The Case for Operational Support

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The Case for Operational Support

Amanda Mizrahi, program officer for Aish from the Mayberg Foundation, and Dan Hazony, Chief Information Officer of Aish, discuss why an operational framework for giving is so important. According to Mizrahi, outward signs of an organization’s major growth, like a new building or program, are flashy and fun, but they only work if they continue to stand on a strong foundation, which has to grow with the organization. “I would think that anyone who cares about the success of any nonprofit would want to understand the base’s stability before adding onto it,” she writes. “A new program that aligns with an organization and donors’ mission is exciting, but only if that success is sustainable because the organization’s baseline operations (fundraising, data, and communications) are all in good shape.”

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The Power of Difference

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The Power of Difference

In this blog by Momentum COO Ruth Baars, she relates, “Over this past decade, and our intensive work in partnership, I’ve discovered that there is so much to gain from coming together with those who think differently and there is much to lose from being comfortable with the like-minded. The Jewish people are a kaleidoscope of differences and these differences can be used to collectively shape and strengthen our Jewish future.”

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Cynicism and Sarcasm - A Not So Silent Killer

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Cynicism and Sarcasm - A Not So Silent Killer

Never before in Jewish history have so many children been enrolled in Jewish day schools. Thousands of young Jewish men and women travel every year to Israel to study their heritage. Tens of thousands of Jews study a page of Talmud every day. In short, there is no comparable era in Jewish history for the amount of Torah being studied around the globe. Yet, there is a silent, growing problem which is only being spoken about in darkened corners. For all of the Torah being studied and the commandments being kept, many of the practitioners are sorely lacking a relationship with the Almighty.

The irony is that Torah and Mitzvot (commandments) are a means to an end. They should direct a person into the arms of the Almighty. Unfortunately, something seems to be lost in translation. I recently spoke with a young woman from a very religious seminary in Israel. She had come to Aish HaTorah to attend some classes that discussed G-d. She told me that having gone to a Jewish school her whole life, she knew the intricate laws of the Sabbath. That having been said, she wasn't sure she believed in G-d! She quipped, “It's not like G-d was on the test!”

The ramifications to this issue are felt far and wide. The result is a large population which is socially Orthodox. They have grown up Orthodox, their friends and family are Orthodox, so they feel at home being Orthodox. This is a dangerous phenomenon. Religion untethered to G-d doesn’t last and certainly won't exist when the community is absent. Hence these Jews tend to be lax on vacation or if they go away to university. Absent the community, there is no incentive to “stay Jewish.”

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What We Can be Certain of Even in Uncertain Times: Using the New Year to Find our Inner Voice 

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What We Can be Certain of Even in Uncertain Times: Using the New Year to Find our Inner Voice 

This past year has been one of unprecedented challenge. No matter one’s personal circumstances, the shifts and pivots we have all had to make on an individual, communal, nationa,l and global scale have been enormous. And perhaps, even greater than the changes we have had to undertake, is living with the uncertainty of not knowing what will come next.

While often the High Holidays are a time of self-reflection and a commitment to change, this year’s Holiday season affords us an opportunity to look anew at these Days of Awe, and utilize them to examine what we are certain of in this uncertain world.

Rosh Hashanna liturgy contains the sentiment, “Hayom Harat Olam”, today the world was born, and we often conceptualize Rosh Hashanna as the first day of creation. Yet, there is an important Rabbinic understanding that Rosh Hashanna commemorates not the creation of the world, but rather, the creation of the human being.

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Tapping Students' Passions about their Judaism through the Inquiry Beit Midrash

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Tapping Students' Passions about their Judaism through the Inquiry Beit Midrash

Three years ago, as part of the Hakaveret initiative, in which the Mayberg Foundation brought together teams of educators to design innovative models, Michal Smart, Rina Hoffman and I developed The Inquiry Beit Midrash (IBM), a project-based learning model for Judaic Studies. I have had the good fortune to bring this model to life at the Idea School in Tenafly, NJ. The idea behind IBM is to find out what the students are passionate about in their Judaism and to use that passion project as the basis for some of their Judaic learning.

