The dawn of a new decade has brought with it a flurry of retrospectives assessing the first ten years of the 21st century. Clearly, there's been much to cause discouragement, anxiety, and concern. But, as we at JESNA look back on the past decade in Jewish education, we also find much to celebrate. In fact, it's been a pretty good decade for Jewish learning, not without its challenges and disappointments, but one marked by many exciting developments, new ideas, and promising directions.

So, in the spirit of the new decade, with perhaps a touch of the Oscars thrown in, here is our JESNA "Top Ten" list of achievements, developments, ideas, and trends in Jewish education worthy of note and gratification (in no special order). And, since we're Jewish, we wanted to be generous and threw in an 11th just for good measure.

Please feel free to share your own list and let us know what you think of ours. [contact Rika Levin at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it with your thoughts]

• Taglit-Birthright Israel - Taglit-Birthright Israel has demonstrated that big ideas can generate big successes: 200,000+ young people encountering Israel for the first time in an experience that for many has been life changing. The "home run" that all new program initiatives seek to emulate.

• Funding Partnerships to transform critical sectors of Jewish education - Beginning with the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education (PEJE), the decade saw the coming to the fore of funder-driven initiatives to bring new ideas and energy to arenas such as day school, early childhood education, complementary education, camps, and Jewish innovation.

• Consumer-centric education - This is the age of choice in Jewish education: individuals and families choosing among multiple options to find the most meaningful and appropriate educational experiences. This imposes new demands on our institutional infra-structure to place education's "consumers" at the center of their thinking and to put in place concrete mechanisms, like the Los Angeles BJE's Jewish Education Concierges, to assist and guide these consumers in making choices that work for them.

• The rise of the innovation sector - The past decade has seen an explosion of innovative people, projects, and organizations creating new modes and venues for Jewish learning and engagement. Equally important, endeavors like Bikkurim: An Incubator for New Jewish Ideas and a growing number of others have emerged to nurture and support this innovation sector.

• Congregational educational change initiatives - It's definitely not your father's (or mother's) Hebrew school any longer, as more than a dozen national, regional, and local initiatives involving hundreds of synagogues collectively have begun to transform the landscape of supplementary education, bringing new vision, energy, and leadership to an often disparaged arena.

• The revitalization of Jewish camps - Cognoscenti have long recognized the unique power of Jewish camps to nurture lifelong Jewish engagement. In the past decade this power was rediscovered, and new investment, spearheaded by organizations like the Foundation for Jewish Camp and the Grinspoon and Avi Chai Foundations, has elevated the prominence and performance of Jewish camps and spurred growth and innovation across the field.

• Online Jewish learning - Technology is transforming how we work, play, communicate, and learn, and Jewish learning is no exception. From MyJewishLearning.com to Twitter, the technological revolution is coming to Jewish education, empowering learners, challenging teachers, putting new resources at our finger tips, connecting far-flung classrooms, and bridging time and space.

• PJ Library - Educators have long known that the family is our first and most powerful teacher. With the simple idea of giving Jewish families books to read to young children at bedtime, The Grinspoon Foundation's PJ Library program has brought a seminal Jewish experience into tens of thousands of Jewish homes and spurred communities to invent new programs to help these families continue their Jewish journeys.

• Jewish service learning - Today's young people want to be "hands on" when it comes to repairing the world. Jewish service learning programs for teens and young adults have blossomed to build the bridge between Jewish activism and Jewish education. AJWS, Avodah: the Jewish Service Corps, Panim, Jewish Funds for Justice, Areyvut, Teva Learning Center and a host of others are helping young people to learn and apply Jewish values to make a better world.

• "Public Space" Jewish education - If some Jews are reluctant to come to Jewish institutions, why can't we bring Jewish experiences to them? That's the premise behind a growing number of initiatives that take Jewish learning and experiences to where Jews are, whether it's the aisles of supermarkets, the lounges of bookstores, the board rooms of corporations, or the campuses of public and private high schools.

