From eJewishPhilanthropy:

Kevah, a Bay Area-based organization that engages Jewish identity and builds Jewish community through study of classical Jewish texts, has received a $250,000 grant from the Jim Joseph Foundation for the Kevah Teaching Fellowship. The Fellowship will provide participating educators with a fully funded professional development opportunity in facilitating Jewish small group learning for young adults.

The Fellowship includes three in-person workshops over the course of the year, a supervising mentor, personalized guidance in curriculum development, participation in ongoing Jewish learning with other Kevah Fellows, and access to carefully selected curricular resources. Ideal candidates for the program will have at least a BA, basic to advanced Hebrew literacy, experience learning Jewish texts, and a strong desire to become a great educator.

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From Jweekly:

This month, students across the United States commemorate Black History Month. But at one Bay Area Jewish day school, every month is black history month.

Students at this Jewish day school — where I spent a semester observing U.S. history classes — spent much of the school year learning about the role African Americans have had in shaping our nation's history. Their studies also took a Jewish twist as they learned about a special bond between black and Jewish communities. It sounds like an appropriate lesson for a Jewish school.

There's only one problem: It's not good history.

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From The Jewish Daily Forward:

Before sending her 6-year-old son, Charlie, off to day school in September, Brenda Hite wondered if she'd made the right decision. Neither Hite nor her husband, Tom, are Jewish, but the public school options in their hometown of Akron, Ohio, didn't enthrall them. So they applied to the local Lippman School, which impressed the Hites with its new global perspective and its energetic and experienced educators.

"Once we learned more about the Jewish culture and religion, and how steeped everything is in Old World values, the Lippman School became very attractive to us," said Hite, who, like her husband, grew up in a Christian household. Also, she said, "It didn't feel like Charlie would get the individualized attention at a public school that he would receive at Lippman."

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From The Jewish Week:

In the fall of 2010, Sukkot became a national topic of conversation when Reboot, the Jewish cultural organization, engineered an architectural competition around the temporary shelters used to celebrate the holiday. "Sukkah City," as it was called, will have a slightly different sensibility when it is staged again in 2012, and the organization will have a new leader.

The average Jew couldn't have built any of the earlier sukkahs, but this time around, each sukkah will come with a blueprint, said Executive Director Yoav Schlesinger, 32, who came on the job just weeks ago.

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From The New Jersey Jewish Standard:

NEW YORK – If you are a fan of the HBO series “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” you may remember the 2009 episode in which there was an attempt to coax Michael “Kramer” Richards to go along with a “Seinfeld” reunion. As part of the plot, Larry David’s African-American housemate, Leon Black, pretends to be the Jewish accountant Danny Duberstein.

To sell the cover story, Leon says he was adopted by a nice Jewish couple and had become a bar mitzvah three times, most recently just a few months ago in Atlantic City.Understandably confused, Richards says he thought the milestone happens just once, at the age of 13.

Read the full article in The New Jersey Jewish Standard...