We are excited to share with you news of a generous $10,000 donation that the BYFI Alumni Venture Fund (AVF) received from Repair the World, an organization focused on Jewish service.

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How are young Jews today giving of their time and money?

This engaging panel asks whether young Jews are "Entitled or Enlightened." The event was held on December 1st, 2009 and featured a conversation with Rabbi Andy Bachman, Gali Cooks, Rabbi Ari Weiss and Tamar Snyder of The Jewish Week. Sponsored by BYFI, Presentense & ROI.

link to part 2 of 2>>

Rabbi Andy Bachman serves as Rabbi at Congregation Beth Elohim and is a summer faculty member of the Bronfman Youth Fellowships. He was ordained at HUC-JIR in 1996. After his ordination, he served as Rabbi Educator at Congregation Beth Elohim until 1998, when he became Executive Director of the Edgar M. Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life: Hillel at NYU. While at NYU, Rabbi Bachman pioneered award-winning programming in the arts, culture, social action, and Israel advocacy, gaining national recognition for developing new ways of reaching young Jews. In 2003, Rabbi Bachman along with several friends founded Brooklyn Jews, an innovative outreach program engaging the unaffiliated Jews of Brooklyn "where they're at." Rabbi Bachman writes a (almost) daily blog, www.andybachman.com.

Gali Cooks is Director at the Rita & Stanley Kaplan Family Foundation. Previously, she was Founding Director of The PJ Library, which gives Jewish children's books for free to Jewish families with young kids. Before delving into philanthropy, Gali spent several years in Washington, DC as a speechwriter for Israel's Ambassador to the United States, as a Legislative Assistant at the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and as a Research Analyst for the Newton & Rochelle Becker Charitable Trust. In addition to her role at the Kaplan Family Foundation, Gali is involved with the New York City Venture Philanthropy Fund. She has a BA in political science and international relations from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is currently pursuing an MBA at the NYU Stern School of Business.

Rabbi Ari Weiss is Director of Uri L'Tzedek Uri L'Tzedek, the Orthodox social justice movement. Prior to Uri L'Tzedek, he was co-director of the Meorot University Fellowship and has served on the Judaic Studies Faculty of the Heschel School. He has worked as a Jewish educator for the American Jewish World Service, Bnei Akiva, and for the Lauder Foundation on missions to Nicaragua, Ghana, Israel, and Hungary. Rabbi Weiss was ordained in June 2007 by Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School in New York.

Tamar S. Snyder is a staff writer at The Jewish Week, America's largest and most influential Jewish newspaper. In addition to being in charge of the "36 Under 36" section highlighting young Jewish innovators, she writes weekly articles and cover stories about philanthropy and Jewish nonprofits. Tamar also writes a monthly column called "Profit Motive" in which she profiles Jewish entrepreneurs. She holds a Master's degree in journalism from Columbia Journalism School and an undergraduate degree from Touro College. Tamar's journalistic work has been featured in several media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, Inc. Magazine, AOL and MSN and Edutopia Magazine. She is a recipient of the 2008 Simon Rockower Awards for Excellence in Jewish Journalism.

 

It is with great pleasure that we introduce you to the 7 new Alumni Advisory Board (AAB).  Over the summer, our Development and Governance Committee reviewed letters of interest from each new AAB applicant and approved all members in addition to a new slate of AAB leadership including 4 new committee chairs and a new AAB President. On November 1st, these new members will officially start their terms, joining the 12 alumni who are continuing their volunteer board service.  READ MORE »

Apply for a BYFI Alumni Venture Fund grant. Whether a lay-leader or professional, if you lead a non-profit organization or want to create your own project that aligns with BYFI's core values, the Venture Fund can support you in moving your initiative forward. The Venture Fund provides both grants and skill-based support from the BYFI alumni network.

Proposals are due October 15th:
Venture Fund grant application

Find out more:
about the venture fund
terms & information

This year's fellowship is off to a great start...

You can keep on on our blog byfisummer.wordpress.com and follow us on twitter.

