one of the organization's high priority areas of focus:

• Center for Jewish Experience
• ...
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Today the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, upon the recommendation of the Bronfman Chair search committee, offered the position to Yehuda Kurtzer, Harvard PhD candidate and Wexner Graduate Fellow, who entitled his project

"The Sacred Task of Rebuilding Jewish Memory"

The committee took into consideration the proposal itself, the ability for that idea to become an accessible book, the candidate's interview, the symposium presentation, the courses candidates proposed to teach at Brandeis, outside recommendations, and responses from the symposium audience. No candidate won in all categories and every candidate impressed the committee. From Yehuda's project proposal... "The next great step for the Jewish future will be the reclamation of the Jewish past. ...

updated two hours later: The JAFI Board meetings the past few days has put me a bit behind in posting. We can now bring you breaking news about the Bronfman Prize Finalist. Here is the original post from earlier today. This past Sunday, Brandeis University's Hornstein Program played host to the five semi-finalists for the new Charles R. Bronfman Visiting Chair in Jewish Communal Innovation. The winner of the current competition, which is supported by philanthropist Charles R. Bronfman, will receive salary, benefits and research assistance for two years. The winner will be expected to teach one course each semester at Brandeis, and to deliver lectures or seminars based on the project, but the bulk of ...

Community organizing means developing leaders and bringing people together to form powerful organizations that allow people to act on their own behalf to make systemic changes in their lives. Community organizers are people who want to stir things up to motivate people to act for change, who embrace challenge, and who think strategically about power. The Boston based, Jewish Organizing Initiative (JOI) builds a vibrant, pluralistic community of Jewish young adults who learn grassroots community organizing, explore their Jewish identity together, and become leaders in the pursuit of social justice. The JOI year-long paid fellowship program is a source of Jewish community, intellectual stimulation, mentorship, and professional networking. Over the last decade, JOI has built a network of over 100 ...

Imagine working passionately and tirelessly in the uphill trek towards fulfilling your life's mission, only to have someone say to you, "I am going to fast-forward your career 20 years." That is what Harold Grinspoon, known as one of the most innovative Jewish social entrepreneurs in America, said to 32-year-old Rabbi Ethan Tucker of New York City, as he granted him $100,000 per year for two years, with his inaugural Grinspoon Jewish Social Entrepreneur Fellowship. Rabbi Tucker, one of the co-founders and leaders of the national independent minyanim movement, is developing curricula for and expanding Mechon Hadar, which he co-founded in 2001. Based in New York City, Mechon Hadar is a unique, non-denominational institute whose mission is to revitalize communal life - ...

Brandeis University has been in our news quite a bit recently. In December, we learned of a $22.5 million transformative gift from the Cleveland based Mandel Foundation for a new center to study and protect the humanities. So far this year, we have been exposed to an exhibition on the Healing Power of Art at their Women's Studies Research Center; heard about the five finalists for the new Bronfman Visiting Chair in Jewish Communal Innovation; and just a few days ago welcomed the Sillerman Center for the Advancement of Philanthropy. Now, comes official word of a brand new degree program to help train the next generation of Jewish leaders. I first heard ...