The Bronfman Youth Fellowship has announced eight projects to receive BYFI Alumni Venture Fund (AVF) grants. Each grant was carefully vetted by the Alumni Advisory Board, based on creativity, feasibilityand relevance to BYFI’s values. Donations from alumni and their families support twice-yearly grantmaking through the Alumni Venture Fund. The recipients are: Ohr HaLev - Institute for Jewish Spirituality (Israel and North America) Danny Cohen '04 Ohr HaLev works to make the rich teachings of Jewish spirituality accessible for Jews who seek to deepen their Jewish practice and “to provide Jews with a rich, meaningful, transformative and relevant Jewish life and spiritual path.” Ohr HaLev accomplishes this by offering weekend and weeklong retreats as well as meditation and … Continue Reading
Network-Weaving with Becky Voorwinde
Deborah Fishman sits with Becky Voorwinde. This interview is part of the Network-Weaver Series. [Becky Voorwinde is the Co-Director, Director of Strategy & Community Engagement for the Bronfman Youth Fellowships in Israel (BYFI). She is currently on maternity leave following the recent birth of her daughter, Miriam Zahavah.] What is a network? A network is a group of people who are connected based on some level of shared experience, interest, or demographic - sometimes more than one characteristic. What’s interesting about networks is the way they can be multi-layered. BYFI is multi-generational - we’ve been around for 25 years - and we have people from various religious backgrounds, geographic locations, professional backgrounds, and life experiences. There are some shared … Continue Reading
Bronfman Youth Fellowships Announces New Leadership Team
The Jewish tradition has always valued chevruta learning, the study of Jewish texts in pairs. Two people studying together are able to deepen and enrich the learning by bringing different perspectives into the conversation. The Bronfman Youth Fellowships in Israel (BYFI) believes that the best ideas are born out of collaboration and has announced a new co-director leadership model. Mishael Zion will serve as Director of Education and co-direct BYFI together with Rebecca Voorwinde, the Director of Strategy and Community Engagement. This partnership will bring Rebecca’s business and organizational development skills together with Mishael’s rabbinic and educational expertise. The organization views this as the development of a holistic approach to leadership, with two distinctive leaders at the … Continue Reading
Choosing Amongst the Chosen People: The Challenge of Selection
by Rebecca Voorwinde Spring seems to be the traditional time for selection in the Jewish world. In the past month, Wexner selected their Graduate Fellows, Return on Investment 120 (ROI 120) picked one hundred and twenty young Jewish innovators from across the globe, Mechon Hadar identified their full-year Fellows, to name just a few of the many selective Jewish initiatives in our ecosystem. At the Bronfman Youth Fellowships (BYFI), we, too, just chose our twenty-six summer fellows from North America and twenty Israeli fellows from a candidate pool that would make Yale’s admissions officers blush. Leading a selection process means feeling equal responsibility to the applicants we choose and those we do not choose for our programs. With all of our careful deliberations and complex selection … Continue Reading
Applications Open: Bronfman Youth Fellowships in Israel
Applications are now open for the 25th summer of The Bronfman Youth Fellowships in Israel. Each year, a diverse group of 26 North American students in their junior year of high school is selected for an all expenses paid, 5-week Fellowship to Israel. They will encounter the land and people of Israel, study major issues in contemporary Jewish life, meet with some of Israel's most influential figures and learn about themselves and each other. Participants are chosen on merit alone with applications encouraged from a wide range of Jewish backgrounds; prior Jewish education is not required. All meals are kosher and group activities on the Sabbath are in keeping with the sanctity of the day. Application deadline: January 20, 2011 Summer dates: June 28, 2011 - August 3, 2011 More information … Continue Reading
NewsBits: Hillel, ORT and More
from NPR (via Hillel): New Orleans Remains A Volunteer Hub For College Students Five Years After Storm Five years have passed since Hurricane Katrina ravaged the city of New Orleans, but much of the city remains in shambles. In the years since the storm, several college students from across the country have dedicated their spring break to helping rebuild the area. Brian Small, of the Syracuse University Hillel, a Jewish student group, just returned from his third annual trip to New Orleans. Small tells guest host Allison Keyes about students' experiences volunteering with the organization Rebuilding Together New Orleans. He is joined in the conversation by Alyssa Provencio, that group’s volunteer coordinator. from World ORT: British educational expertise passes over to Israel … Continue Reading
The Unknown Value of ‘Free’
Tamar Snyder writing in The Jewish Week: When it comes to attracting young Jews to Jewish programs and events, “free” has become the operative word. ... The problem is that once something is free, people balk at being asked to pay for it. Imagine, for example, if Birthright didn’t return the $250 deposit. Would there still be tens of thousands of applicants on its waiting list? Paying a small, affordable price for the trip may discourage some free-riders, but it also may motivate Birthright-goers to value the trip beyond a fun vacation - and potentially become more actively committed Jews who are concerned about Israel’s future. I’ve been thinking about the ramifications of the “free question” ever since I moderated a panel discussion two weeks ago at the Samuel Bronfman … Continue Reading
Entitled or Enlightened?
by Miriam Bader The launch of PresenTense Magazine Issue 9: Philanthropy initiated a stimulating conversation about young Jews and philanthropy at a panel Tuesday night titled “Entitled or Enlightened?”. Cosponsored by PresenTense, The Bronfman Youth Fellowships in Israel, and ROI Community, the event, which took place at the Samuel Bronfman Foundation offices in New York, featured panelists Rabbi Andy Bachman of Congregation Beth Elohim, Gali Cooks of the Rita & Stanley Kaplan Family Foundation, and Rabbi Ari Weiss of Uri L’Tzedek. Their perspectives were as compelling as those shared by the audience, a group of largely young Jews in the nonprofit Jewish fundraising world. Expertly moderated by Tamar Snyder, a staff writer at The Jewish Week, the panel explored complex issues related … Continue Reading
The Never-Ending Fundraising Crunch
JT Waldman writing on the JPS Interactive blog: All Quiet on the Philanthropy Front ... As a non-profit professional working on a dynamic new project for an established Jewish organization, I find that funding prospects are few and far between. The cold, hard reality is that aside from the support from one foundation who provided the seed funding for the Tagged Tanakh in 2008, all the grant applications we submitted in 2009 specifically for JPS Interactive were declined, citing the economy and or obligations to previous grantees. Donors seem hesitant to support “innovative” (read as risky) projects/organizations, and most funders are justifiably overly cautious in this economic climate. It’s very easy for the prospective grantees to sit on the sidelines and kvetch that no one is … Continue Reading
Engaging Alumni Reaps Benefits
Tamar Snyder writing in The Jewish Week: It wasn’t just about the money. That’s what Idit Klein says about the initial $1,000 grant she received from the Bronfman Youth Fellowships’ Alumni Venture Fund in 2004. Klein, the executive director of Keshet, a nonprofit that champions the inclusion of LGBTs within the Jewish community, used the small seed grant to mount an educational campaign centered on marriage equality. “It was a politically charged gesture,” Klein says of the initial grant. “What was most significant about it was the recognition that this was worthy of investment. It gave me validation for doing work that is not universally supported in the Jewish community.” Five years and $5,750 in grants later, Klein is set to join the Bronfman Youth Fellowships’ alumni … Continue Reading
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