jewishatl, Author at Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta

Change Maker Spotlight: Varda Cheskis Sauer

This month as we name our Change Maker, we want to do things a little differently and chat with our honoree, Ms. Varda Cheskis Sauer. A teacher by trade and a champion for creating more places and ways for teens to connect with Jewish life, Varda is known and beloved by the hundreds of students that come through the doors of the Jewish Culture Club at
North Springs Charter High School.

This spring after 14 years, she’s moving on from sponsoring the club, but her support and dedication will not be forgotten. Thank you, Varda, for investing in the Jewish teens of Atlanta and for being a Change Maker in our community!

JumpSpark: How many years have you sponsored the Jewish Culture Club at North Springs?

Varda Cheskis Sauer: I have sponsored the Jewish Culture Club for 14 years! Some students approached me in 2005 about starting a “Jewish club.” Initially I told them no because, with North Springs being a public school, I did not want to violate the law of separation of church and state. Then, we came up with the idea of a Jewish “Culture” Club where everyone would be welcome who might want to join! The rest is history!! We are the largest club at North Springs with the most active membership! Virtually EVERY member attended every single meeting!

JS: Why did you choose to devote so many years to teens?

VCS: I know that most teens have little or no Jewish continuity in their lives from their Bar/Bat Mitzvah years until they have children of their own. That’s a long gap with no Jewish education! My goal was to provide education at every single meeting in order to fill that gap! It was a challenge to figure out a model that would draw students in and KEEP them!! After all, they had to give up their lunch period and social time with their friends! Having Rabbi David Silverman as our main speaker was definitely a huge asset and draw for the students. He has been extremely engaging with the teens and made every meeting fun and inspirational!

JS: Do you have an idea of how many total teens have come through the club over the years?

VCS: My estimate is about 1600 teens came through my North Springs Jewish Culture Club! The club grew very quickly – word spread like wildfire! The club started out with 20 student-teens, doubled in size the next year, and by the 4th year, we had 100 members and could barely fit in any room in the school! By the 10th year, we had 160 active members and were lucky to have the use of the huge Band room and Media Center for our meetings! No classroom could accommodate a club of our size!

JS: What do you most hope they’ve learned from you and the Jewish culture club?

VCS: The teens have experienced a real sense of ‘kehillah’ or ‘community!’ They loved having a regular time when they would learn about Jewish culture with other teens in their public school. Over the years they have told me that they learned so many things about Judaism and its culture that they never studied when younger. They have been taught excellent skills on how to respond to many questions from the general school population. They said this gave them a sense of security within their social circles.

JS: How many years did you work as a teacher and what subject(s) did you teach?

VCS: I was at North Springs High School for 24 years! I taught Sociology and Health Education in the late 1980s for 3 years and then I shifted careers for a few years while raising my children. I came back to NSHS in 1995 and retired in 2016! I created two amazing Internship classes – Mentorship and Magnet Internship. I taught 11th and 12th graders all about the value of internships and then I placed them all out into internships during their class time with me! My classes were definitely a favorite elective for the students!

JS: How else have you worked or volunteered with Jewish teens?

VCS: As a teen myself, I was a volunteer teaching assistant at my own synagogue Hebrew School in Chicago. As a mom, I served on the Adult BBYO Board in the mid-1990s. I chaperoned teens on numerous field trips for the Greenfield Hebrew Academy (now Atlanta Jewish Academy) including their big 8th grade trip to NYC.

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JumpSpark Invests in Atlanta Jewish Community Through $260,000+ In Spark Grants

JumpSpark has awarded more than $266,000 in Spark Grant funding to six organizations working to expand programming for Jewish teens in Atlanta. A new grant program in 2019, Spark Grants allow JumpSpark to invest in the Jewish teen space in Atlanta through large-scale strategic grants. Renewable up to three years to support long-term program growth, these grants are intended to create and fund new programs and initiatives, support programmatic growth, and rethink existing models of teen engagement.

“In the fast-paced, demanding world teens live in today, the Jewish community must focus its resources to create diverse entry points to lifelong Jewish learning and community engagement,” says Kelly Cohen, JumpSpark Director.

After a discovery period in 2018 to understand the needs of Atlanta’s teen ecosystem – including teens, families of teens, and Jewish professionals that work with teens – and a pilot grantmaking cycle of $1,000 awards, JumpSpark opened a request for proposals that support community infrastructure growth, create new points of engagement, provide high-level Jewish learning, and foster collaboration and community-building opportunities in Atlanta.

