Good Friday morning!

Jerusalem College of Technology (JCT), which serves a largely religious student body, will begin construction on an expanded campus for women later this year.

The $100 million expansion project comes amid ongoing efforts across Israeli society to bring more Haredi Israelis into higher education and the workforce — particularly in the tech sector. Israel’s 1.2 million Haredi citizens make up 13% of the country’s population but comprise just 4.5% of its national university student body, according to a recent study by the Israel Democracy Institute. The number of Haredi students increased 14% last year and is two-thirds female, as a large proportion of  Haredi men study in yeshivas and kollels — Jewish institutes of advanced study.

That’s also the gender ratio of the approximately 2,000 Haredi students at JCT. The new campus, called the Tal Campus for Women, is slated for completion in 2025 and has space for some 3,000 students — an increase of more than 500 from its current capacity. JCT has so far raised more than $50 million for the construction project, plus another $11 million in government funding.

The students come primarily from the Haredi, religious Zionist and Ethiopian communities. Ninety percent of Haredi women who graduate from the college find employment, according to Stuart Hershkowitz, JCT’s vice president. He hopes the expansion “will help many Haredi families leave the cycle of poverty.”

“We are an Orthodox institution whose students come to JCT because of the religious and gender-separate environment,” Hershkowitz told eJewishPhilanthropy. “Because of the religious-friendly environment and the high level of education, we are able to attract more Haredi women students.”

INCLUSIVE SOCIETY

Jewish disability advocates reflect on two years of changes during the pandemic

Rich Polk/Getty Images for Deadline

Ahead of Jewish Disabilities Awareness, Acceptance, and Inclusion Month in February, Jewish disability inclusion advocates, including actress Marlee Matlin, say the pandemic has brought both hardships and benefits to people with disabilities, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Ben Sales reports. 

Access and difficulties: “Things like Zoom and virtual meetings have provided opportunities for those of us who may not necessarily be able to, because of mobility issues, get out or be able to travel,” she told eJP through an interpreter, explaining that captions have also made online programming accessible. But there are difficulties as well. “It’s hard for me to go to a grocery store and read someone’s lips with a mask on,” she said. “I just ask them to lower it for a second so I know what they’re saying. Other times, some people don’t have patience, but it’s all a process.”

A fifth of the community: Experts estimate that about 20% of the Jewish community has a disability. While data on inclusion in Jewish spaces is often difficult to find, opportunities for Jews with disabilities appear to have gradually increased in recent years. Most day and overnight camps have programs for campers with disabilities, according to the Foundation for Jewish Camp, and the percentage of day campers with disabilities increased from 5% in 2016 to 6.7% in 2020. 

Surveying the field: A recent survey on disability in the Jewish community, conducted by RespectAbility, an organization that promotes inclusion in the Jewish community and more broadly, shows pluses and minuses. In a survey of more than 2,300 Jewish respondents (contacted largely through paid email blasts, through which recipients could opt in), just 31% said the Jewish community is doing “extremely well” or “very well” in including people with disabilities. The number was lower among self-identified respondents with disabilities. But the survey also found that majorities of both groups said the community is doing better on the issue than it was five years ago. 

How things have changed: “Many synagogues, day schools, JCCs, camps, etc., have a disability inclusion initiative and they have identified an individual or group of individuals who are responsible for moving that forward,” said Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, who founded RespectAbility more than eight years ago. “What is still to me, frankly shocking, is that some of the inclusion that’s free and instant to do is still not being done,” such as captioning Zoom programs. 

Read the full article here.

TORAH LISTENERS

Could podcasting help us rediscover Judaism?

Andrea Piacquadio/Pexels

“In my six years as a Hillel professional, I had learned that Judaism had to be accessible, resonant and relevant. And so I created “BROgramming”— an opportunity for underserved male students to connect to each other Jewishly and socially through activities like Baseballs and BBQs (where they made their own mezuzot) and a Chanukah-themed Jews v. Greeks laser tag event,” writes Amanda K. Weiss, co-host and founder of the weekly podcast “Drinking and Drashing: Torah with a Twist,” in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.

‘Drinking and Drashing’: “Six years later, I brought this idea of making Judaism relatable to my first year of rabbinical school in Jerusalem. I created ‘Drinking and Drashing,’ evenings of creating cocktails and connections to the Torah in an informal setting. So when Rabbi Andrew Goodman, Hebrew Union College’s director of student support, said ‘You should make that a podcast!’ I did what any person who wanted to raise Judaism’s level of excellence would do. I said, ‘No.’ After all, who had the time?”

