Donations from alumni and their families have enabled us to award 12 grants this May to innovative alumni-led projects that are helping to shape the Jewish community and the wider world.
- Bay Area
Learning Initiative (BALI) - The goal of BALI is to provide the
opportunity for the study of classical Jewish sources to a select group
of adults who in turn will share their learning with a broad cross-section
of the Jewish community in the San Francisco and Bay Area. The program
will combine traditional methods such as hevruta study with academic
and pluralistic modes of inquiry. Students will study classical Jewish
subjects including the Talmud, Bible, Jewish philosophy and mysticism.
They may choose to pursue the common M.A., combining their traditional
studies with graduate seminars taught by faculty at the GTU and UC Berkeley.
Some students will be expected to function as community educators throughout
the Bay Area, thereby creating a community of young adults who have
a regular outlet for social networking and for deepening their Jewish
knowledge and connection. An AVF grant will help with start-up
costs for the program which Sara Bamberger (Yozma)
is managing. Update:
The Bay Area Learning Initiative was named an Upstarter.
- Challah for Hunger (WashU) - Challah for Hunger is a national organization that operates on 21 college campuses in the United States. Each week, students bake and sell challah. The profits each chapter makes are divided in half: donated to a local charity and an international relief fund in Sudan. Hannah Rabinowitz ’07 founded a chapter at Washington University in St. Louis. Her group raises money and spreads awareness about the Genocide that has displaced millions of people in western Sudan as well as the struggles with hunger faced by people in St. Louis.
- Du-Siach Holiday Project - a venture of a diverse community collective in Zichron Yaakov, Israel, led by Rabbi Yair Silverman ‘91. The community learning project aims to celebrate the multiple accents, flavors, and influences of Jewish immigrants from across the world. Six holidays throughout the year will be celebrated as opportunities to engage in a ‘du siach’-communal dialogue. Together, the community will highlight the unique places, narratives, and practices from which each has come. The program will focus on memories of and cultural associations of each selected holiday. Holidays celebrated will include: Rosh Hashana, Sukkot, Chanukah, Passover, Shavuot, and Thanksgiving holidays celebrated in the Ethiopian and American traditions.
- Heart to Heart - a series of Shabbat dinners hosted by UPENN students, including Ariel Fisher ‘05, Sammy Belfer ’07, Danny Cohen ’04, and Elisheva Goldberg ’05 and founded by Hart Levine. The meals develop community connections and empower students who are not currently involved with Hillel to develop their own Jewish experiences. Check out the Heart to Heart wiki
- Home Front Hearts - a Virtual POC (Point of Contact) that provides support and resources to the families of deployed armed service members, increases public awareness of the struggles and sacrifices of military families, and encourages both individuals and businesses to build a more military-friendly community. Home Front Hearts, founded by Randi Cairns ’87, works with the families of deployed armed service members in New Jersey to assess areas that require support or assistance. This year, a BYFI grant is helping Home Front Hearts with funding for software to increase organizational efficiency. BYFI alum, Elijah Dornstreich ’92 (current President of the Alumni Advisory Board) now serves on the Board of Directors.
- Israeli Veterans of 1948: War and Memory - an experiential education project about the interplay between collective and individual memory in Israel. Ethan Pack will interview Israeli veterans of the 1948 War of Independence and conduct primary source research, examining how 61 years of conflict impacts memory. Through live-blogging of Ethan’s research, Eli Terry ‘02 will develop an education project for young Jewish high school students about historiography. The online content will support discussion and exploration, humanizing and personalizing Israeli history. The project will culminate in the publication of a book and education curriculum about the experiences of veterans of the 1948 War of Independence
- Kavana - an independent
Jewish community in Seattle, led by Rachel Nussbaum
‘93. It strives to create a supportive communal environment in
which individuals and families can use "kavana" - intention
- to create a Jewish life that is spiritually fulfilling, intellectually
satisfying, fun, and meaningful. This grant will help fund the creation
of a curriculum co-designed by Noam Pianko
‘91 to explore ambivalence or confusion about one’s relationship
to Israel. The curriculum will present a history of modern Zionism,
an analysis of current tensions in American and Israeli discourse, and
a discussion of the current relationship that American Jews have with
Israel.