The 2019 recipients are:

Creating Connected Communities – $39,000 to expand the successful Leadership Development Program.
In the City Camps – $45,000 to expand Camp Mogul business camps for middle school students.
Jewish Kids Groups – $36,850 to launch the Learner-Leader-Teacher Development Academy.
Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta – $70,000 to sponsor the VOX ATL-run Maccabi Star Reporter program and catalyze participation in the Atlanta-hosted 2019 Maccabi games into expanded year-round programming for teen athletes.
SOJOURN – $25,000 to pilot the Tum Tum program, a safe space for Jewish LGBTQ+ identified teens and allies to share, learn, and connect.
Union for Reform Judaism – $70,000 to launch the Teen Engagement Internship program, a year-round leadership and engagement model successfully piloted by the Northeast Teen Collective.

JumpSpark is a proud partner and innovation initiative of the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta. CEO Eric Robbins said, “The Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta is proud to drive this important initiative that is making incredible impact and investment in our teen community!”

As an invested partner, JumpSpark looks forward to building these programs with recipients and creating more opportunities for a vibrant Jewish life in Atlanta.

JumpSpark, Atlanta’s initiative for Jewish teen engagement, connects and invests in the community to create more meaningful and defining moments for Jewish teens in Atlanta. Serving teens, their parents, and educators that work with teens, JumpSpark offers empowering teen programs, Navigating Parenthood workshops, professional development, and grants. JumpSpark is supported as an innovation initiative of the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta, by the Jim Joseph Foundation, and by generous donors in the community.

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Ten Things in Jewish Atlanta That Spark Joy

It’s Adar, the month when the Talmud says our joy increases. I’ve now lived in Atlanta for fifteen years and they really have been full of Jewish joy with weddings, b’nai mitzvah, Shabbats, baby namings, holidays, Israel@70, plus hundreds of conversations and encounters with you! At Federation we talk a lot these days about creating more Jewish places and being a radically welcoming community. Atlanta has been all that and more for me. Looking back on fifteen years, I thought it was time to share my own idiosyncratic list of welcoming Jewish events and places that fill me with joy. So here, in alphabetical order, are ten beautiful Jewish Atlanta places, events, and things I love.

Atlanta Havurah
About six years ago, a group of mostly Intown and Decatur families formed a havurah (fellowship group) to share Shabbat and the high holidays, lifecycle events, and learning. Some of us were already members of synagogues, and some of us were not. What we had in common was a wish to create an interactive, family-friendly worship experience that drew from the best of Reform, Reconstructionist and Orthodox traditions. The Atlanta Havurah drew us close and continues to give our kids and our families a joyous place to be Jewish.

Atlanta Jewish Film Festival
The month of February can be a slog, but not in Jewish Atlanta. We have the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival make the month fly by. For 21 days we get to binge on incredible films from around the world, all presenting a unique Jewish take on life. I love the mad scramble to order tickets online, and the conversations that happen when we stand on line waiting to go into the theatre and run into friends and neighbors. AJFF makes Atlanta feel like a small town. It’s a treasure.

Atlanta Jewish Music Festival
How incredible is it that Atlanta has a Jewish film festival, a book festival, and a music festival? My friend Russell Gottschalk created AJMF right out of Emory University, and in less than 10 years he turned it into an engine for fresh, unexpected and vibrant Jewish music. Russell’s vision for AJMF was to engage the whole community, which he did with teen open mic events, and concert venues in synagogues, coffee shops and clubs. Now, under a wonderful new director, Joe Alterman, AJMF is still innovating and building new audiences and expanding my mind about what Jewish music can be.

The Breman’s Bearing Witness Series
Atlanta’s small and dwindling Holocaust survivor community is precious to all of us, and The Breman Jewish Heritage Museum’s Bearing Witness series brings honor to them. The series features Holocaust survivors, all Atlanta residents, who share their personal stories of survival, endurance and resilience. I never fail to be inspired by the optimism that still shines through as they bear witness to one of darkest periods in modern history. As someone who works at the Selig Center, it is a joy to see the lessons of the Holocaust come to life for new generations when school groups visit The Breman on a daily basis.

