On February 8, over 80 Jewish education leaders from around the country came together for a winter seminar hosted by Lifnai V’Lifnim, a Mayberg Foundation grantee. Read about this collaborative conference in The Jewish Link.
Read MoreWe are excited to celebrate JEIC’s newly-released films illustrating how current Jewish educational practices may stunt children’s spiritual development.
The film ‘A Daughter's Story’ by Dreamworks producer Saul Blinkoff takes a hard look at how kids are turned on - or off - to enjoying Jewish learning and developing a personal relationship with God.
Accompanying the feature, Shmuel Hoffman's making-of film provides a behind-the-scenes look at the production, ideas, and reactions to ‘A Daughter's Story.’
Read MorePrizmah’s HaYidion Fall 2020 edition highlighted an article written by managing director of the Jewish Education Innovation Challenge, Sharon Freundel, about how collaborating through professional learning communities can better serve Jewish day schools.
Read MoreEJewish Philanthropy featured a JEIC press release about its Ignition Grant Awards for God Expansion in Jewish Day Schools, on Monday, Nov 2, 2020.
The Jewish Education Innovation Challenge (JEIC), as the press release states, awarded a total of $80,000 to four Jewish day schools through Ignition Grants for God Expansion.
Read MoreThe Jewish Education Innovation Challenge’s Listening Booths Initiative seized the opportunity to hear from many diverse voices in the Jewish day school (JDS) field by partnering with Prizmah to host “Listening Booths” at their bi-annual conference in March 2019.
They wondered what JDS stakeholders would say are their dreams, visions, and wishes for Jewish education. And they wondered how those responses might help JDSs achieve the optimal results of students internalizing Jewish values that can help them develop enduring Jewish identities and connections to Jewish belief and practice.
JEIC invited conference attendees to participate in a 20-minute recorded interview in which they shared their opinions and ideas confidentially. Some of what they heard validated what many in the field already believe to be true. Other ideas were somewhat surprising with a few that were truly out-of-the-box.
Eight major themes emerged in this research, which was highlighted in the Fall 2019 issue of HaYidion: The Prizmah Journal in an article entitled “Listening to Day School Dreams” by JEIC Managing Director Sharon Freundel. Additional compelling ideas to radically improve Jewish day schools that were shared in the Listening Booths will be highlighted in a special series on the Prizmah blog.
Out of the Listening Booths research emanates good news and an opportunity to be fearless. The good news is that there are a great number of impassioned, creative JDS stakeholders who are committed to improving Jewish education and creating the strongest and most enduring future for the Jewish people. These stakeholders have the ideas, and they are ready to execute them. The opportunity to be fearless means stakeholders in the field need to be ready to jump into action, collaborating, taking risks, innovating and inviting others (including funders) to be a part of the solutions.
Access the complete report, What We Heard in the Listening Booths: Summary of findings from the JEIC Interviews at PrizmahCJDS’s 2019 Conference, The Greenberg Team, 2019.
Sharon Freundel, JEIC Managing Drector, and Rabbi Shmuel Feld, JEIC Founding Director, were highlighted as featured presenters at The Rohr Jewish Learning Institute’s (JLI) 2019 National Jewish Retreat in Washington, D.C., August 13-18, 2019, at the Washington Marriott Wardman Park.
Read MoreBaltimore Jewish Times covered the Jewish Education Innovation Challenge’s 2019 Innovators Retreat, which was held in Baltimore on May 15-16, 2019.
This article highlighted the role JEIC has been playing in the day school field to improve the quality of Jewish education in day schools across North America.
Read MoreManette Mayberg brings a strong voice to the pursuit of radically improving the quality of Jewish education in day schools across North America.
Read her interview with Kol HaBirah: Voice of the Capital to discover the values and vision that guide her commitment to distinguishing Judaic Studies and the important work JEIC is doing with its partners and grantees to achieve this goal.
Prizmah:CJDS included in their Summer 2018 issue of HaYidion a Jewish day school advocacy article by Manette Mayberg entitled, "Lessons from Mezuzah about Redefining Success in Day Schools."
Chevy Chase, MD -- The Jewish Education Innovation Challenge's (JEIC) 2018 Innovators Retreat brought together almost 100 Jewish day school change agents at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center on April 25-26, 2018, for robust discussions about how to create more effective Jewish day schools and radically improve students' Judaic studies learning experiences.
Day school educators, philanthropists, academics, policy makers and parents participated in a unique dialogue aimed at "Connecting the Dots," which was the theme for JEIC's 6th annual Innovators Retreat.
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The Mayberg Foundation is pleased to announce that esteemed Jewish day school educator, Sharon Freundel, will join the Jewish Education Innovation Challenge (JEIC) leadership team as Managing Director effective July, 2018, and will begin transitioning into the role in February, 2018. Sharon will work closely with Rabbi Shmuel Feld, who will serve as JEIC’s Founding Director. Together they will expand JEIC’s focus from stimulating development of dynamic educational models to include ongoing work with schools pursuing program integration and sustainable culture change.
Read the Washington Jewish Week article on Sharon Freundel's appointment.
The HaKaveret design team convened for the first time for a three-day retreat in Silver Spring, MD. The ten Designers had the opportunity to meet and get to know each other, as well as hear from Louis and Manette Mayberg about their expectations and aspirations for the project.
Read MoreThe Jewish Education Innovation Challenge recently hosted its 2016 Innovators Retreat at the Ritz Carlton in Bal Harbour as a platform for motivating Jewish day schools and their stakeholders to shift approaches and embrace new ideas.
Read MoreFollowing the successes of the Jewish Education Innovation Challenge’s (JEIC) Day School Challenge and the Innovators Retreat, a new initiative – tentatively called the Team Challenge – has been launched to discover innovative, engaging, inspiring, authentic, substantive and personally meaningful Jewish learning and teaching in our Jewish day schools.
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