Jewish Federations of Canada – UIA and the Association of Jewish Family and Children’s Agencies (AJFCA) are currently co-hosting a multi-day inaugural gathering of Jewish community professionals from across Canada at a national conference in Toronto. The conference, titled “Jewish Communal Service in the 21st century: Challenges & Opportunities in Canada”, is bringing together over 100 professionals from diverse sectors, organizations and communities.
Issues and topics of discussion include: Poverty in the Jewish Community; Effective Advocacy Strategies; and Experiential Jewish Education. Guest presenters include Barry Chazan (Pine River Institute), Arna Poupko Fisher (University of Cincinnati), Shuki Taylor (YU), Gil Troy (McGill), Gary Rabbior (Canadian Foundation for Economic Education) and Laurel Rothman (Family Service Toronto).
“This event can only increase our understanding of each other’s perspective and strengthen partnerships by breaking down traditional silos and starting new, meaningful conversations” said Dalia Margalit-Faircloth, Director of AJFCA Canada. “As professionals in Jewish communal service, whether working in family services, education, or community planning and capacity building, at the end of the day we all share a common agenda – to find methods and develop practices that most effectively serve our communities and the people living within them.”
To eJP‘s knowledge, this is the first time any federation has convened a professional development program – including with professionals from other communities and those who are not their own federation agencies/grantees – for professional development and open dialogue. Kol HaKavod – may others learn from their work!
Top
AJFCA is thrilled to collaborate with Jewish Federations of Canada – UIA to convene this dedicated group of professionals. The topics discussed at this conference are of great importance to their communities and the Jewish community as a whole. Conference attendees will go back to their communities with renewed focus to make our world better.
Lee Sherman
President & CEO
Association of Jewish Family & Children’s Agencies (AJFCA)
I was thrilled to read today about the gathering of Jewish professionals in Canada. In St. Louis over the past eight years, under the auspices of Jewish Federation of St. Louis, we have seen the tremendous impact of professional training, networking and sharing resources – and friendships – when we convene pros from across the spectrum of the entire community. JPros in a number of other cities have enjoyed similar experiences. With tremendous local support we sponsor more than 25 experiences a year just for professionals. In fact, back in March 2011 we partnered with JCSA to sponsor a conference that surpassed our expectations by involving 180 local staff (agencies, organizations, schools and congregations) and 40 pros from around the country.
I am honored to be the pro for the pros and staff JPro St. Louis and also chair local groups for JCSA with Alisha Goodman with the guidance of JCSA Executive Director, Brenda Gevertz.
We are eager to help other communities experience shared professional learning which we believe leads directly to more staff knowing each other, caring about each other and seeking out ways to work together. In other words, JPro promotes professionals as community leadership and facilitates community unity.
We hope you’ll join us on this exciting journey for our field.
I am happily participating with Canadian colleagues in this terrific conference. It does not diminish the value of this gathering to note that JCSA and our local groups partner with federations across North America to offer professional development opportunities that support skill building, knowledge sharing and collaboration.
We are eager to bring these opportunities to more communities and very pleased that so many Canadians are benefitting from their experience together.
We just spent an amazing 2 days – Canadian professionals from Jewish Family agencies, from Experieintial Jewish education and from our Canadian
Jewish federations. The dialogue was rich and inspiring and we were able to look at our work through a more open and collaborative lens. Our challenge now is to ensure that we capture this momentum and continue it by launching some ongoing new initiatives and ways of working together.