After much preparation, the international staff of ROI is pleased to announce the launch of their new website ROICommunity.org. In the words of ROI's program director, Beto Maya: "The first thing you’ll notice is the name change. From year one, we have been ROI120 - 120 Jewish innovators gathering in Jerusalem to share ideas, gain new skills and inspiration, and move toward impacting the Jewish future. But as our network grew, with about 100 more people every year, we realized that the “120,” while true for the numbers at each individual summit, didn’t remotely describe the network’s reach and potential. As we prepare to embark upon the fourth annual ROI Summit, it is clear that what we are is the ROI Community - people who have been at previous summits or who have attended local … Continue Reading
Helping to Shape the Jewish Community and the World
The Bronfman Youth Fellowships alumni community congratulates the 18 projects funded through the BYFI Alumni Venture Fund in 2008. Adashot - A print publication and web-based resource that engages those who have little or no prior knowledge of Jewish texts by using a Talmudic layout to explain commentaries on traditional texts with insight from modern thinkers and secular materials. Borei Hoshech - An online non-denominational Jewish learning blog exploring depression by analyzing weekday morning prayers and Jewish classical sources. Boulder Stepping Stones - A program that provides Jewish education and experiences to interfaith and unaffiliated families with a database of over 1,000 people from across Colorado. Stepping Stones focuses on Friday night Shabbat rituals as a time to … Continue Reading
The NextGen – R.I.P.
"The NextGen is no longer. They are the NOWGen". So spoke Johanna Arbib, the passionate and dedicated JAFI Board member (representing Keren Hayesod) as she introduced Friday morning's Assembly plenary, Tomorrow Happens Now: The Assembly Hosts the Now Generation. Emphasizing the time is now, Joanna told us this generation (defined as roughly 25-40) "will lead thru cooperation, collaboration, creativity, energy and global dialogue". Despite the small number of Assembly registrants in attendance it was an incredibly positive session, complete with small group dialogue, among the three generations represented in the room. A great deal of time was spent discussing the real challenge today for most organizations, the transition in leadership - that what needs to take place is evolutionary, not … Continue Reading
The Power of Giving
With all the 'down' news the past few weeks on the economy and how philanthropy might be affected, it's nice to occasionally read a 'feel-good' story on giving. From today's USA Today: The New Face of Giving The United States long has been a nation of givers, but a new generation is transforming the way we do good. Millennials and Generation Xers, especially those 20- and 30-somethings starting careers, may not have the bucks to be major donors, but they are finding ways to help others and prompting big changes in the way charities raise money. Young people are "not just making checks and going on with their lives. They want to be part of what happens" to their money, says Claire Gaudiani of the Heyman Center for Philanthropy and Fundraising at New York University. She says today's young … Continue Reading
Are We Building For The Future?
from the current issue of Lilith Magazine: An Unquiet Revolution at the Water Cooler Recently Lilith brought together a small group of young women professionals working for Jewish nonprofit organizations—in education, the arts, community building, global betterment. They wanted to see why this brainy and well-educated bunch choose to work where they do, and to hear their worries about time, money and the prospects for getting to the top. What’s strikingly new in what they so candidly reveal is that this cadre of women isn’t complaining and getting out. Instead, they want the Jewish workplace to get better. Unlike talented women before them who might simply have voted with their feet—leaving Jewish organizations to enter the business world, or striking out on their own, or backing … Continue Reading
Ties That Bind
In the most recent issue, New Voices, the national Jewish student magazine, explores the dark corners of the Chabad House. from the editor: "On college campuses across the country, a Shabbat dinner at the Chabad House is as much a ritual of Jewish student life as an ice cream social at the Hillel. As of this fall, emissaries of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement have set up Chabad Houses at nearly 100 colleges and universities. In this issue, we take a long, hard look at these shluchim, and at the ultra-Orthodox movement that has become central to the Jewish lives of thousands of college students... But Chabad is a controversial movement. The belief in the messianic status of their Rebbe, which persists in portions of the movement even today, has drawn strong condemnation from some in … Continue Reading
Minyans of The People
PresenTense's September '08 issue on religion is hot off the presses! Created by a team of 78 volunteers around the world, this issue brings you fresh new perspectives on how PT's generation views religion today -- with topics ranging from secular marriage in Israel to Jews and Missionaries to the Jewish community in Kazakhstan. The issue preview is here; and you can subscribe here. … Continue Reading
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