by David Bryfman Ben Bag-Bag used to say: Turn it and turn it again, for everything is in it. Pore over it, and wax gray and old over it. Stir not from it for you can have no better rule than it Ethics of Our Fathers 5:26 I remember the first time I heard these words. It was in a 5th grade Jewish studies class focusing on the laws of kashrut. I remember asking a lot of “why” questions. Why split hooves? Why not milk with meat? Why no shellfish? She gave some answers and then eventually the teacher turned to me in frustration and said, “because that’s what it says in the Torah.” I must have looked at her quizzically because then she added those words, “Hafoch ba ve-hafoch ba, de'kula ba - Turn it and turn it, for everything is in it.[1]” I clearly recall not being satisfied by this … [Read more...]
The Mash Up: Moving Beyond the Legacy vs. Startup Bifurcation
by Maya Bernstein, David Bryfman, Leora Isaacs, Aliza Kline, Bill Robinson, Toby Rubin and Jonathan Woocher The 2012 General Assembly is already a few weeks behind us, but many of the pressing issues raised in Baltimore continue to vex the Jewish community. Yet we believe we made an important start in understanding some of the questions that have the potential to drive significant change across the landscape of Jewish organizational life. Over 120 people attended the session entitled “Legacy Versus Innovation: A False Dichotomy.” The interactive session presented multiple perspectives from the Jewish communal landscape. Three speakers from very different organizations - a start-up, a large federation, and a facilitator of nonprofit innovation and philanthropy - shared their experiences within … [Read more...]
Bridging the Divide
by Maya Bernstein, David Bryfman, Aliza Kline, Bill Robinson and Toby Rubin What would it look like if Legacy and Emerging Organizations were aligning with each other to support more inspiring, meaningful and relevant Jewish learning for today’s children, teens and families? Over the last 20 years there has been an explosion of innovation in Jewish education. A host of entrepreneurial start-ups have emerged offering new perspectives and resources for Jewish learning. We are energized by the new ideas we’ve seen relating to food consumption and the environment, to the arts, to social justice, to Torah study and ritual experience. Simultaneously, we have also seen a significant number of organizations that have been in existence for many decades (“legacy institutions”) continue to … [Read more...]
Hands-On Education: Where Jewish Education Comes to Life
by Andrea Rose Cheatham Kasper I was sitting in the synagogue during my older brother’s Bar Mitzvah listening to my dad’s speech. Although we have it somewhere, printed out by an old printer on perforated sheets, I don’t need to read it to remember my dad’s most striking piece of advice, “Learn to make something with your hands.” It is this line that has remained a connecting thread through so much of my life and which has also been repeated to me by others who were present that day, 27 years ago. It’s not what most American Jewish children hear from their parents, but we were not only American Jews, we were Israeli, as well, and had moved to the United States from Kibbutz Gan Shmuel just two years earlier. Also, we were not only Jewish. My dad had recently converted to Judaism, … [Read more...]
Seeking Inspiration at the ROI Summit in Jerusalem
by Abigail Pickus Andrea Kasper dreamed of a new kind of Jewish high school. The kind where the emphasis would be on doing and creating. The kind where the classroom would be the rolling fields and the carpenter’s workshop and the dance studio. The kind where what matters is not AP scores or getting into an Ivy League university, but growing the vegetables for lunch or building the chairs for the students to sit on. The kind of place where Hebrew wouldn’t be written on chalkboards to be memorized by rote, but would be infused organically into every aspect of the learning, along with the Talmud and the Torah. The kind of place she has yet to see in the Jewish world in North America. “Yadaim Academy of Applied Academic’s vision is to increase the diversity and types of Jewish high … [Read more...]
Smashing Idols in the Jewish Community
by Rabbi Laura Baum Last Monday I had the privilege of being one of the keynote speakers at the Jewish Futures Conference in New York. The Jewish Futures Conference “brings together visionary thinkers, passionate individuals, and inspiring presentation in a conference designed to shift the horizon of our thinking in Jewish education.” The conference organizers asked me to share a text study. I chose to present the midrash (Jewish legend) of Abraham smashing the idols. In case you’re not familiar with this story, here’s the quick version: it takes place before Judaism comes into existence. Young Abraham (AKA Abram) is working in his father’s idol shop, and stages a “riot” among the idols, smashing all of them to pieces except for one. When Abraham’s father returns, the son says … [Read more...]
