by Manny Waks In the article, Give Us the Tools to Define Our Involvement, Joshua Einstein cogently articulates the major challenges and obstacles inherent in the global predicament of Jewish continuity. The term “continuity” is ubiquitous in contemporary Jewish community discourse. Broadly, it defines the continuity of “Jewishness”, both as our collective identity and as a values framework. In his article, Mr Einstein rightly criticises the existing structures of the mainstream Jewish community. He states, “Rather than focusing on giving the younger generations the tools to define their involvement and their identity - empowerment and enfranchisement - the vast majority of the organized effort has been geared toward retention and replacement.” Mr Einstein refers to not only the … Continue Reading
Picking a Needle out of a Haystack: Selecting for Social Entrepreneurs
Transparency. One simple word, yet it is amazing how many organizations still reject the concept; still do not realize our world has changed. Fortunately, some not only 'get it' but continually demonstrate they do. Take for example the AVI CHAI Foundation, a significant funder to the Jewish world who is currently in sunset. They certainly get it. In order to help others learn from their experiences, they've hired an outside team to track their spend-down process and make the findings publicly available. AVI CHAI's North American Executive Director, Yossi Prager, recently spoke about the Foundation's plans and shortly there-after made his presentation available for publication. An example more should follow. Then we have the Jewish Agency for Israel. Love them, or hate them, their … Continue Reading
Jewish Community: Zero?
by Shannon Sarna and Ruthie Warshenbrot More than half of the 2010 Slingshot organizations are headed by women. More than half of the 2009 Avi Chai Fellows (“the Jewish genius grant”) award winners are women. More than half of the current Joshua Venture Fellows are women. And over 70% of Jewish professionals are women. The number of women finalists in the Jewish Federations of North America’s recent Jewish Community Heroes campaign: Zero. The Jewish Heroes project fails to accurately reflect the landscape of the Jewish community’s best and brightest. When the vast majority of professionals working to enrich the Jewish community are women, how should it come to pass that not a single women is counted among our top five heroes? According to JFNA’s website, this is the … Continue Reading
Post-Startup Nation
For several years now the organized Jewish community has rallied around the innovative work of social entrepreneurs and the programs that support them. Hundreds of new projects and organizations have been launched as a result of this movement, which has been spearheaded by organizations like PresenTense, ROI, the Joshua Venture, Bikkurim, The Natan Fund, Jumpstart, Upstart [Bay Area], and the Lippman Kanfer Institute at JESNA. And the flow of startup projects shows no sign of abating. If the recent past is any guide, however, we will soon see some restlessness about the continuing focus on startups, and a desire to move on. That happened after “continuity” was heralded as the most urgent priority; it happened after day schools were favored. And it happened again after Jewish camping moved … Continue Reading
The Many Faces of the ROI Community
Yesterday I had the chance to, once-again, sit with 120 hyped-up, caffinated, sleep-deprived young adult movers and shakers of our Jewish world at the 5th annual gathering of the ROI Global Summit. And while perhaps I spent a bit to much time catching up with friends from around the globe, it is clear that this group not only 'gets it' they are actually 'doing something about it'. For not only are they creating cutting edge projects on multiple continents, they are trail-blazing a new level of collaboration among themselves and spurring a growing interchange of ideas between ventures such as JHub, Joshua Venture Group, Jumpstart, PresenTense and UpStart Bay Area. Here are just a few of the many faces of the global ROI Community: From Florianopolis, Brazil, meet community leader Deborah … Continue Reading
A Game of Irrelevant Semantics
Innovation Is Not A Synonym For ‘New’ excerpts from an opinion piece by Aaron Bisman and Rochelle Shoretz In late 2002, when our Joshua Venture Group (JVG) cohort was announced, the term “Jewish social entrepreneur” did not yet roll easily off the tongue. There was no “innovation ecosystem” to speak of, few incubators interested in helping us grow our ventures, and little confidence that Jewish life could or should blossom outside of existing institutional frameworks. JVG was founded to help emerging leaders change the Jewish world with their ideas. This was true of its first two cohorts, supported between 2000-2005, and it is true now, as its newly named 2010 fellows prepare to begin their fellowship term. The headline of The Jewish Week article (“Joshua Venture Betting On … Continue Reading
Where Yesterday Meets Tomorrow
Today's Joshua Venture Group Fellows: Where Yesterday Meets Tomorrow by Lisa Lepson After growing up in an Conservative Jewish household in Flatbush, I yearned to discover what lay beyond my limited world. At 18, I left Brooklyn for Brown University, and saw no need to spend much time at Hillel. It was familiar and comfortable, just more of the same. I went to college to explore. When I was a sophomore, I decided I needed to spend a semester focusing on women's literature in Cameroon. It was before email was prevalent, and my father was not fond of my disappearance to a place that seemed to him to be the end of the earth. After my tireless begging, he relented, agreeing to pay for the trip. In Cameroon, I lived by myself in a small village during my 3-week independent project. … Continue Reading
Ideas Worth Investing In
After a four-year hiatus, Joshua Venture Group (JVGroup) has emerged to rejoin the now burgeoning field of Jewish social entrepreneurship as a leading national support source for cultivating strong leaders and transformative ventures that seek to profoundly impact the American Jewish community. The organization officially re-launched in Fall 2009, announcing its call for applications for the 2010-2012 Dual Investment Program - a two-year intensive program for emerging entrepreneurs to work both individually as venture leaders and collectively as a cohort to develop and refine the professional and organizational skills needed to either start up or scale their ventures. The response to this opportunity was strong, with over 300 individuals inquiring via email and phone, by directly accessing the … Continue Reading
76 Applicants Advance to Joshua Venture Stage 2
The Joshua Venture Group's application launch for the 2010-2012 Dual Investment Program has yielded approximately 130 Venture Concept Papers from social entrepreneurs. After careful deliberation by the Group staff, 76 applicants have now advanced to Stage 2. They will have four weeks to complete their Venture Proposals - a more comprehensive look at what makes these ventures and emerging leaders a worthwhile investment for JVGroup and for the American Jewish community. A team of outside evaluators will review all submissions - both the Venture Concept Papers and Venture Proposals, and about a quarter of the remaining applicants will be invited to New York for in-person interviews in early Spring. … Continue Reading
Spinning
It’s that time of year again - the days are shorter and colder, and across cultures people huddle together with family members, and brighten the dark evenings with orbs of light. Chanukah is upon us. We eat latkes and jelly donuts to remember the oil that miraculously lasted in the ancient temple. We light candles each night, increasing light and holiness in the world. We remember the miraculous victory of the few against the many, and celebrate our religious and cultural freedom. And, of course, we play dreidel - and teach our young and tender to gamble. I have a vivid childhood memory of gathering with aunts, uncles, and cousins at my grandfather’s house for Chanukah. He had a jar full of coins, and each family member would line up in size order to take a turn dipping a hand into the jar … Continue Reading
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