The Covenant Foundation Announces New Grants

The Covenant Foundation Announces New Grants

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Forward-Thinking Jewish Educational Organizations and Initiatives are Awarded a Total of $1.6 Million

Approximately $1.8 Million to Be Disbursed in 2016

New York, Jan 6, 2016—The Covenant Foundation announced $1.6 million in new grants today, supporting organizations and initiatives with potential to catalyze local and nationwide impact in Jewish education.

The new grants touch across the spectrum of Jewish educational venues - from museums and synagogues, to high-tech classrooms and summer camps – and underscore commitment to innovation and ideas redefining the scope, reach and depth of Jewish education.

“We are going where bold ideas and dogged implementation reside,” said Eli N. Evans, Chairman of the Board of Directors of The Covenant Foundation. “These new grantees hold great promise for success, and are positioned to be change makers and models of creativity.”

Foundation grants are divided into two categories: Signature grants, which provide funding for up to $250,000 for up to five years, and Ignition grants, of up to $20,000 for one year to support new and untested approaches.

The grants announced today are part of approximately $1.8 million to be distributed this year.

“Those in Jewish education have great visions for now and the future,” said Harlene Winnick Appelman, Executive Director of The Covenant Foundation. “We welcome the opportunity to dream with these impressive practitioners in the field and help them turn these visions into reality.”

The new round of Ignition grantees include:

• Be’chol Lashon, San Francisco, CA: $20,000 over one year to develop and expand the reach of its Passport to Peoplehood (P2P) program.
• BIMA/Genesis at Brandeis University, Waltham, MA: $20,000 over one year to develop teacher training and curricula integrating Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math (STEAM) with Jewish Studies.
• Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, Chicago, IL: $20,000 over one year to assess the landscape of Hebrew language instruction in public high schools and create a national framework to expand it.
• Kulanu NNJ, Woodcliff Lake, NJ: $20,000 over one year to train congregational school teachers to effectively integrate educational technology in classrooms.
• Sixth and I Historic Synagogue, Washington, DC: $16,000 over one year to develop DIY: Design Identity Yourself, a program for young adults that combines Jewish text study with collaborative learning and creative self-expression.
• The Well, West Bloomfield, MI: $20,000 over one year to support and expand CSI: Coffee. Study. Interpret., aBeit Midrash-style learning initiative.
• Yeshiva University Museum at the Center for Jewish History, New York, NY: $20,000 over one year to create and implement educational programming connected to How a Poem Begins, an exhibit examining pre-state Israel poet Rahel Bluwstein.

Since 1991, the Foundation has provided more than $28 million to develop and support Jewish education and community-building projects and programs in North America.

Past grantees with creative and trailblazing approaches to Jewish education across denominations and settings are highlighted on the Foundation’s website, www.covenantfn.org and in Sight Line, the Foundation’s new digital journal.

The Covenant Foundation is currently inviting 2016 Signature and Ignition grant applications. Applicants should visitwww.covenantfn.org/grants for information and guidelines. The deadline for submitting an initial letter of inquiry is Feb. 25, 2016.

The Covenant Foundation is a program of the Crown Family Philanthropies

Jewish Emergent Network Announces New Rabbinic Fellowship

Jewish Emergent Network Announces New Rabbinic Fellowship

Applications now being accepted for staff and Rabbinic Fellowship positions at seven innovative Jewish communities across the country.

Contact: Melissa Balaban

Melissa@ikar-la.org, 323-634-1870 x102

LOS ANGELES, January 5, 2016 – The Jewish Emergent Network (“the Network”), a collaboration between seven path-breaking Jewish communities from across the United States, announces it is now accepting applications for a new National Rabbinic Fellowship, which will begin in June 2016.

This Fellowship program will place selected early career rabbis into one of the seven participating communities for a two-year period. The communities include: IKAR in Los Angeles, Kavana in Seattle, The Kitchen in San Francisco, Mishkan in Chicago, Sixth & I in Washington, DC, and Lab/Shul and Romemu in New York City. All seven communities have individually received recognition for the impact of their work in the Jewish community on both a local and national scale.

The purpose of the Fellowship is to immerse talented young clergy in the work of these thriving communities while providing valuable training and mentoring. Fellows will be supported in the development of their rabbinic vision and skills, preparing them to complete the Fellowship as part of a national cohort of creative, vision-driven rabbis eager to invest in the reanimation of North American Jewish life. Upon completion of the program, each Fellow will be poised to educate, engage, and serve an array of underserved populations, including disaffected and unaffiliated Jews, young adults, families with young children, and others.

The clergy and executive leaders of the seven communities have been meeting for the last two years in exploration of collaboration, mutual learning, deep solidarity and increased strategic impact on the field of emerging congregational models. These efforts were partially funded by the Slingshot Fund, the Natan Fund, and the Leichtag Foundation.

Seed funding to launch the Network has been generously provided through a grant from the Jim Joseph Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Crown Family. Network members are continuing to secure additional program funding over the next four years.

Through a collaborative process, the seven communities will hire rabbis toward the beginning of their careers to serve as the inaugural cohort of Rabbinic Fellows. Once embedded in his or her home community, each Fellow will take on a variety of independent rabbinic tasks and will receive weekly supervision and support from leaders within the host organization. Throughout the two-year Fellowship, Fellows will also meet a number of times as a fully assembled cohort, traveling to each of the seven Network organizations for intensive conferences/site visits. The final site visit, planned for June 2018, will also include a public-facing conference that welcomes clergy, staff, and lay leaders from across the country to engage one another and the Fellows and to share best practices of innovation and creativity in Jewish community-building.

The seven communities in the Network do not represent any one denomination or set of religious practices. What they share is a devotion to revitalizing the field of Jewish engagement, a commitment to approaches both traditionally rooted and creative, and a demonstrated success in attracting unaffiliated and disengaged Jews to a rich and meaningful Jewish practice. While each community is different in form and organizational structure, all have taken an entrepreneurial approach to this shared vision, operating outside of conventional institutional models, rethinking basic assumptions about ritual and spiritual practice, membership models, staff structures, the religious/cultural divide and physical space. With the launch of this new rabbinic fellowship, the Network hopes to inspire new creative ventures on the Jewish landscape.

Fellowship Applications are currently being accepted from recent graduates of rabbinic schools of all denominations. To learn more about the fellowship and submit an application, please visit the Network’s website at www.jewishemergentnetwork.org.

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About the Jewish Emergent Network

The Jewish Emergent Network is comprised of the leaders of seven path‐breaking Jewish communities from across the United States that have come together in the spirit of collaboration. These include: IKAR in Los Angeles, Kavana in Seattle, The Kitchen in San Francisco, Mishkan in Chicago, Sixth & I in Washington, D.C., and Lab/Shul and Romemu in New York.

http://www.ikar-la.org/jen/