Search results for: Philanthropy

The Jewish Education Innovation Challenge (JEIC), sponsored by the Mayberg Family Foundation, is soliciting proposals to pilot innovative educational models in Jewish day schools. The objective is to identify and fund experimentation with new methodologies that foster and reward student effort, enthusiasm and proficiency. To empower educators and administrators to disrupt the status quo, JEIC awards multiple grants up to $50,000 each over two years to programs that represent a paradigm shift in Jewish education. Selected programs must be revolutionary, practical, sustainable, accountable and scalable. Last year, JEIC awarded several grants, totaling more than $130,000. The deadline for the initial Letter of Interest is December 18, 2015. In an unusually transparent grant process, finalists present their ideas at the Foundation’s annual “Innovators Retreat” on June 1st and 2nd 2016 and grant winners are announced in late June.

It isn’t really the 25th anniversary of what came to be called the “Jewish continuity” endeavor in North America. The first Continuity Commission was established in Cleveland before the 1990 National Jewish Population Survey was mounted; and the first results of the 1990 NJPS – including the alarm-ringing, hand-wringing statistic of a 52% intermarriage rate – didn’t appear until the calendar had turned. But, 1990 is a convenient enough date to mark the beginning of a significant effort that has unfolded over the past two and a half decades aimed at strengthening Jewish identity and engagement among American Jews, many of whom, it was argued then and since (viz. the reactions to the 2013 Pew study) are in danger of or are already being lost to Jewish life as active participants.

The Israel Education Ministry has proposed a new program to introduce the fundamentals of philosophy to children in elementary school, starting from the third grade. Under the new curriculum, students will be taught the works of the prominent philosophers, develop critical thinking and learn how to ask meaningful questions and answer them in a serious manner. If incorporated, this new program would signify the first time that elementary school-aged students are offered these subjects. It would be elective, and at first, only schools interested in offering the program would join the initiative.

Three visionary educators demonstrating the power of inspired Jewish education to create change and drive impact are the 2015 recipients of The Covenant Award for excellence in the field, The Covenant Foundation announced today. Michelle Shapiro Abraham, Director of Program Development for the Campaign for Youth Engagement at the Union for Reform Judaism, as well as a consultant for the Foundation for Jewish Camp, and a clinical faculty member in the HUC-Jewish Institute of Religion Executive MAJE Program; Dr. Sandra Ostrowicz Lilienthal, Curriculum Developer and Instructor at The Rose and Jack Orloff Central Agency for Jewish Education of Broward County in Davie, FL; and, Amy Meltzer, Lead Kindergarten teacher at Lander- Grinspoon Academy in Northampton, MA, are the 2015 recipients of the Award, which is among the highest honors in the field of Jewish education.