• A focus on outcomes - In an era of limited resources, it's vital to make sure that all of our educational investments are as effective as they can be. But to do so, we need to look beyond the programs to the learners themselves and to be clear about the outcomes we seek and the results we're obtaining. Clarifying outcomes and developing measures to assess them is enabling us to make better programs and, we may hope, laying the groundwork for even greater investment in quality Jewish education.

Joining the Jewish Future!

Participants at this year's Jewish Federations of North America's General Assembly (GA) in New Orleans had a unique opportunity to imagine and shape the future of Jewish education and the Jewish community.

On November 8th, the GA hosted the first-ever Jewish Futures Conference. This extraordinary event brought together visionary thinkers, passionate leaders, and fresh voices to chart a course for the future of Jewish learning and life.  "The goal of the conference," stated Harlene Appelman, Executive Director of the Covenant Foundation, one of the event's co-sponsors, "is to excite and stimulate thinking about the potential of creative and thoughtful Jewish education."  The conference did this, according to David Bryfman of New York's Jewish Education Project, a co-sponsor, "by providing a space to dream, learn, and engage in purposeful conversation.  At a time when the Jewish community is at a crossroads, this is an ideal opportunity to showcase some of the best thinking in the Jewish educational world."

The Jewish Futures Conference was keynoted by several provocative speakers, including Ori Brafman, acclaimed author of The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations, and Laurie Karr, a marketing and branding expert on families and youth, who will explore the social, cultural, and technological trends that are shaping our world. Their talks were followed by a GA first: presentations on the implications of these trends for Jewish learning and life by several speakers being chosen from an open video competition.  "The competition is a way to ensure that emerging voices are given the respect and space they deserve," stated Bryfman.  "In today's world, ideas can come from all angles - established organizations and young people alike."

Participants in the conference also had a chance to add their own ideas to the mix.  There were opportunities to discuss how to bring new ideas to fruition in their own communities during roundtable discussions which will conclude the conference.  As with the mix of presenters, the aim was to attract a diverse group of participants.  "We believe that the conference was valuable for anyone who is involved in trying to enrich the Jewish present and future, and especially worthwhile for those who are themselves involved in transformational learning initiatives or have a major role in allocating resources for Jewish education," said Jonathan Woocher, Director of JESNA's Lippman Kanfer Institute, also a co-sponsor of the conference.

Bringing the Jewish Futures Conference to the General Assembly enhanced and broadened this premier event on the Jewish communal calendar.  "Our goal is to open the GA to new audiences through innovative and forward thinking programming like this conference," stated JFNA's Andrea Fram Plotkin, one of the key organizers of the event.  "We will be successful if participants made connections with stimulating ideas and other people and left inspired to try something new in their organization or community," added Bryfman.

Full coverage of the Jewish Futures Conference is available at www.jewishfutures.net.

The Jewish Futures Conference is sponsored by Jewish Education Project, The Covenant Foundation, JESNA's Lippman Kanfer Institute and The Jewish Federations of North America.

For general information and media relations contact: Rika Levin, Chief Marketing Officer, JESNA at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 212-284-6703.

We would like to thank the Lippman Kanfer Family Foundation, the Covenant Foundation, and the Mandell L. and Madeleine H. Berman Foundation for their generous financial contributions to this conference.

From eJewishPhilanthropy:

Rarely, does an opportunity present itself for emerging voices to take center stage before the movers and shakers of an entire community. This competition provides you with the opportunity to share your ideas about how to shape the Jewish educational landscape of the 21st century. We encourage you to seize this moment to be bold, brave and visionary as we stand at the crossroads of what many have claimed to be a new era of Jewish life.

The Jewish Prosumer:

The Move from Consumer to Producer in Jewish Life and Learning.

The 2nd Jewish Futures Competition is part of the Jewish Futures Conference being held on Monday November 7th at the Jewish Federation of North America's annual General Assembly in Denver, Colorado.

Last year's winners, Patrick Aleph, Russel Neiss, Michael Sabani, and Charles Schwartz have all gone on to receive accolades and major communal grants since their appearance at last year's conference.

Sponsored by the Jewish Education Project and JESNA's Lippman Kanfer Institute, and hosted by Jewish Federations of North America, The Jewish Futures Competition invites your thinking on how to create a dynamic Jewish future.

