Section archive - Informal Education

The Foundation for Jewish Camp (FJC) is pleased to solicit proposals for Specialty Camps Accelerator II, funded by The AVI CHAI Foundation. The model is built on the success to-date of a process used for the two FJC Specialty Camp Incubator cohorts, which helped open 9 new Jewish specialty camps over the past 7 years with the partnership and support of the Jim Joseph Foundation and the AVI CHAI Foundation. Designed to ensure excellence and success, Specialty Camps Accelerator II aims to achieve the joint vision of the AVI CHAI Foundation and the FJC: to increase experiential Jewish learning, strengthen Jewish continuity, and foster strong Jewish social networks among Jewish children and youth.

A joint summer camp for special needs Jewish and Arab children has been taking place for the last 25 years in the community of Rosh Tzurim. Although joint Arab-Jewish summer camps take place in a number of communities across Israel, what makes this project unique and inspiring is the fact that Rosh Tzurim is a religious settlement in the Etzion Bloc. Similar camps also take place in Alon Shvut and Kfar Etzion in the Etzion Bloc. The camp takes place during the nine days preceding Tisha B'Av, the day on which Jews mourn the destruction of the First and Second Temples and fast. This nine-day period is traditionally devoted to repentance and acceptance. All the community’s residents — young and old alike — come together to make this summer camp a special experience for the children, most of whom have serious disabilities.

A unique Jewish coming of age program for 11-12 year old girls, Twelve, has been launched this year in Melbourne, Australia, in response to a growing desire of many parents to show their tweens firsthand what poverty and disadvantage looks like in Australia. Over 50 families, or 100 participants, have signed up for the yearlong program to roll their sleeves up and get to work with their daughters to help people in need.

PJ Library, the Harold Grinspoon Foundation’s popular national program that sends free Jewish-themed books and music each month to tens of thousands of children up to age 8, is launching a new edition: PJ Our Way. The new two-year multi-city pilot project, being launched in 10 communities (nine cities and one site in New York): Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Marks JCH (Brooklyn), Miami, North Shore (MA), Seattle, Silicon Valley, and St. Louis., expands the program to Jewish kids ages 9 to 11 and, for the first time, lets them choose the books they receive.