Johannesburg - February 6, 2012 - At a time when South Africa is emerging as a regional economic powerhouse that continues to gain global visibility as a center of new ideas and energy, the first South African Young Jewish Innovators Gathering will bring together 50 trailblazing social entrepreneurs, business pacesetters, activists and thought leaders to create a strategic network that will deepen their impact on their communities, the Jewish world and beyond. The Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation and South Africa’s Sasfin Bank Limited are partnering to shine a spotlight on these dynamic young innovators and help them connect with each other and, where possible, create partnerships that will engage large numbers of young Jews in Jewish life. The invitation-only event will open at … Continue Reading
Around My Jewish Table
by Evelyn Goldfinger I was born into a Jewish family in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I had the privilege of attending a Jewish school through high school where much of my Jewish identity was transmitted. My parents reinforced this with a Jewish education in the home, which was enhanced by what my sisters and I learned at school. I also went to Camp Ramah Argentina and became a counselor and Rosh madricha (head counselor). But before all that, before learning the Parasha (Torah portion) for my Bat Mitzvah, before my first encounter with a Tanach and even my first activity as a camper, there were our Shabbat dinners. See, one of my greatest blessings was that my parents decided, together with another three families, to make Shabbos dinner every Friday night. We would light the candles, go to shul … Continue Reading
Jewcology Launches Year of Jewish Learning on the Environment
Jewcology, a project which provides materials and tools to support the Jewish environmental movement, announced today that it will launch a “Year of Jewish Learning on the Environment” from Tu b’Shevat 5772 until Tu b’Shevat 5773. Jewcology will launch the resources in coordination with Canfei Nesharim, its parent organization. These high-quality materials will be a significant contribution to the field of Jewish-environmental learning. Topics range from Trees, Food and Energy to Shabbat, Sustainable Use and Consumerism. “Canfei Nesharim has organized Tu b’Shevat Learning Campaigns every year since 2003,” explained Evonne Marzouk, executive director of Canfei Nesharim and one of the lead editors for this project. “This year, for our tenth annual Learning Campaign, we’re … Continue Reading
ROI Community Kicks Off 2012 Recruitment
Seeking Best and Brightest Jewish Innovators for 2012 ROI Global Summit Jerusalem - February 1, 2012: Seeking to identify 150 of the most passionate and creative activists to change the Jewish world and beyond, ROI Community today kicks off recruitment for the 2012 Global Summit. Specifically, ROI is looking for 20- and 30-somethings who are leading initiatives in social action, environmental activism, arts and culture, media and technology, education, social justice, Israel advocacy and Jewish peoplehood, to join its 700-strong network in 50 countries. The Summit, ROI’s flagship program, will be held in Jerusalem, June 10-14, 2012. “We are reaching out to ROI Community members, strategic partners in the Jewish, social entrepreneurial and philanthropic worlds, and others, to refer the best … Continue Reading
Network Weaving with David Brown
Deborah Fishman sits with David Brown. This interview is part of the Network-Weaver Series. [David Brown is Social Action Coordinator at JHub in London, working on the Jewish Social Action Forum’s Big Green Jewish and Fairtrade campaigns. He is also the European coordinator of SIACH: A Global Environment and Social Justice network, and was on the core volunteer team recently for Limmud Conference in the UK.] What is a network? I think of connections between people, projects, and organizations. It can be a group of people who happen to find themselves in the same space, organizationally or physically. Either a given area of content can attract people (I think about SIACH), or it can be getting people together and letting them define the content (like the ROI Community). I come to the … Continue Reading
LA Jerusalem Mashup
by Edoe Cohen I was neither born nor raised in Israel. My Israeli parents moved to the States in the late 70s and I grew up in Los Angeles, where I never really felt very American. I also never appreciated or understood why my parents insisted on sending me to Hebrew school and summer programs in Israel. Looking back, I think I did understand that my family was different. That all of us Israeli transplants, my parents, their Israeli friends and all the kids, were different. We moved to Israel when I was a teen and settled near Jerusalem, but it took me nine years to really and truly feel and identify as an Israeli. It is strange to imagine the Jewish people returning to their homeland after two thousand years of exile and then the first generation of Israeli-born children finding their way … Continue Reading
Blazing Trails with TrailTalks
from The Jerusalem Post: Roving ambassadors It’s common for Israelis, upon completing their army service, to backpack around the world before going on to university or vocational training. Now, an experimental, interactive, two-day program launched in August is aiming to prepare them for the experience. “Now is the moment for individual Israelis to take bold and courageous steps to build constructive communication, business connections and strong relationships with people all over the world,” says Natalie Gourvitch, founder and executive director of TrailTalks. The new enterprise - developed with the Center for Leadership Initiatives, a boutique consulting firm - is meant to help young backpackers develop meaningful international relationships while advising them on how to better … Continue Reading
Toward the Miraculous Future: A Chanukiya of Predictions for 2012
“There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.” Albert Einstein “Daddy, how do we know it REALLY was a miracle, not just that somebody counted the oil the wrong way?" Morgan Cohen, age 9 For the serious adult student, Chanukah presents interesting questions about Jewish history, the challenge of heroic narrative and the complexities of a Jewish authority. But for a nine year old, a simple question belies its profound impact: was it really a miracle that the oil burned for eight nights? This question, asked last week by my daughter Morgan, has been burning in my head ever since, especially as I prepared my annual list of predictions for the coming year. In many ways, 2011 was a year filled with surprises that, despite the … Continue Reading
How Do You Say ‘Yasher Koach’ in Spanish?
by Joy Galam and Julie Wyler If we had two words to describe the 43 Latin American Jews, hailing from 15 different countries, that we met during the ROI Ibero-American Gathering in Buenos Aires, it would have to be humor and diversity. Humor because oh-my-gosh was the group funny, and diversity because of the diversity - both of the participants and their projects - that we were surprised to encounter during the four days in Buenos Aires. So back to humor. Was there humor! Each participant had jokes about the other and his country of origin. Being from Europe, we are used to the French joking about the Swiss, and the Swiss lashing out on the Belgians, but these jokes were not only country specific, they were Jewish! One ROI member who got a plateful was Erik. Erik is from Bolivia, where the … Continue Reading
Internalizing Innovation
by Evonne Marzouk Our recent investment in Jewish innovation has caused a proliferation of small, scattered non- profits organizing individual programs and competing against each other for scarce funding. Caryn Aviv and Shawn Landres have recently written important articles about this Jewish innovation landscape. Shawn Landres argues for impact investing as a new paradigm. Caryn Aviv suggests the possibility of “for-profit” organizations. Both of these are valuable potential models for future Jewish innovation. In this piece, I’d like to suggest another potential model for bringing innovation into existing Jewish institutions. One of the challenges of this burgeoning innovation sector is that, as a Jewish community, we’re losing focus. Young Jews are connecting to smaller and smaller … Continue Reading
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