Not Jewish enough: “As the pandemic’s imposed isolation increased, so did my need for entertainment. Listening to podcasts like ‘Judaism Unbound,’ the ‘Study’ and the ‘Scrubs’ rewatch podcast, I heard Rabbi Goodman in my head again, and called up two friends. ‘We should make it a podcast.’ We were tuned in and wanted to help those who were seeking connection, community and continuity… We heard that podcast popularity had doubled during the pandemic, with 120 million podcast listeners in the country in 2021, according to statista.com… We listened to the Pew Report, sharing that Jews were feeling disconnected to Jewish organizations and memberships. We heard the oft-repeated claim that people don’t feel ‘Jewish enough’ to participate in Jewish organizational life.”

Na’aseh v’nishmah (to do and to listen): “And then we realized something extraordinary: podcasts challenge that conception, ensuring that Judaism can indeed be made accessible to and resonant for anyone who wants to tune in… Podcasts enable Jews to ‘na’aseh v’nishmah’ — to do and to listen — all at the same time. Good podcasts raise all voices (‘Judaism Unbound,’ ‘Can We Talk?’), grapple with the difficult ‘(‘Jews Talk Racial Justice,’’ Unorthodox’), and inspire exploration (‘On the Other Hand,’ ‘Jews Oughta Know’).”

Read the full piece here.

LEARNING AND DOING TOGETHER

High-quality professional development is the springboard to excellence

iStock

“??Mention the term ‘professional development’ to most Jewish educators and the image that likely pops into their minds is a large room of teachers sitting together at round tables or in neat rows listening to an expert expound on a topic of some relevance to their daily instructional work. In light of recent research from CASJE [Collaborative for Applied Studies in Jewish Education], this perception among teachers within Jewish schools and settings of what professional development looks like should hardly be surprising,” writes David Farbman, project manager of the DEEP Consortium, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.

The challenge: “Consider why this very narrow form of professional development matters. As the CASJE report authors suggest, it is far from ideal for a simple reason: Workshops alone do not actually help teachers improve their practice. No matter how informative, or even inspirational, the effect of these one-time training sessions on strengthening pedagogy — teachers’ capacity to bring educational excellence to students — is minimal, at best.”

So what does work? “On this question, a large body of research is unambiguous. Unlike standalone workshops, the most effective professional development experiences are ongoing, job-embedded and content-rich. They focus on student outcomes and promote collaborative learning. If teachers do participate consistently in these kinds of more intensive professional development opportunities, then they are much more likely to adjust their instructional practice in ways that elevate student learning.”

Read the full piece here.

Worthy Reads

Down to Daf: The Jerusalem Post‘s Aaron Reich profiles Miriam Anzovin, a Boston-based content creator and visual artist who posts regular updates on Daf Yomi on her TikTok page, which has gained a large following in recent weeks. “Anzovin grew up in an Orthodox Jewish home and studied at a Lubavitch middle school. Though she is no longer Orthodox, she has a degree in Jewish studies and is very serious about Talmud study, having consistently studied Daf Yomi every day since the current seven-and-a-third-year-long cycle began two years ago. Coincidentally, that was also around the same time she first went on TikTok. At first, she only went on to watch videos as a way to kill time and remain feeling connected to people during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, but eventually she decided to start creating content there herself. ‘In the beginning of December, I thought that since I’m doing Daf Yomi already, I could make a video for other people doing Daf Yomi with humorous takes as an in-joke, maybe with a millennial or Gen Z bent,’ Anzovin explained.” [JPost]

RBG’s Reads: Many volumes from the library of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg were auctioned yesterday, including several lots containing books of Jewish content, writes Shira Hanau in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, including one lot with 15 titles related to Jewish history and the Jewish experience. Among them are Rabin: Our Life, His Legacy, a book written and inscribed by Leah Rabin about her husband, Yitzchak Rabin, the Israeli prime minister who was assassinated in 1995. Others in the lot include It Takes a Dream: The Story of Hadassah, by Marlin Levin, and Jewish Legal Writings by Women, by Micah Halpern and Chana Safrai. [JTA] 

Dancing to Remember: Inspired by her Jewish education, dancer Rachel Linsky has drawn inspiration from her Jewish education to create a unique series of Holocaust-based dance performances, writes Judy Bolton-Fasman in JewishBoston.com. In a Q&A, Linsky, a native of Newton, Mass., spoke about her project, ZACHOR. “Dance’s communicative powers have the power to evoke emotion and sympathy. You can take a story or a testimony and tell it through the universal language of movement. Anyone watching can apply their own personal history. It was an exciting opportunity to share dance and get non-dancers from the Jewish community interested in dance…I think these pieces have the potential to spark a unique way to study the Holocaust and other parts of history. Taking an individual testimony, story or memory and then focusing on embodying it is so resonant.” [JewishBoston.com]

Pic of the Day

Haim Zach/GPO

Israeli President Isaac Herzog and First Lady Michal Herzog built a snowman following Wednesday’s snowfall in Jerusalem.