Let’s Make Mental Health a Priority in the Jewish Community

2022-07-28T05:32:11+00:00July 28th, 2022|

By Sara Allen and Reuben D. Rotman June 7, 2022 Source In Short Our goal is to train more than 8,000 Jewish professionals, parents and — perhaps most importantly – teens in camps, synagogues, schools, immersive travel experiences and youth groups in a variety of methods to build resilience and identify those who might need extra [...]

Why it’s a win for all: The Jewish Teen Funder Collaborative’s new home at JFNA

2022-07-28T05:28:09+00:00July 28th, 2022|

By Sara Allen and Aaron Saxe November 4, 2021 Source In Short The Funder Collaborative built a powerful national network with deep cross-community relationships and found relevant new ways to serve Jewish teens, such as elevating wellness as foundational to achieving teen education and engagement outcomes. The Collaborative is now entering an important new stage with [...]

New Website Connects Teens to Jewish Life

2019-12-23T19:30:36+00:00December 23rd, 2019|

Are you a teen? A parent of a teen? JewishBostonTeens.com is the site you’ve been waiting for. I usually write about kid-friendly topics here at JewishBoston, and often that news skews younger, toward the tween-and-under set. Good news: Now JewishBoston has its very own teen-centered website, JewishBostonTeens.com, which showcases opportunities for leadership, travel, camp, volunteering and more, [...]

Greater Boston Makes Youth Mental Health a Priority

2019-12-23T19:23:30+00:00December 23rd, 2019|

Boston, along with several other communities, is making adolescent wellness a priority. Today, teens and young people are struggling. More than 3 million adolescents, representing over 13% of the population, have experienced a major depressive episode, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. The numbers are equally high for adolescents experiencing eating disorders, substance abuse and [...]

What does a Positive Relationship with Israel Mean?

2019-12-23T19:19:15+00:00December 23rd, 2019|

By Jeff Blumental and Rabbi Karen Thomashow “As I teach, I project the condition of my soul onto my students, my subject, and our way of being together.” (Parker Palmer). As educators, we are driven by questions – some of which we cannot easily answer. Whether a teacher in a classroom, a youth engagement professional, a parent or [...]

The Best-Kept Secret: A Strategic ‘Pivot’

2019-12-23T19:14:00+00:00December 23rd, 2019|

There are countless examples of strategic "pivots" to point to in the for-profit world, many of them from the not-too-distant past. Remember when Amazon just sold books, when Netflix mailed DVDs, or when the Gap was a record store that sold Levi's? It's rare, on the other hand, to hear about nonprofits making the same kind [...]

It’s Not Magic

2019-09-10T04:36:10+00:00September 10th, 2019|

Pulling back the curtain on professional growth and development for teen education and engagement professionals in Boston. People frequently talk about the magic of camp, youth group, tikkun olam/social action experiences and so many other engagement opportunities for teens. However, as many of us have learned, even magic isn’t exactly magic. Magic is the illusion of performing [...]

The Intangible Work of Sustainability

2019-09-01T16:52:30+00:00September 1st, 2019|

Kelly Cohen, Director of JumpSpark in Atlanta, shares how they are using the Sustainability Diagnostic Tool to implement a Community Partner Network to expand Jewish engagement opportunities and to invest in Jewish professionals as the future of Jewish education.  The Or HaChaim, in his commentary on the book of Exodus says that when building the Mishkan the Israelites “encounter both [...]

Central Bureau of Jewish Education for Atlanta?

2019-07-14T16:56:06+00:00July 14th, 2019|

By JAN JABEN-EILON Since Tribe 360 closed its doors over a decade ago, there’s been no central bureau or agency for Jewish education in Atlanta, but that's about to change. At one time, the Atlanta Jewish educational world was served by an organization known as Jewish Educational Services, or JES. The Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta later [...]

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