“[The High Holidays of 2020 were] a kind of controlled experiment; essentially no one was able to celebrate or observe the holidays in the ways they were used to, so everyone was doing something different than usual. . . .There are three major lessons from these positive experiences that can serve as building blocks as we plan for the future.”
“Jewish texts contain a multitude of opinions, enough to support the presuppositions and political persuasions that almost any seeker could bring to them. One can write a purely socialist economic plan for society using only traditional Torah sources. One could also write a capitalist model citing another set of Torah sources. I suggest we do neither…”
“…[N]early 600 million people worldwide speak Spanish. Yet many of them know little about Israel and the Jewish community — many don’t see an obvious reason to care about a country several thousand miles away and a religious group with very few adherents…. For years, Fuente Latina has been conducting outreach to journalists, both proactively and in response to Iranian and other anti-Israel falsehoods…”
“To emerge from the current pandemic is to face an environment in which engaging with and traveling to Israel has become more complicated—and more fraught—than ever before. In what ways has the pandemic transformed the ways Israel is being taught in our schools? …Sources invited six leading experts to reflect on how Israel education has changed — and on what lies ahead.”
“We are especially proud to help establish this initiative — which will make visible a fuller range of Jewish voices, identities, experiences, and perspectives — at a time when social divisions run painfully deep and mainstream depictions too often fail to reflect the Jewish community in all its complexity.”
“The roughly one-year mark since pandemic restrictions began, along with a new phase of vaccine progress, converge to create a milestone moment. We sat down with seven leaders of Jewish organizations—all alumni of our CEO Onboarding Program—to take stock of the lessons they will remember from the eventful past year, and the insights they’ll bring into the future.”
“Jewish education occurs across a wide range of venues and institutions, from camp to campus, from classroom to tour bus. The 18 x 18 fellowship is an attempt to bring all of those institutions into one discussion, to debate and determine what goals we are pursuing, what outcome are we working toward…”
“The Jewish Journalism Fellowship is a new, year-long program designed to help local Jewish news outlets thrive in the twenty-first century media landscape. A project of Maimonides Fund, the Fellowship will support a cohort of local Jewish news organizations in strengthening their capabilities in the areas of audience development, organizational sustainability, and Jewish community engagement.”
“As the JCRIF Aligned Grant partners launch a second round of grantmaking, we want to share some of the key takeaways from the first round of the JCRIF Aligned Grants that might be useful to others, and that will also inform the next stage of our work.
. . .From the outset, JCRIF’s grant funders described their goal as not simply preserving institutions . . . but rather thinking broadly about preserving the functions that Jewish communities need to thrive.”
“As part of its 2021 grant strategy, the JCRIF Aligned Grant Program is issuing a public call for proposals from individuals and organizations to seize this unique moment to reimagine, renew, and reset Jewish communities for the future. We are seeking new thinking that can move beyond current organizational boundaries, structures, missions, and program delivery mechanisms.”
“[T]he team included. . .a 17-year-old high-school student named Yahel Manor, who is responsible for some of the team’s most interesting discoveries. . . . She reached Kaminer’s lab through Alpha, a program for high-school students with outstanding aptitudes for science and math.”
“In the wake of COVID-19 closures, seven Jewish foundations formed the Jewish Community Response and Impact Fund (JCRIF), a $91 million interest-free loan and grant program, to help sustain Jewish institutions during the pandemic. . . . ‘This loan has helped us continue to support the mental, physical, social, and spiritual health and well-being of our community.'”