An Investment in Our Future
We’ve often posted about ROI120 and the community of innovators that has grown up around them. Now, the latest recap video from this past summer’s Summit.
about: ROI is a diverse community of young Jewish innovators and leaders from around the world. United by their participation in the annual ROI120 Summit in Jerusalem, members of the ROI Community are representative of the new DIY, can-do spirit sweeping our Jewish world.
Jerusalem Innovation; Three for Three
Four incredible weeks of innovation, Jerusalem style. Two brand-new ventures, Amuta 2.0 and Tachlis 2 Point Oh!, premired to packed opening programs. Both in their own way focused on providing cutting edge resources to our communal world. Both with exciting programs taking shape over the coming year.
And then last night, to an overflowing audience and live-streamed to their international community, The PresenTense organization formally opened their first permanent, year-round Institute. It was a who’s who of the (mostly) young and forward thinking innovators shaping our world from Jerusalem. The energy was infectious and provided an excellent jumping off point as PresenTense moves from summer to year round programming here in Israel. BTW, this was all accomplished with none other than Paul Cartney as the evening’s competition (performing for the first time here in Israel) - outstanding!
Envisioned as the flagship hub of PresenTenses’ emerging global network of socially-minded entrepreneurs and located in the heart of Jerusalem, both physically and emotionally, the new space will serve as a locus of pioneering ideas and groundbreaking projects of communal importance.
According to co-founder Aharon Horwitz, this new space will serve as “a new creative center for innovation, entrepreneurship, and pioneering…a home for our creative community seeking to address key issues facing Jerusalem, Israel, the Jewish People, and beyond.”
I was especially pleased to see Becky Caspi, the UJC’s senior professional here in Israel, in attendance as well as several year-in-Israel HUC Rabbinic students, future leaders in their own right.
Kol Ha-Kavod to the entire PresenTense community for their exciting and ground-breaking work. We look for continued success in the future.
Stay tuned as we bring you the best from all three organizations as 5769 unfolds.
Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem.
Your Very Own and Personalized Haggadah
Take a California artist and designer. Add the message of Passover, the traditional story of freedom. Stir in an ROI120 seed grant and a PresenTense fellowship experience. Connect and Incubate. The result:
Haggodot.com, an online workspace for Jews of all backgrounds to upload, exchange and personalize their own Passover Haggadot.
Haggodot.com; truly a global seder table.
Creator Eileen Levinson, in her own words:
“The Open-Source Haggadah is a website that allows users to share, personalize, and collectively publish Passover Haggadot. Users upload their pages into a searchable gallery. They may then print a Haggadah of exclusively their own uploads, or mix and match from pieces of anyone else’s contributions to create a Haggadah mash-up. The website will allow for Jews of all backgrounds to share their unique takes on the book, as well as provide a platform for Jews to create a Haggadah that is personal to their lives. As the website grows and becomes more varied, its contents will be an archive of Jewish traditions and help promote a more contemporary stance on Jewish texts.”
Haggodot.com - coming soon to your computer.
Protecxia; An Oleh’s First Word
Many years ago, on day one of Ulpan - Kitah Aleph, our excellent and high-strung Sabra instructor told us the first word we needed to learn and understand was Protecxia. As a room full of 20-somethings, with at least half planning Aliyah, we were made to understand that grasping this concept was as important as the Hebrew skills she would impart to us over the next six months if we were to have a successful klitah here in Israel.
Fast far forward to today and another one of the innovative projects to come forth from this summer’s cohort of the PresenTense Institute is
Protecxia: Immigration Integration Initiative
Founded by Erin Kopelow, a recent Olah and Jerusalem resident, whose first experience in Israel was with a one-year MASA volunteer program, Protecxia takes this long-standing concept and updates it for the 21st Century.
Protecxia’s goal is to effectively integrate immigrants as well as potential-immigrants between the age of 20 to 35 into Israeli society and culture through a network of people and activities. Read more
Yavnet: Connecting Content and Technology
It was an unusual combination of resources. JT Waldman, the creative director of YAVNET, the new interactive branch of the 120 year old Jewish Publication Society, was here in Jerusalem to attend the ROI120 Summit and then participate as a fellow at the PresenTense Insititue. 21st century innovation meets a publishing industry in turmoil.
Behind JT’s participation: JPS has embarked on its most ambitious project since 1985, when after thirty years of scholarly endeavors their English translation of the Tanakh was completed.
YAVNET is a different kind of translation project; designed to lead to the creation of the DIGITAL TORAH, it is a community collaboration involving scholars and lay people, the rich legacy of the written and oral Torahs, the vast textual resources of Jewish tradition from the Bible to the present day, and the pooled wisdom of the community.
All this is now possible, as the technologies of the Internet and Web 2.0 transform the way we learn and communicate. Read more
Connecting With People
Two University of Oregon undergraduates are the visionaries behind a new initiative launched this past week: Shomer Achi.
One of the many projects incubated this summer at the PresenTense Institute, Shomer Achi is an international organization that acts to strengthen Jewish identity and Jewish unity by fostering sustainable and community based connections between Israeli and American Jewish college students through parallel social service initiatives, dialogue, and leadership training.
In the words of co-founders Jodi Mererowitz and Jamie Zebrak:
“Shomer Achi presupposes an urgency to shift the Jewish self perception. For too long, true dialogue and understanding has been stifled by pre-existing modalities that limit the scope of the Jewish experience. America has either been the generous donor of aid to Israel or Israel has served as protector of disenfranchised Jews worldwide; a hierarchy of power that has served as the only framework within which Jews in Israel and the Diaspora have cooperated.
