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 eJewishPhilanthropy:

by Andrea Rose Cheatham Kasper

In response to last year's Jewish Futures Conference competition on "prosumerism", the idea of Yadaim, the Academy of Applied Academics was born. To be clear it was an idea that was in the making for well over a year which crystallized in a competitive context. The competition asked the public to critically think about how co-creation of Judaism and Jewish education can manifest itself in innovative and dynamic ways which will capture the imagination of the public.

The trend of prosumerism is only one major trend we face today, another is a trend grounded in resourcefulness and utility, the ability to do things on our own. Prosumerism is the idea that people have evolved from simply being consumers to actively creating the world and experiences they seek. In the Jewish context, this means that Jews no longer look to an authority to tell them how to be Jewish nor through what traditions or practices, instead they are looking to collaborate and co-create a Judaism that is meaningful to them. By embracing this trend we evolve from being only intellectual creators of our world to actual creators of our world and experiences. By embracing this trend we move from a one dimensional focus on intellect to a fuller educational and Jewish conception of being God's partners in the physical, material/economic, spiritual and intellectual work of the world.

Read the full article in eJewishPhilanthropy...

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.

Read the full article in The Jewish Week...

From The Washington Jewish Week:

The Leo Bernstein Jewish Academy School of Fine Arts in Silver Spring has been up and running since September.

With a full kindergarten of 16 students, the school has been using its unique curriculum to give a top notch Judaic and general studies education to the little ones.

Henia Gruner, the school's director, explained that their way of learning is different from other Jewish schools in the area in that art is used in all educational aspects.

Read the full article in The Washington Jewish Week...

JTA takes a look back at the notable news items for the Jewish year 5770. View them all here.

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Some 120 young Jewish innovators have gathered in Israel for a global summit.

The ROI Global Summit for Young Jewish Innovators, which began Sunday and runs four days, has brought together Jewish business and social entrepreneurs, innovators, thinkers and artists from all over the world to discuss how to strengthen Jewish education and identity, Jewish arts and culture, environmental responsibility, and tikkun olam, repair of the world.

“I invite all those who fear for the next generation of Jewish leadership to come see the Jewish future and hear its many voices at ROI,” said Lynn Schusterman, who created ROI as a partnership between the Center for Leadership Initiatives and Taglit-Birthright Israel.

Since ROI’s inception in 2006, Schusterman has invested $600,000 in more than 60 projects.

“I am deeply inspired by these 20- and 30-somethings, whose Judaism moves them to build networks of purpose -- and to repair the world.”

To mark its fifth anniversary, ROI awarded $500,000 in grants to 35 initiatives led by members in 11 countries, with a special emphasis on collaborative projects. Some of these projects include Jewcology, a web portal for Jewish environmentalists created through an international collaboration by 17 ROI members; Jewish Salons, an international network addressing Jewish identity through culture and arts; Jew It Yourself, whose 21st century Jewish catalogue will enable visitors to explore how to live Jewishly in a pluralistic context; and Bat Kol, an organization for Orthodox lesbians in Israel, which promotes acceptance of lesbians and gays, especially in the observant community.

ROI provides professional development and financial support to a network of 500 innovators and activists, who have launched hundreds of projects in more than 100 communities over the past five years. 

Read the article at jta.com...

 

From Tunisia to Yemen and Moscow to Chile, Israeli-born photographer Zion Ozeri has traveled the world documenting the diversity and universality of the Jewish experience.

Now Milwaukee-area students inspired by Ozeri's work have turned their cameras on their own communities, capturing the richness of their sometimes disparate faith expressions and enhancing their understanding of what it means to be Jewish.

"There's such a spectrum of different ways of life and different ways people express their Judaism," said Amanda Ruppenthal of Milwaukee's Coalition for Jewish Learning, which sponsored the local Jewish Lens project using the curriculum developed by Ozeri.

"The way they pray, they keep a Torah scroll in their ark . . .  even though they might not all look the same, you see this connectiveness across the diversity," she said.

The New York-based Jewish Lens, founded by Ozeri in 2004, uses photography to teach young people about such Jewish values as the importance of education and family, and care for the environment and the poor.

The curriculum, which has been used in 150 Jewish schools and organizations in the United States and Israel, incorporates technical and artistic photographic instruction with the study of Jewish texts and principles.

Read the full article at The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel...

In recent years, informal Jewish learning environments (youth groups,summer camps, and trips to Israel) have grown in stature and now occupy a place--and rightfully so--alongside formal environments such as day schools and supplementary schools. To meet the needs of the increasingly diverse Jewish community of the 21st century (one that spends more time outside of the community at its periphery than at its core), what might be called "episodic education" has to be given equal legitimacy and raised beyond the level of a program.

While such education admittedly may not yield the same immediate results as do more traditional programs, most of those on the periphery of the Jewish community will not be willing to take the quantum leap required to participate in those more demanding forms of Jewish education that are part of the inner core of the community. A more gradual approach is required, and that is where informal learning activities can serve a great purpose, acting as a bridge between the completely unengaged and those deeply and thoroughly involved in the Jewish community.

Unfortunately, it now appears that in the 21st century those on the periphery are increasingly unwilling to venture into even the informal environments of Jewish education. We can see much evidence for such a claim. Participation in summer programs is waning (perhaps exclusive of Birthright Israel), and the overall majority of the relevant cohort still are not involved in activities such as Jewish day schools and summer camps. 

Read the full article at MyJewishLearning...