JKG B’nei Mitzvah
Full disclosure: my wife, Ana Robbins, is the Founding Director of Jewish Kids Groups (JKG). That said, I dearly love JKG’s unique approach to bar and bat mitzvah. As a different kind of Hebrew school, JKG has a different take on bar and bat mitzvah. At JKG, bar and bat mitzvah is a two-year program of small group study that culminates in a group B’nei Mitzvah event. The kids come of age as a close group, learning together and doing individual projects. Some families choose to have a conventional synagogue service with Torah-reading; others, who are not members of synagogues, craft their own personalized experience or take the group option. How cool that this model started right in Atlanta.

Kiddush Lunch at Congregation Shearith Israel
What can I say? Congregation Shearith Israel is my shul and I love it. Kiddush lunch at Shearith Israel is a delicious reward for coming to services — the place where my Intown village joins together for fellowship, schmoozing and fressing (Yiddish for eating). Want to know who had a baby, who got engaged, whose parents are moving to Atlanta? You find out everything at kiddush. Shearith Israel has had some ups and downs, but today it’s bursting with young families and newcomers, thanks to our dynamic and caring rabbi, Ari Kaiman. For me, Shearith Israel is the essence of community.

Limmud Atlanta+Southeast
I’ve written many times about Limmud Atlanta+Southeast, our immersive, inclusive, and multi-generational learning community that happens over Labor Day weekend up at Ramah Darom. Limmud runs 100% on volunteer power and is the template I love for Jewish engagement. The sessions are eclectic, from text study to making pita in an outdoor oven. We do yoga, share meals, hear great music, go hiking and just hang out. Everyone in my family, from teenage Sasha, to my uncle Bill, who is in his nineties, loves it. Limmud proves what can happen when you empower passionate people to create the programs they want, to their own specifications.

Israel Leadership Learning Journey
Of all my recent trips to Israel, last year’s Community Leadership Learning Journey was a standout experience. With support from a wonderful donor, we took a group of 70 Atlanta Jewish community leaders on a unique trip to Israel, not to be tourists, but to encounter each other. Our work on The Front Porch created a mindset to build bonds as community leaders, affirm and deepen our ties to Israel, and immerse ourselves in Israeli innovation. Through many deep and difficult conversations, we came to know each other and love each other. We returned with a commitment to continue respectful dialogue, to take each other’s calls, to assume the very best of each other, and keep our connections going. And we have! Our What’s App group continues, with weekly wishes for Shabbat shalom.

Shabbat on La Vista Road
Have you ever been in Toco Hills on Shabbat? Less than ten minutes from where I live, on any given Shabbat morning, you can witness a street scene that’s almost out of Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Boasting at least seven congregations, from Reconstructionist to Orthodox, LaVista Road, the central street of Toco Hills, comes alive on Shabbat. Within the eruv (ritual enclosure permitting certain activities on Shabbat) families and individuals greet each other on their way to synagogue, walk home for lunch, and return again for Mincha and Maariv services. You’ll see kids racing down LaVista to catch up with their friends. You’ll see clusters of parents pushing kids in strollers, even men wearing long black coats and shtreimels (fur hat worn by some observant men), creating a glorious street scene that’s unique in all of Jewish Atlanta.

Sukkot at Oakhurst Garden
My beloved friend, Naomi Rabkin, z”l, was taken from this world too soon. Earlier this month we marked her first yahrzeit (anniversary of a death). When Naomi lived in Atlanta she not only managed Limmud Atlanta, she was the spark that created The Atlanta Jewish Food Alliance, the first Jewish community supported agriculture group, and the first public sukkah at Oakhurst Community Garden. During Sukkot, Naomi turned Oakhurst Garden into a magical Jewish gan eden (garden of eden). She packed the week with potluck picnics, Sukkot sleepovers, and a Sukkot baking competition. For some Jews and their loved ones, it was their first ever experience of a sukkah and the wonderful customs of our harvest .

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Consent and Identity: The Importance of Knowing Myself

Rachel Cohn

Coming into this meeting with the poet Caroline Rothstein about consent, I was prepared to have a difficult discussion about the reality of sexual abuse and rape culture. However, this meeting with Caroline pleasantly surprised me. We learned that you cannot give your consent to something without fully knowing who you are as a person.

Caroline speaking to the Strong Women

Caroline told us her struggles with finding her own identity in the form of beautiful poems. She spoke about the hardships she faced every day and the struggles with being a woman in society today. She spoke poetry about sexual abuse and her difficult eating disorder.