It is time for us to explore a world in which Jews everywhere can work together and contribute to one another. Our communities are able to cooperate as equals adding mutually to the greater goal of facilitating and enhancing the Jewish experience. Shomer Achi does not suppose that Israel now needs to ‘take care of’ America or that America needs to be the beneficiary of Israel. It is necessary to switch our understanding of how Jews worldwide can move forward and achieve greater cohesiveness as a people.”
Shomer Achi already has a pretty impressive list of partners, including B’Tzedek and Haifa Hillel, along with a few long-time and well known communal names on their advisory board. I have a hunch we will be hearing a great deal more from these two young women.
Not only are Jodi and Jamie Cool People, they’re people to watch!
Hey, Yiddle Diddle
This past Thursday night, the PresenTense Institute concluded their 2nd summer fellowship program with a presentation to the community on the extraordinary projects they have been hard at work on these past six weeks. eJewish Philanthropy will be profiling many of them for you over the next two weeks.
So today, as we introduce our newest project, Cool People, Cool Stuff ™, I find no better candidate for our first profile than Hey Yiddle Diddle Productions, one of the coolest initiatives from this summer’s PresenTense cohort.
For me, this was an easy choice. For as the summer went by, and without exception, every time I walked into the PrersenTense ‘home’ in Arnona, I was greeted by the cheerful and huge smiling, Chari Pere - the creative mind behind Hey Yiddle Diddle, Old-fashioned Jewish humor as you’ve never seen it before…
In Chari’s words: “In an increasingly cynical world filled with so much schmutz and mean-spirited humor, the good ol’ fashioned comedy of the past is getting lost between generations. These jokes and stories, treasured parts of Jewish cultural heritage, are still very much relevant today, but are in desperate need of a makeover.
Hey Yiddle Diddle Productions creates whimsically funny and captivatingly wholesome products that bridge the growing gap between generations. We incorporate a clean-cut style and attitude into cartoons, illustrations, merchandise, and animations that appeal to all Jewish denominations. We are revitalizing a culture of Jewish or Yiddish humor presently teetering on the brink of extinction.”
Check out Chari’s calendar, a great way to support this up and coming Jewish cartoonist:
A YEARLY SHPRTIZ OF JEWISH BITS
The Ultimate Illustrated Calendar of Jewish Humor (Old & New)
This is a must-own for anyone who’s Jewish, Jew-ish, or for anyone who wants to discover the Jew in you. Over 490 Holidays and more than 80 illustrated jokes and gags. Some are borrowed, some are new, but all are visually interpreted with a fresh point of view.
The calendar is available at several New York area Judaica stores, or you can order directly from Chari here.
Hey Yiddle Diddle Productions: It’s out with the old and in with the renewed.”
Windows into the Future
Last night I had the privilege of attending the 2008 PresenTense Fellowship Pitch Day at Yad Ben-Zvi here in Jerusalem. There, PresenTenses’ 2nd cohort of fellows presented their ventures to the community. It was not just the culmination event of their work, but a testimony to the hours of support that volunteers, coaches, mentors, friends, colleagues, peers, teachers, and more have invested in all the various projects.
I’ve been around the Institute quite a bit; not only this summer but for the past fourteen months. And as founders Ariel and Aharon made their summation, what impressed me most was the significant leap forward the various programs of PresenTense have made over the past year. A grass roots start-up not so long ago, PresenTense, along with their 300+ international volunteers, is making a significant mark on our communal world: through innovation, publishing and training new leaders. And like ROI120, PresenTense has very much developed into both an international brand and major player in Jewish social entrepreneurship and new leadership training.
Stay tuned; on Sunday we will begin profiling just a few of the extraordinary projects previewed last night. Also keep your eyes peeled; for PresenTense will be coming to a location near you, sooner than you think. New York / Boston / Chicago / Tel Aviv readers, are you listening?
about: The PresenTense Institute’s Summer 2008 fellowship brings together social entrepreneurs and innovators on the cutting edge of Jewish creativity - pioneers, like those of old, inspired by the simple notion that “If you do it, it is no dream“.
This summer, for six intense weeks, the fellows lived and breathed Herzl’s vision of determined creativity, developing the newest ventures in the PresenTense Network.
You are invited to join PresenTense in unleashing the innovation and creativity of the Jewish People, launching ventures to solve human problems with Jewish solutions for the benefit of the Jewish People and the World.
click the image for a video presentation of the Pitch Day presentations.
Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem
The Future of the Global Jewish Community and Philanthropy
Recently, Sandy Cardin and Lisa Eisen of the Schusterman Foundation sat with the fellows and members of the PresenTense Institute here in Jerusalem. The discussion focused on the future of our global Jewish community and philanthropy.
Sandy began by speaking about what he sees as the two great divides and one challenge we face:
The divides:
- the one, between the Orthodox and secular Jewish communities and how the twain just do not meet
- the other, between Israel and the Diaspora; what is the existing relationship between the two and how can understandings be created so conversations are possible.
The challenge:
- how to keep Judaism and Jewish life relevant, meaningful and vibrant 10, 20, even 100 years down the road.
Relative to this, the Shusterman Foundation often addresses the question of what can be done to stem the tide of assimilation. How can they make grants and take other actions to link the younger generation to the older generation. And lastly, how to integrate emerging leaders into existing organizations and frameworks.
Here what these two insightful professionals have to say on this and much more. The conversation was excellent; but fair warning, grab some coffee or tea, settle into a comfortable chair and relax. The video is 90 minutes - and worth every one!