Related links:
about the 2009 fellows>>
2009 faculty and staff>>

 

The 2008 BYFI Alumni Survey provides a snapshot of the background, attitudes, and opinions of the Bronfman Fellowships (BYFI).  The survey was completed by 64% of the 571 members of the alumni community.  The survey findings highlight the diversity of our community and the values shared across all ages, life stages, and professions.  

BYFI alumni are nearly twice as likely as other young American Jews to say that being Jewish is very important to them.  At every life stage, our alumni share a commitment to Jewish peoplehood, pluralism, and social obligation both within and outside of the Jewish community.  Across all life stages and professions, alumni use the same words to describe the alumni community - intellectual and accomplished - followed by ambitious, diverse, and high-quality. 

 View the key findings>>

Sarah Beller '98, soon to receive her MA in International Peace and Conflict Resolution at American University in Washington DC, has a very daunting thesis question ahead of her: how can one measure the impact of arts-based conflict resolution initiatives?  This is a question that stems out of her long-time interest in the field of conflict resolution, or, as Sarah calls it, "conflict transformation."  READ MORE »

Igor Timofeyev '91 was the first person to serve in the position of Special Advisor for Refugee and Asylum Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), where he subsequently also became Director of Immigration Policy.  Following his graduation from Williams College, he obtained a M.Phil. in Russian and East European Studies at Oxford University and a J.D. from Yale Law School, where he served on the Yale Law Journal, the Yale Journal of International Law, and the Russian and East European Law Forum.   READ MORE »

Ben Wizner ’88 has spent more time at Guantanamo Bay than the average Brooklyn resident. As staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for the past 7 years, Ben has focused almost exclusively on national security and human rights cases. A few weeks after Ben took the job at the ACLU, the attacks of September 11th occurred. There were new challenges to confront like discrimination against Arabs, Muslims and South Asians; surveillance of non-violent peace groups; and the torture of prisoners in U.S. custody.
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Tova Serkin '97 spends her days working to strengthen Jewish Peoplehood. As Executive Director of the international not-for-profit organization KolDor, based in Israel, she supports a global network of emerging Jewish leaders who are committed to shifting the existing paradigms in the Jewish world and leading change in Jewish communities worldwide. KolDor's model is innovative, offering a platform for Jewish connections. One flagship project that emerged from KolDor's network is Jewish Social Action Month - a month devoted to tikkun olam (repairing the world) and Jewish unity globally.  READ MORE »

In July, we gave you the opportunity to vote on which summer speaking engagement you’d like us to document and make available to the community. Your top choices were Etgar Keret and Yossi Klein Halevi. We were pleased to capture Yossi Klein Halevi's engaging session and make it available for our alumni to view. He is a well-known Israeli author and journalist who spoke about Israeli politics and, more importantly, philosophical and theological issues facing the Jewish people in Israel and the Diaspora.

Active in Middle East reconciliation efforts, Halevi serves as Chairman of Open House, an Arab-Jewish educational project in the working class town of Ramle. He is a senior fellow at the Shalem Center, a Jerusalem-based academic research institute. In 2001 he published At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden: A Jew's Search for God with Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land. Halevi has written for the Jerusalem Report, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and Washington Post.

Dear Bronfmanim,

It is with great pride and excitement that I announce our hiring of a Director of Alumni Engagement of The Bronfman Youth Fellowships in Israel. After an intensive process, we have selected BYFI alum Becky (Paley) Voorwinde '97. Becky has accepted, and is set to begin in her new role on May 14th.

It would be hard to overstate my enthusiasm about this development, at this time in our history. An excellent example of vision and leadership, this position was conceived of and developed as a collaboration between BYFI and The Samuel Bronfman Foundation and is the culmination of many months of thought and discussion.Since then, Ariel Groveman Weiner '96 of The Samuel Bronfman Foundation, Executive Director Rabbi Shimon Felix, and I have reviewed 27 applications, conducted 10 phone interviews, and 7 in-person interviews at The Samuel Bronfman Foundation offices in New York. We were blessed not only with a high number of applicants but also a field of phenomenal quality, including professionals at the top of their fields in Jewish organizations and philanthropies, Jewish and non-Jewish entrepreneurship, and the business world.  READ MORE »