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The Jewish Futures Conference will bring together visionary thinkers, passionate individuals, and inspiring presentations in a conference designed to shift the horizon of our thinking in Jewish education.

Advances in media and technology are propelling rapid changes in the ways we live and learn that extend far beyond the technologies themselves. The Jewish Futures Conference will provide a space to imagine, learn and engage in purposeful and courageous conversation about the future of Jewish education and how it can thrive in today's and tomorrow's world.

The theme for this year's Jewish Futures Conference and the focus of the Competition is:

The Jewish Prosumer: The Move from Consumer to Producer in Jewish Life, Living, and Learning.

How will Jewish life, living, and learning change as we move to a society in which individuals are not only consumers of information and culture, but also producers of their own and others' experiences?

We invite you to share your answers to these questions in a way that is engaging, provocative, thoughtful, and perhaps even inspirational.

WHY YOU SHOULD PARTICIPATE:

• Exposure as a presenter before a select group of national Jewish leaders
• An opportunity to share your vision for a Jewish future
• An expense paid trip to participate in Jewish Futures Conference at the General Assembly of Jewish Federations of North America in Denver.
• A cash prize of $1800 for each competition winner.

Click here to apply!

For more information  
contact Debbie Seiden at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

COMPETITION GUIDELINES & OFFICIAL RULES

Have you heard about the amazing innovative work going on in communities across the country? JESNA is launching a regular feature on our homepage: "Spotlight on Communities". Every 4-6 weeks we will devote our Spotlight box to innovations coming out of communities that should be shared. Does your community want to share its innovative ideas with the rest of us? Let us know by emailing to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

jTeenLA FilmFest

A Project of BJE in collaboration with the Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival

What's Your Jewish LA?

Is it a street corner, a synagogue, or simply a state of mind? Tell your story of "My Jewish LA" in a short film.

If you're a teen with an interest in filmmaking, BJE and the Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival could have a special place for your short film in the 2012 festival! We'll even help you figure out how to make a short film if you're a novice, or make it better if you're an experienced teen filmmaker.

Filmmaker Workshop & the Mentoring and Coaching Program

Do you have a story and a camera, but no idea where to start? Top professionals in the film industry will help through a Filmmaker Workshop on December 4th, 2011 and a Mentoring and Coaching Program beginning in January.

jTeenLA FilmFest

The top 5 submitted films will have a special screening as part of the Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival on May 6th, 2012 at the Laemmle Town Center 5 in Encino followed by a panel discussion from filmmakers.

Registration for the jTeenLA FilmFest is now open.  Register Now!  Application packages must be submitted online or by mail by March 30th, 2012.

Interested to learn more?  Check out the jTeenLA FilmFest FAQ for additional details and submissions requirements. Please contact Elenna King at (323) 761-8617 with any questions.

Hurry and sign up for these amazing opportunities today! Click here to see the FilmFest homepage. 

From the Harvard Education Letter:

Schools and bullies are so closely linked that even young kids who feel threatened know to avoid unsupervised areas: school yards, locker rooms, stairwells, cafeterias, the school bus. The only problem is, of course, they can't.

Now comes a documentary that will make even the most complacent adult feel the terror that school bullies can inspire. Bully, which opened nationally April 13, offers a hard look at the kind of violent and emotional abuse many children face daily when they leave for school in the morning.

Read the full article in The Harvard Education Letter...

From The Hudson Star-Observer:

Today's second-graders aren't easy to fool.

"Wisconsin," a youngster named Luke said when the students in Mrs. Julie Warren's classroom were asked where in the world Miss Amara was.

Luke was the second to volunteer an answer, and he was right.

Read the full article in The Hudson Star-Observer...

From The Los Angeles Times:

Students at Locke High School are faring better than their peers in nearby traditional schools, but achievement overall remains low at the charter-managed campus near Watts, according to a new study.

Still, the Locke students were more likely to graduate and to have taken courses needed to apply to a four-year state college, according to the UCLA-based National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing. The ongoing research has been funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Read the full article in The Los Angeles Times...