The Latest From The Foundation

Those of us, both professionals and volunteers, who seek to serve Jewish life are increasingly dependent upon reliable data and sound evidence to do our work well. While more and more information swirls about us, we have all too little understanding of how it is generated, produced, distributed and accessed. Our colleagues at the AVI CHAI Foundation asked for our assistance in trying to better understand what knowledge sources guide your work, and in particular

Marketing expert Gary Wexler published an article this week in which he delineates 10 marketing challenges the BDS movement has thrown up for those who are working to counter it. Acknowledging how formidable a foe the BDS movement is to those would like to meet them on the marketing/PR battlefield, Gary writes that someday he’d like to teach a graduate seminar on what they did — and how they ultimately

“The eternity of Israel shall not disappear.” --Samuel I, 15:29 “There is no Beit Midrash, without innovation (Hidush).” --Tosefta Sotah 7:9 “All things are mortal but the Jew … What is the secret of his immortality?” --Mark Twain, Concerning the Jews “It is not the strongest of species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the most adaptable.” --Leon Megginson on Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species One

This blog post was originally written for the Stanford School of Education blog and reprinted with permission. Last week, my colleague, Matt Williams, wrote about productive discomfort, that is, the value of making students uncomfortable in order to promote their personal and intellectual growth. He argued that the desire to keep students comfortable stems largely from a consumerist logic in which the customer is always right even when that customer

It’s admissions and contracts season at Jewish Day Schools around the USA.  Do you know your attrition rate by gender?  By intellectual ability?  By learning needs?  Almost every trustee knows the proportion of students by religious affiliation and those receiving tuition support, but few understand the intellectual, academic, and emotional demographics of their student populations (i.e., gender, learning disabilities/giftedness); and fewer still are monitoring within-school-trends over time.  Without this information,

We are always looking for the next great Jewish idea. Funders are looking for innovation and originality.  Federation is often the last thing on this list.   This is unfortunate, because our Jewish communal network is the envy of every ethnic community in America. We ignore what we have: a network than can restore and revitalize communities, rescue populations in danger, absorb immigrants, and educate people returning to their Jewish

In photo: Eric Fingerhut, CEO and President of Hillel International, spoke about the challenges of leadership and his optimistic vision of the Jewish future with Wexner Graduate Fellows and Davidson Scholars at their Winter Institute. Here he engages Fellows who are interested in careers in Hillel. 
 “Having the opportunity to speak with Eric Fingerhut was especially encouraging in the midst of our days spent on leadership skills-building. Seeing that a