Caroline Rothstein

However, to me, the most noteworthy poem was about how despite all these burdens, she still showed up on the other side a strong woman who knew her strong identity. The words Caroline said truly spoke to me and it felt as though she knew me better than I knew myself. I was on the edge of my seat just wanting her to keep chanting about what she was passionate about, for I was also passionate about the same things.

Writing

After that, we had the opportunity to write our own poetry and I found it much easier than I anticipated. Our poems were about being Jewish and women or about being a Jewish woman. I had so much to say and found it inspiring that everyone else did as well. It was comforting to be in a room full of people who have the same beliefs and values as I do.

While I came into this meeting eager to learn about consent, I ended up learning more about identity and the importance it plays in knowing whether or not to give consent to something. Caroline was extremely empowering and I was grasping onto every last word she said. Although this meeting went much differently than expected, I am so grateful for that because what we talked about in this meeting, identity, and being a Jewish woman, are all so important to me and things that I will never stop caring about. •

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Introducing…Beit Midrash for Jewish Professionals

Over President’s Day weekend JumpSpark Professional traveled with 14 local Jewish educators and professionals to Ramah Darom. Surrounded by the beauty of the North Georgia mountains we participated in the Pardes Beit Midrash B’Darom, a weekend of learning and community building. All the learning was incredibly meaningful, but there was one new piece of text that has stuck with me:

Reish Lakish, a 3rd century scholar said, “Adorn yourself first, and then adorn others.”

This is the Jewish equivalent of “Please put on your own oxygen mask first before assisting others.” Reish Lakish is reminding us about the importance of self-care. How many of us working in the Jewish world forget that message? How often do we really do something for ourselves? We all know we should, but so often we feel we are just too busy.

That is why JumpSpark Professional is launching the Beit Midrash for Jewish Professionals. For one hour a month you can set aside time to do something for yourself and your own Jewish self-care. Come explore Jewish text and wisdom together with other Jewish professionals and discuss how it relates to our lives and our work. Each month the session will be led by a different Rabbi or Jewish Educator from our community. No Hebrew or prior text experience necessary.

Our first session is February 27, 2019 at 10:30 AM, and we would love to have you join us! Our topic for discussion is, “What’s Jewish about Innovation?”

Give yourself the gift of Jewish self-care this week. Learn more and register here.

Can’t join us? Make sure you are following JumpSpark Pro on Facebook for all upcoming professional development opportunities.

jewishatl In Federation News

Modeling Inclusion at Camp

At the tail end of January we celebrated our local champions for inclusion at Jewish Abilities Alliance’s 5^th annual Power of One event. Over 350 people turned out to honor 31 Power of One award recipients and to kick off Jewish Disabilities Awareness, Acceptance and Inclusion Month (JDAIM) in February. It was no surprise to me that so many of the honorees work at and support inclusion at our region’s Jewish overnight camps and day camps. Our camps are places where disabilities are not seen as obstacles, where bullying is never tolerated, and where all kids are liberated from the cliques and social rules that operate during the school year. In this way, camp is a sweet taste of olam ha ba, the perfected world we yearn for.

I got my first real glimpse of what inclusion looks like at Camp Barney Medintz when I worked in the kitchen. It was the best job I ever had at camp and it taught me what’s really involved in feeding several hundred campers and staff members three times a day — incredible focus and hard work! To see Scott Hyman, who is on the kitchen staff, honored for his leadership, competence and strong work ethic at Power of One, filled me with pride.

One of the most moving moments at Power of One was when Rachel Krigsman, a counselor at Ramah Darom, was honored for her support for Briah Margolias, a camper with special health needs and one of the most medically fragile children ever to attend camp. Little Briah came up on stage to give Rachel a hug and a bouquet of flowers, and then told the audience how her counselor made the camp experience wonderful for her. For Briah and the entire Ramah Darom community, this was a beautiful example of how true inclusion erases stigma and builds compassion.

In the City Camp counselor Brent Rogers was honored for his support of day campers with special needs. Lotem Eilon received an award for inclusion programs at Camp Coleman. And the 2019 Robyn Berger Emerging Leader Award went Sarah Scheuer for her inclusion efforts at MJCCA Day Camps.