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The need for Jewish educational continuity

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The need for Jewish educational continuity

Hebrew has two ways of posing one of the most basic questions we can ask – “why?” One is מדוע (madua) and the other is למה (lama). Madua, shares the same root as the word for “science,” implying a more empirical response. Lama, can be read as ל-מה (l’ma) – towards what end, asking what we are meant to learn from that which we are asking about.

During the COVID-19 crisis, public health officials are crucially asking the first question: madua? They seek to understand the cause of the virus in order to slow its spread, develop a vaccine, and prevent its recurrence. This is the essential first response.

However, while living with this different reality, many who are not healthcare workers cannot help but ask the second question: lama? What lessons can we learn from this pandemic? While not a reason for the occurrence, is there some collective meaning we can take away which will serve us beyond these uncertain times?

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It’s All About Relationships...Especially After a Pandemic

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It’s All About Relationships...Especially After a Pandemic

I write this sitting in a Hilton Rochester hotel room in what is known as “Med City,” Rochester, Minnesota. My wife Susie and I have been in this same room since February 10 when we arrived to enter the world-famous Mayo Clinic kidney transplant center. That amounts to more than 90 days, isolated from most family and friends. We were sheltering-in-place for weeks before the rest of the world, living like John and Yoko during their “bed-in” protest for peace at the Hilton Amsterdam in 1969.

The good...scratch that...the great news is that Susie’s new kidney - she named it “Sydney” - is working magnificently. When we arrived here, her function was around 13%. It is now 75%. Twice as good as mine. I donated my “spare” to a lovely woman in Florida, whose husband is a Southern Baptist minister who studied at seminary with my friend Pastor Rick Warren, and who, after Googling me, wrote in an email: “I feel so blessed to have a Jewish kidney!”

So, for the most part, we have been alone all this time. Yet, here’s the thing. We are hardly “alone.” We are surrounded daily by our kids and grandkids, our cousins, our friends, and our colleagues who call, who write, who send, who never let a day go by without letting us know how much they care for and love us. Much of this contact has come through the amazing CaringBridge platform where they see daily updates on our progress. We have come to depend on these virtual connections that lift our spirits. We have been alone....together.

Who knew that the entire Jewish world would learn this same lesson, simultaneously, across denominations and heretofore impermeable institutional borders?

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A Paradigm Shift for Thinking About God in the Classroom

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A Paradigm Shift for Thinking About God in the Classroom

Over the past 75 years, Jewish day schools in North America have experimented with ways of teaching Jewish identity. The methodologies ranged from heavy textual induction to deep discussion to Israeli dance to computer-based solutions to maker spaces to Project Based Learning. In that time a singular topic remains under-developed: how to teach about the Divine. Most approaches focus on either: trying to create an emotional connection with God through nature, meditation, or experiential learning; or sharing a significant amount of knowledge about the topic of God with the potential for some discussion from students.

What other methods could teachers employ to build a strong, lasting Jewish identity in their students?

Perhaps we should consider a paradigm shift for thinking about God in the classroom. The idea of preparation plus opportunity equals success draws from the business world, but this wisdom points at a different way to think about educating children. Throughout a child’s life, many opportunities come up for the child to test, hone, seek out, and avoid a deep, individual understanding of God and how that understanding adds value to their life. Those pivotal moments can help a child actualize their beliefs instead of accepting someone else’s stock list, data points, or narratives about God. In this paradigm, the teacher shifts away from passing on the Mesorah to preparing the child for those non-classroom life moments when the student will examine the world independently and come to personal conclusions. In this paradigm preparation involves radical differences from other models.

Teachers can build their students’ spiritual development by nurturing specific traits. Spiritually healthy children...

