When you think about adult Jewish education, what comes to mind? Is it Jewish literacy? Jewish History? The weekly Torah reading? Hebrew? 

While the enterprise of adult Jewish education may provide different things for different people, there is one significant benefit that is generally not considered:  

Rich Jewish learning can actively build community. 

Join Ruth Messinger, former president and CEO of American Jewish World Service and inaugural JTS Finkelstein Institute Social Justice Fellow at the Jewish Theological Seminary, and Rabbi Morey Schwartz, International Director of the Florence Melton School of Adult Jewish Learning, for an interactive discussion on the impact of Jewish adult learning. JFN member Susan Weiss Firestone will introduce the discussion.

The Jewish landscape is changing. Join us to learn about how adult Jewish education can deepen engagement and strengthen the very fabric of our Jewish communities. 

"Older generations often think of Millennials as flighty and flaky. They are not. Millennials often think of Judaism as foreign, archaic, and not meaningful. It is not."

Suzanne Dryan Felson shares her story of delving deeply into the world of Millennial Jews, and explains why Millennials are ready to pick up the torch of Jewish knowledge and tradition, if it is delivered to them differently.

Cross-posted to eJewish Philanthropy.

One of the things that make my job at JFN so rich and interesting is the debates, even arguments, that we have within our staff. I love those, because they challenge me, they make me learn, and, above all, I know these arguments are “for the sake of Heaven”—meant not to make a point, but to make a difference.

In that vein, my colleague Seth Chalmer shared with me an article he wrote and asked for my opinion. We both thought that the debate was rich and decided to share it with you. Of course, you are also invited to chime in! 

Cross-posted to eJewish Philanthropy.

It’s not uncommon, in Jewish communal circles, to hear it claimed that the central question for our profession today is, “Why be Jewish?”

In an age of free choice and self-constructed identities, this argument goes, the Jewish community can no longer count on individuals to affiliate themselves and participate, so individuals must be given compelling reasons for Jewish engagement.

I want to suggest that this is wrong. Giving any answer to the question “Why be Jewish?” is a bad tactic in service of a worse idea.

Published by UJA-Federation of New York.

My first car was a 1971 red Volkswagen Beetle convertible. It was the car my mom bought when she was in her 20s and took the daring drive from New York to San Francisco, a trip her family and friends thought she was crazy to make since it was so far from home and she didn’t have a job lined up.

My phone rings. “All my life,” the caller says, “I’ve been waiting for someone to connect my love of organic farming and my love of Judaism. And you just did it.”