I recently became aware of another ally for inclusion at camp, Atlanta couple Matt Bronfman and Ronit Walker. They have been deeply impacted both by Ronit’s deceased sister, Naomi Walker, who because of her physical disabilities was unable to attend summer camp as an adolescent, and their daughter Kyra, who loves Camp Barney Medintz and has worked as counselor in their Chalutzim program for campers with special needs for the past two summers. Campers come to Chalutzim with a wide range of abilities, and the staff works closely with each camper to ensure a great experience. Their daughter observed some gaps in the program and felt it could be stronger. So, the family met with Federation and talked with us about ways to improve the program. Together we shaped a substantial gift to restructure the program and hire a director dedicated solely to Chalutzim. The gift will also support staff training and inclusion all year long and create a bridge between MJCCA day camps and Camp Barney.

Our camps are places that don’t merely pay lip service to inclusion, they model it! Let’s not forget that Camp Ramah Darom launched its Yofi program for Jewish families with children on the autism spectrum years ago. It has become a national model for inclusion in a camp setting. Our Jewish Abilities Alliance has reached more than 1,000 day camp and overnight camp counselors and staff through its trainings, so that these values of compassion, understanding and sensitivity endure all year long.

From my years as CEO of Camp Twin Lakes and directing the Isabella Freedman retreat center, to being a camper and a counselor myself, I’ve seen miracles at camp. What I saw at Power of One provided even more shining reasons why I’ll always be a camp guy!

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We’re Hiring: Engagement Manager

We’re ready to expand the JumpSpark team! Do you think you have what it takes to join a fun, hardworking organization dedicated to Jewish engagement and education in Atlanta?

Job Description

Title: Engagement Manager

Category: Regular, Full-time Exempt

Reports to: Director, JumpSpark

JumpSpark: Atlanta’s initiative for Jewish teen engagement, connects and collaborates with the community to create more meaningful and defining moments for Jewish teens in Atlanta while enhancing the infrastructure of Jewish education and engagement in Atlanta. JumpSpark invests in existing programs, supports new and innovative ideas, and thinks creatively to meet the needs of teens, their parents, and Jewish educators and professionals that work with teens. Our portfolio includes Teen Programs, Navigating Parenthood workshops, Jewish Professional Development, and Grants.

Job Summary: The Engagement Manager is an integral team member of a growing organization working to rethink teen education and engagement in the Atlanta Jewish community. JumpSpark is part of the Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative, a nationwide network working together to develop, nurture, and scale new approaches to teen engagement, and in this role the Engagement Manager will have the opportunity to think creative, new ideas; look at a “big picture” view of community and education trends; and benefit from the wealth of shared knowledge and philanthropic funds dedicated to the future of Jewish teen education and engagement. The candidate should be familiar with the Jewish education and engagement landscape, players, and trends and must be comfortable working in a fast-paced, innovative, and experimental work environment with general supervision.

Responsibilities

Build strong relationships in the Atlanta Jewish community
Strengthen Atlanta’s Jewish teen ecosystem by working with teens, families of teens and educators and professionals who work with teens
Create and manage innovative programming for JumpSpark’s target populations including curricular development and implementation
Work with JumpSpark grantee partners on program implementation and grant oversight
Engage in the national conversation of Jewish innovation and education
Participate in the national network of the Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative
Complete a broad variety of tasks as needed to further the mission of JumpSpark

Qualifications

Bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution
3-5 years of experience working in Jewish education or engagement
Knowledge of, passion for, and/or an authentic personal connection to the relevant issues of Jewish communal life and familiarity with the Jewish calendar
An appreciation for the diversity of Jewish identity, expression, and practice
Experience in professional setting with standard business tools
Willingness to learn new systems, programs, and skills as needed
Excellent interpersonal, organizational, written and oral communication skills
A dynamic and outgoing personality with the ability to build relationships with a variety of different audiences and ages
Self-motivated with a willingness to take initiative in a fast-paced, team environment
Demonstrated organizational skills, with attention to detail and proven ability to fill and manage a complex schedule requiring extensive local travel

The above job duties and responsibilities describe the general nature and level of work for employees in this position, but this is not intended as an exclusive or all-inclusive inventory of all duties required of employees in this job.

Interested? Send your resume and cover letter to info@jumpsparkatl.org ›

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Atlanta Anti-Semitism Summit Educates And Empowers Community

“After Pittsburgh, I sometimes I feel unsafe as a Jew.”

“Why do some people rationalize anti-Semitism while others speak up and fight the same actions?”

“People don’t like Jews.”

Overheard as attendees shared in breakout sessions at the Anti-Semitism Summit: Navigate, Communicate, Advocate on January 6, 2019, these comments highlight the community need for this program presented by Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Temple Sinai, and JumpSpark in partnership with 17 Jewish community organizations.