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Engaging Gen Z by Engaging Their Parents

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Engaging Gen Z by Engaging Their Parents

As the Orthodox Union’s Chief Innovation Officer, I get the opportunity to work on innovation-oriented initiatives that our program staff involved in the daily whirlwind of outreach and engagement work don’t have the luxury of time to do. Over the last several months, I’ve been privileged with the task of exploring the different approaches used to engage GenZ and their parents in order to develop a 5-year plan for NCSY’s family programming. 

Since 1954, NCSY has dedicated its efforts to connect, inspire and empower Jewish teens and encourage passionate Judaism through Torah and Tradition. While our mission remains the same, we have found a shift in strategy necessary with each new generation of Jewish teenager. 

Looking back, we can now say with confidence that the switch from synagogue-based programming, designed for GenX (born 1960-79), to community and school-based programming was crucial for retaining participation of GenY and Millennials (born 1980-94). Similarly, we have realize the need to adapt our paradigm yet again, this time to include parents, if we want to engage GenZ (born 1994-2010). 

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Balancing Two Truths Requires Honoring Two Voices

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Balancing Two Truths Requires Honoring Two Voices

I have a new hero, and it’s a bit embarrassing. 

Embarrassing to admit that I’ve studied and taught this character for decades and always assumed he was the anti-hero, the person we shouldn’t become, the epitome of someone who was impelled by a mistaken zeal to lead a mistaken life. 

My anti-hero has become heroic. 

I’m talking about Jonah. 

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The Holographic Jews

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The Holographic Jews

The entire Jewish people are a single, perfect whole. 
—Zohar 

This lofty and poetic vision of unity as articulated in the Zohar has a modern-day defender in late author Michael Talbots book, The Holographic Universe (1991).  Within its pages Talbot focuses on the parallels of quantum mechanics and ancient mysticism as he compares the universe to a holographic image; an image that when 'dissected' does not give us 'parts of the whole' but rather 'the whole in each part.' A holographic image cannot be halved or quartered or dissected in any way. Each time you divide it, it merely gives you smaller versions of the original image! 

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What Fair Trade Practices Teach Us About Finding Purpose in What We Do

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What Fair Trade Practices Teach Us About Finding Purpose in What We Do

Fair trade. A concept that has become more popular over the last thirty years, its essential focus is to make sure that everyone is taken care of. The emotional drive behind this arrangement is that people care deeply not only about being taken care of, but also about taking care of others.

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Change and Transition are Not the Same Thing in Innovation

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Change and Transition are Not the Same Thing in Innovation

When an organization is facing a big change - the arrival of a new leader, a shift in strategy, rapid growth (or decline) - one often hears the well-worn reminder that “change is not an event, it is a process.”  Well-intended advice, perhaps, but not helpful.  It is not helpful because when change is at hand, hard work is needed, not sage advice.  It is not helpful because with all new pressures, we have to focus on the work, not words.

And it is not helpful, most precisely, because it is not true. 

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Let Us Not Turn Away

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Let Us Not Turn Away

As I write this, in San Diego, a funeral is taking place for Lori Gilbert Kaye OBM, who was murdered by a 19-year-old at a Chabad during Passover services. You know of this event, and others like it. When such things happen, we might experience many emotions: sadness, fear, shock, anger, numbness. But we have one job before anything else. We must feel the immediacy of the event, we must overcome its seeming distance, we must know that it is our own family that has been affected.

 It is natural to protect ourselves from the pain of the world through abstraction. It is easy to put up layers of armor against the assault on our sense of safety, and our moral sensibility, through distance. But Torah calls us to oppose that distancing. It calls us instead to closeness.

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Feedback is the Key to Developing Leaders... And It's the Gift We Aren't Giving

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Feedback is the Key to Developing Leaders... And It's the Gift We Aren't Giving

It turns out, there is an actual recipe for creating a leader. Start with a heavy dose of dynamic work experience, add a few dashes of mentoring, mix in a pinch of formal training and voila! You have a leader. It’s called the 70-20-10 leadership development model, and it was developed by the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) decades ago.