- Keshet – led by Idit Klein ’89, Keshet’s mission is to ensure that gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Jews are fully welcomed and included in all parts of the Jewish community. BYFI funding will support the development and expansion of Keshet’s educational and training materials to fully integrate transgender experience. In partnership with Jewish Mosaic, Keshet will also create an educational poster featuring a prominent transgender Jew. Update: Keshet was voted the best medium-sized LGBTQ non-profit in the U.S. in the Great Non Profits’ Pride Choice Award.
- Shabbat Remix - is
an effort to provide unaffiliated Jewish young adults with a connection
to something authentically Jewish by incorporating a Shabbat experience
into the urban lifestyle. Currently being created by Danny Greene
’00, the project will involve young adults hosting potluck Shabbat
dinners in homes and apartments across San Francisco for friends and
other guests. The dinner hosts will facilitate a conversation about
the meaning and purpose of Shabbat in order to infuse some Jewish learning
into this pluralistic experience and to create a sense of commonality
among all of the Shabbat Remix dinners. Then, after the meal, everyone
who has attended a Shabbat Remix dinner will come together to participate
in large communal, social activity. The main goal is to reach and involve
young, urban, unaffiliated Jews living in the San Francisco Bay Area
through a Shabbat experience that reflects their interests and lifestyle.
Update: Shabbat Remix was featured in the Bay Area J Weekly.
- Shomer Achi - founded by Jodi Meyerowitz ‘05 & Jamie Zebrak. A yearlong social justice program for Israeli and American Jewish college students designed to unify the Jewish people and strengthen Jewish identity. The program enhances relationships between Jewish American students from the University of Oregon and Israeli students from Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa through parallel community service initiatives, dialogue, and leadership training. Students visit one another’s countries and engage in community service sessions and text study. Update: The Israeli Shomrim visited Oregon from September 1-9. The itinerary included volunteer sessions at several organizations in Portland and Eugene, a walking tour of Jewish Portland, and a private reception with AJWS's Ruth Messinger!
- Street Sights - is a newspaper written by a group of homeless and formerly homeless individuals and by students, advocates, and professionals in the community. The goal of Street Sights is to build a community of individuals who are not defined by what they lack, but by the gifts they bring to the production. Each month, 2,000 copies are distributed throughout the Providence, Rhode Island area to homeless shelters and soup kitchens, as well as to bookstores, libraries, community centers, and other organizations. An AVF grant will help fund the Sights Journalism Training Program, aimed at improving the content of the paper, enhancing staff members’ writing and communication skills, and fostering marketable job skills. Elizabeth Ochs ’01 is the editor of the paper. Update: In August 2009, four staff members attended the North American StreetNewspaper Association Conference in Denver Colorado. The conference brought together staff and leadership of street newspapers from around the United States and Canada.Together, both countries have over 27 street newspapers. Street Sights was honored as “Most Improved Street Newspaper.”
- Voices of Rwanda - a not-for-profit organization founded by Taylor Krauss ‘97 which records and preserves testimonies of Rwandans, ensuring that their stories inform the world about genocide and inspire a global sense of responsibility to prevent human rights atrocities. This grant will help bring Voices of Rwanda to Israel by assisting with the translation of materials into Hebrew, to be screened in schools and other forums in Israel. Two Amitim, Maxim Fomin ‘08 and Omer Even-Pax ‘08, were inspired to volunteer with translations after hearing Taylor speak at their Amitei Bronfman trip to the US in December 2008. Update: The organization turns 3 years old this October. This year, Voices of Rwanda was featured on national television across Italy, has presented testimonies in places scattered across the globe from Switzerland and Italy to South Africa, Rwanda and England. Taylor Krauss was an invited panelist at the Durban Review Conference in Geneva.