Good Tuesday morning!

Grassroots campus-based hunger-relief organization Challah for Hunger has rebranded as Nazun – “we will nourish” in Hebrew – to more accurately align with the group’s efforts to eradicate food insecurity on campus and beyond.

Since its founding in 2004, the organization has encouraged college students to engage in leadership development and advocacy opportunities on more than 60 college campuses. The new name “represents the basic need for all people to be fed while also capturing the nourishing work the organization does to cultivate leadership and advocacy and philanthropy in thousands of young adults around the country,” the group said.

The name was selected by the board after an extensive process, Nazun Executive Director Rebecca Bar told eJP, involving input from current and former staff, student board representatives, alumni and advisors, as well as someone representing the Challah for Hunger participants who identify as “other than Jewish” — who account for roughly 25 percent of participants. “It was important [for the name] to be rooted in Jewish content and value and be accessible enough so that people who weren’t native Hebrew speakers could pronounce it,” Bar explained. The launch of the new name this week was timed to the beginning of a new semester when students returned to campus.

“Our tagline is ‘cultivating leaders, nourishing communities,’” Bar said, adding that in addition to making and selling challah on campus to raise funds to alleviate food insecurity, over the last several years the organization has prioritized leadership development.

SHOE DROP

Stuart Weitzman offers to double itrek gift

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The Weitzman Family Foundation issued an endowment challenge to itrek, a trip operator that brings graduate students to Israel. The foundation is making a base contribution of $2 million to the organization, with up to an additional $2 million available if itrek can raise $3 million.

Weighing in: “Anyone who’s been to Israel knows that itrek’s goals are unique and extremely successful,” said Weitzman. “I’m proud to support their innovative model for bringing the Israel experience to tomorrow’s leaders. My hope is that this gift will help itrek solidify their future as they move into their second decade of opening the eyes, hearts and minds of thousands of young men and women who might not have ever had that opportunity.”

Background: itrek was founded in 2011 and has brought nearly 20,000 students to Israel over the last decade. Despite travel limitations imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the group has convened participants for events in the U.S. At a November 2021 gathering in Arizona for more than 100 trek leaders, former Israeli President Reuven Rivlin addressed the group to discuss his decades-long career in politics.

#SOLOBUTNEVERALONE

Thriving during the pandemic

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“While we all know humans — and all primates for that matter — thrive in familial and group settings, we also understand that there are times where such settings are not possible. It seems counterintuitive to suggest that we might thrive in social isolation but at times (such as during a pandemic) that is exactly what we are asked to do,” writes Atty Garfinkel, director of the Hillel of Northern Nevada, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.

Closed campus, open campus: “In March of 2020, the Nevada System of Higher Education and the University of Nevada in Reno closed campuses due to COVID-19… The fall semester of 2021 was fully in person, and we were all so very grateful! … My primary campus mandated vaccinations for all in-person classes, which kept our on-campus infection rate relatively low. My Hillel had a successful semester and as I began to consider my professional development and continuing professional education, I realized how much I missed my solopro women’s cohort. My organizational conference was scheduled for December, in person in Dallas – and then it was shifted to be online. I cannot say I was surprised, as the idea of over a thousand student-facing professionals in one place during a pandemic is a potentially dangerous situation. Nonetheless, the email came and felt like a blow to my soul.”

Always “on”: “Jewish community is required for religious practice. We need 10 adults to conduct full services, we need pairs to study in chevruta, we need each other because we are a people, not only a religious group (technically a multiracial ethno-religious group). And we as Jews working in Jewish communal services are not alone. We who work with emerging adults are in a kind of leadership role in their lives, not only as community participants. Leadership is taxing and being an introvert or an extrovert really is irrelevant; leadership is taxing for everyone. Leadership is a space where we transmit cultural norms, social or technical skills, values and the ability to persist. Leaders are always ‘on.’ Even when we do a great job of setting personal boundaries, engaging in wellness habits, and taking personal time — we are still ‘on.’ But the ability to step out of leadership and into a community of our own is critical to the survival of leaders.”

Read the full piece here.

Worthy Reads

Funding Music: Music gets more philanthropic support than other performing arts, most of it going to opera companies and orchestras, the IP staff writes in a piece rounding up music philanthropy in Inside Philanthropy. “With audiences dwindling, most American orchestras and opera companies are not covering their expenses with ticket sales, and philanthropy fills the gaps… But given these organizations’ traditionally Eurocentric programming and the fact that American orchestras are still overwhelmingly white, classical music groups have some work to do to address long-standing inequities, and funders can play a role in advancing change.” [InsidePhilanthropy]

Pic of the Day

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On Tu B’Shevat, the Association of Gulf Jewish Communities will launch a project to renew and maintain the Jewish cemetery in Bahrain for perpetuity. The burial ground is located in the capital city of Manama.