Foundation News —Chip Edelsberg

Foundation News
—Chip Edelsberg, Executive Director

August 2008

We are preparing for a September reunion with the Jim Joseph Foundation (JJF) Madrichim whose commissioned papers and ongoing counsel provide valuable guidance to us. As part of our preparation, the foundation is conducting a careful assessment of its past two and one-half years of grantmaking.

A significant portion of the Madrichim retreat agenda will be devoted to discussion of JJF’s philanthropic performance to date. Once we have had an opportunity to process this information, we will post a series of graphics on this website which will profile the focus, scope, and early effects of the 161 grants JJF has awarded during the twenty-eight months of my tenure as JJF’s founding Executive Director.

The retrospective analysis in which we are currently involved compels me to revisit assumptions and core values inherent in JJF’s work. To this end, I have reviewed all of the documentation completed throughout our strategic planning which occurred during an intensive five month period in 2006. I reread the 10 papers authored by JJF’s Madrichim. (I urge interested readers to peruse these papers. They are insightful, thought provoking, and instructive essays.) I also steeped myself in new literature that is not only pertinent to my own continuing education but which I thought would be helpful in taking a “reflective practitioner” stance on JJF’s brief grantmaking history.

Among the more relevant reading I enjoyed were two terrific doctoral dissertations and the recently released Ten Days of Birthright Israel. The key interconnected learning I took away from study of these texts and which reaffirmed the approach JJF takes toward its philanthropy can be summarized as follows: learning is a fundamental human activity. Teaching and learning are core to Judaism. One could reasonably argue, in fact, that Judaism predicates its very survival on education (see Plaskoff’s dissertation excerpt). Jewish identity can be nurtured and fortified in educational experiences. An individual’s identity is neither static nor permanent. Identity is not simply transmitted, but rather constructed. One acquires his or her identity as part of the activities in which s/he chooses to engage and then develops and often consciously modifies that identity over time.

These understandings are underpinnings of conversations we have with prospective grantees. They also serve as guideposts for us in selecting experts to conduct the assessments of initiatives JJF funds.

The foundation obviously seeks grantees whose mission and organizational priorities align with JJF’s. What may not be as apparent is that those who respond to the RFPs for assessment of major JJF funded initiatives must reflect in their evaluation designs an appreciation for the tenets and values that guide JJF’s philanthropy. From JJF’s point of view, consistent with the points noted above, Jewish identity is what cultural studies theorists describe to be a “moving target.” Identity is “not a noun, but an activity.” (See Hyman’s dissertation excerpt). Education in myriad forms is a potentially interstitial and instrumental influencer in a young Jew’s identity building.

As I alluded to in an earlier one of these monthly columns, there is growing evidence that contemporary Jews inherit devolved community – Judaic values, beliefs and teachings transmitted to them in their homes and Jewish institutions to which they belong. Concurrently, individuals choose various forms of involved community in which to participate. Identity, we think, is formed both in and across these communities.

Strategic investments in education, JJF theorizes, will serve as an impetus and force to bind young Jews together. As Rabbi Yitz Greenberg so astutely comments, “the educational challenge is no longer how one [Jewish] world can reshape itself to be integrated into the other; rather the question is how do the two worlds—standing side by side—correlate, integrate or confront each other?”

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