Stephen Markowitz, project manager of the Mayberg Foundation's Maalot Collab (formerly known as the Jewish Outreach Professional Development pilot program), spent months in deep-dive interviews with 17 practitioners across M54/Chabad, Olami, Aish, and NCSY, each nominated by their organization as a best-case example, to find out what makes a career in Jewish outreach last. Building on the pilot cohort Mayberg Foundation Managing Director Amanda Mizrahi first convened in 2024, his new piece for eJewishPhilanthropy digs into questions the field rarely asks directly.

At the OU Women's Tzom Gedalia Lech Knos program, "From Inspiration to Action – Stepping Forward for Klal Yisrael," Mayberg Foundation President and Trustee Manette Mayberg and former Moscos Rebbetzin Dara Goldschmidt joined Rebbetzin Emma Katz for a candid conversation about leadership, legacy, and stepping up for Jews who could easily be overlooked. Watch the recording to hear Manette's personal journey from religious disconnection to co-founding Momentum and developing the Mayberg Foundation's MyZuzah and JEIC programs, and the ripple effects she's witnessed firsthand.

This past schoolyear, Pedagogy of Partnership brought its chavruta-centered approach to new communities in Miami and Los Angeles, launched a groundbreaking parent learning program, and piloted a fellowship for the next generation of Jewish educators — all made possible through a growing network of national and local funding partners.

A month after IsraAid deployed water systems and child-friendly spaces to earthquake-ravaged Venezuela, with emergency support from the Mayberg Foundation, something remarkable happened: Israel and Venezuela restored consular relations for the first time in 17 years, with both governments crediting the earthquake response directly. As Naftali Ejdelman writes, Israeli aid workers went because Venezuelans needed help — and the trust they built along the way opened a door that had been shut for 17 years. Now, the Mayberg Foundation Advocacy Committee is asking where else that same lesson might apply.

Over the past three years, the Jewish Day School Standards and Benchmarks Project (JDSS&B), a Mayberg Foundation grantee based at JTS's William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education, worked with 23 day schools across North America, spanning denominations, sizes, and locations. Through 39 days of in-person coaching and nearly 500 professional development engagements, JDSS&B trained teachers to root Jewish text study in Big Ideas and Essential Questions, core concepts from the Understanding by Design framework (Wiggins & McTighe). This approach helps students uncover a text's lasting takeaways and explore them through engaging, debatable questions, strengthening students' connection to Judaism and the lessons they carry into their lives.