Notice something interesting? A full 70% of this formula hinges upon the cultivation of increasingly challenging, on-the-job “work experiences.” Yet too often this key ingredient is overlooked by managers. After all, it is much easier to simply approve an employee attending a one-off, skill-building course, say, rather than meaningfully support them in leading a new program – a riskier and more time-consuming proposition.

But the latter is exactly what organizations need to do in order to successfully cultivate workplace cultures that enable individuals to develop as leaders. Unfortunately, our sector is falling short in this area.

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The Attitude of Gratitude

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The Attitude of Gratitude

Growing up I wanted to be a stewardess, an actress and a lawyer.  At no point did I ever think, say or strive to be a fundraiser. But since none of the eight women who founded the Jewish Women’s Renaissance Project (JWRP) wanted to raise the money, I said I would try until we hired a professional.  That was 10 years ago, and although it has not been easy, what I have learned through fundraising changed my life forever, and how I have grown far outweighs any of the challenges.

One of the biggest lessons is gratitude.  The greatest philanthropists I ask to invest in our movement are the ones who after I thank them for giving say, “No, thank you.  Thank you for giving me the opportunity.”

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Sparks of Service

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Sparks of Service

At my synagogue before the High Holidays three women with busy lives take on the annual task of putting name labels on the appeal cards that worshippers use to indicate how much they will contribute to the synagogue for its own and community needs.

The labels must be printed by the synagogue office staff before the volunteers can put them on the cards and often the printing isn’t done until the last minute, waiting for the last congregants to sign up for seats. Yet despite the mad rush at the end, every year the three women set aside the time to complete the work. Asked how they could give up precious hours when so much is needed to be done for their jobs, in their homes and for their families before the holidays, the women all said it was a task they took on delightedly each year knowing that “just a bit of peeling and sticking” would result in needed funds. “It’s my service to the synagogue and community,” said one.

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Of Grades and Judaics – Responding to the Call to “Pursue Distinction”

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Of Grades and Judaics – Responding to the Call to “Pursue Distinction”

“If we agree that we want to build Jewish self-esteem in students and cultivate their Jewish greatness, what role does administering exams and assigning grades serve?” – Manette Mayberg, Mayberg Foundation Trustee

How should Jewish Day Schools respond to this radical appeal? 

Pressure from testing and grading inculcates little love for learning among students and creates tension at home. However, the consistent rejoinders demur that Judaics classes without grades won’t motivate students – What would punish tardiness or disrespectful behavior or what gives a class gravitas? These criticisms have merit in the present form of Jewish Day Schools. The current hierarchical structure of many Judaics classrooms situates authority and knowledge in the teacher’s hands, leaving students to be graded on compliance, likability, and innate talent. This appeal dreams a world where new underlying assumptions alter the context, changing the espoused values of a Judaics classroom and producing artifacts that do not include grades or their harmful side effects.

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The Jewish Tool in the Freezer

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The Jewish Tool in the Freezer

Any Jewish professional or lay leader knows that sometimes you have to field complaints.  The optimist in me believes it’s because we come from a culture that thirsts for goodness, raised to believe we have the power to create the best scenario possible.  But do we have the tools we need to get us there?

In the past few years at GW Hillel, residing in a temporary space without an oven, I often heard complaints about the cancellation of the beloved Thursday night challah extravaganza.  Each week, stage one of the process involved one or two volunteers arriving to make the dough in the morning. Stage two involved many friends joining them later that afternoon, cramming into the kitchen to braid and kill time while the challah baked.  Our students missed the camaraderie and couldn’t find a creative way out of this loss.

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Shaping a Better Leadership Story

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Shaping a Better Leadership Story

I often ask people to write their personal leadership story in six words. This condensed leadership memoir forces people to focus hard on either the few key moments that have shaped their leadership or the leadership principles or behaviors they most value. The idea is to get people to surface something deeper, more elemental and distinctive about the way they lead, in the spirit of what author Octavia Butler observed about herself, “Every story I create, creates me. I write to create myself.”

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