Foundation News —Chip Edelsberg

Foundation News
—Chip Edelsberg, Executive Director

March 2011

The Jim Joseph Foundation (JJF), its funding partners, and grantees monitor carefully the number of participants who are beneficiaries of JJF-funded initiatives. JJF does not mistake numbers as conclusive evidence of success. The Foundation does believe, however, that increasing numbers of young Jews enrolled in residential camps and day schools, participating in immersive Israel experiences, and studying in intensive graduate programs of Jewish education are all positive indicators of advances in the field.

JJF thus notes with exceptional pride the continued success of Taglit Birthright Israel. During the recent one week registration period, more than 40,000 individuals applied to participate in the upcoming 2011 summer experience.

Across JJF’s portfolio of grantees, among the numbers that are of note currently are the following:

There are 770 campers enrolled to-date in 2011 in 22 residential camps as part of the JJF-funded JWest Program operated by the Foundation for Jewish Camp.

There are 525 youth already registered for summer 2011 in one of the five Jewish specialty camps that are part of the JJF-funded FJC Specialty Camps Initiative.

In Los Angeles, 172 students (who most likely would not otherwise be enrolled) in the five Jewish high schools are supported by the JJF High School Affordability challenge grant.

In the Bay Area, approximately 2,000 day school students at 11 schools are experiencing enriched Israel education in a project managed by the San Francisco Bureau of Jewish Education.

Just as Birthright Israel continues to flourish, so too does post-trip activity. In six of the cities where Birthright NEXT has deployed professionals, 4,600 Jewish young adults in the last year have attended a variety of Jewish peer-based social and learning sessions. During this same period, almost 14,000 young adults have celebrated Shabbat at NEXT-sponsored Shabbat dinners.

The power of peer networks that fuels participation in Birthright NEXT is also integral to Hillel’s Senior Jewish Educator / Campus Entrepreneur Initiative (SJE/CEI). An evaluation of SJE/CEI conducted by Research Success Technologies determined that in the past two years, 13,900 students on ten campuses have enriched their Jewish conversations and deepened their sense of selves as young Jews through their connections to the SJE/CEI personnel.

In higher education, JJF funding of graduate programs of education at the seminaries has resulted in the creation of both new credential and degree programs. It is exciting to report that 26 professionals enrolled in HUC’s “soft launch” of its online leadership course that is part of its Executive MA degree program. Yeshiva University has enrolled 22 students in its new Certificate of Differentiated Instruction program and another 22 students in an online certificate course in educational technologies.

Those of you reading this column know that it periodically contains an accounting like this of youth and young adults who benefit from programs JJF-funded grantees offer. Importantly, as I am sure readers realize, behind each and every one of these numbers is the story of an individual engaged in Jewish life and learning. Over time, the Jim Joseph Foundation believes that the cumulative effect of these growing numbers of participants engaged in personally relevant expressions of Judaism combined with the contribution their personal stories make to the narrative of contemporary American Jewry will measurably strengthen the Jewish people.

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