In response to the tragic mass shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue last fall, and the growing number of anti-Semitic incidents both in the southeast and nationally, the summit examined the reality of anti-Semitism and how to communicate and advocate for the world we want to see.

David Hoffman, ADL Assistant Regional Director, began the summit by presenting a common understanding of the term “anti-Semitism” and how hate can escalate from attitudes to actions to violence. The ADL plays a role in fighting all forms of hate, including anti-Semitism, and reports a rise in the number of anti-Semitic incidents locally and nationally, including in K-12 schools and college campuses.

“Until recently, I rarely heard from parents about anti-Semitic incidents,” said Temple Sinai’s Rabbi Brad Levenberg. “This year it has skyrocketed. People report everything from subtle bias to overt acts. Parents want to know if they are overreacting, but I usually find their instincts are spot on.”

Separate teen and adult breakout groups explored how to communicate within our families about anti-Semitism, and taught how to report and respond to bias, hatred and injustice, whether at school, online, or in the community.

In groups by grade, teens gained awareness of their personal experiences with anti-Semitism, discussed how anti-Semitism exists in their lives, and developed skills to respond to anti-Semitism throw role-playing exercises.

Many teens left saying they were surprised to learn their peers have had similar experiences and were motivated to speak up when they encounter acts of anti-Semitism.

“It’s eye-opening to see that so many people have experienced anti-Semitism and we are not alone,” said one teen.

With nearly 200 parents and teens participating in the event held at Temple Sinai, summit organizers had no idea the demand was so high for such an event. Kelly Cohen, JumpSpark Director, said, “As we see from the large crowd that came to the summit, when we create programs and opportunities that speak authentically to the needs of our community, people come!” •

Visit our Resource Page › for tips and information from the Anti-Semitism Summit.

jewishatl In Federation News

Making Education a Priority

Yesterday was my birthday, and as the years race by, my birthday always puts me in a contemplative mood. I’ve been thinking hard lately about our community’s commitment to Jewish education. Atlanta’s formal Jewish education landscape is remarkable with a range of excellent Jewish day schools and preschools, 40+ synagogues, learning opportunities at the MJCCA, organizations like Limmud, and one of the largest Melton School programs in the nation. Our informal Jewish learning landscape is also impressive, with JumpSpark Teen, Jewish day camps, overnight camps, PJ Library, Jewish Kids Groups, Hillels, BBYO, Birthright Israel, Jewish Student Union and more.

But inevitably I start to think about the thousands of Atlantans who identify Jewishly yet fall outside the education mainstream. They’re missing out on so much — and worse, they don’t even know what they’re missing! Synagogues, the MJCCA, and Jewish camp are not part of their Jewish experience, and their estrangement from Jewish learning makes them feel like strangers. Tragically, many don’t believe they’re “Jewish” enough to be accepted as learners. As a tradition that prizes learning and commands us to welcome the stranger, we have to do better!

I believe that our Jewish ecosystem gets exponentially stronger when Jewish knowledge increases. So I have to ask, what would happen if Atlanta leveraged its strengths, truly doubled down on Jewish education and made it a priority? How can we improve the quality and the delivery of Jewish education, both in congregational and non-congregational settings? (By the way, I also believe we need to tell a better story about the good things that are already happening here).

More pointedly, how can we re-imagine Jewish education for those who have not been exposed to it? How can we make after school Jewish education more compelling for those who have tried it and fallen away? And what can we learn from successful church communities that use mid-week family experiences (and serve dinner!) to educate and engage?

Looking inside our own ecosystem, what role can our day schools, camps and the MJCCA play to meet new learners where they are? What would immersive Family Camp experiences, with opportunities for family story-telling, look like? How can we create a through-line that connects Jewish education and experiences from pre-school through afterschool, and from camp to teen? These are some of the provocative questions we’re asking.

David Bryfman is a thought leader in Jewish education who has really shaped my thinking. He says that for Jewish education to be successful, it needs to have, at its core, a mission to make people happy. I love and live by that idea. If there isn’t joy in Jewish learning, it will not stick.

Right now at Federation we’re beginning to explore some of these ideas and dream about how we might catalyze new energy around Jewish education in Atlanta. We’re meeting with experts in education around the country to learn as much as we can about educational innovation. I’ll keep you posted on our thinking and our progress. And if you have a great idea that could expand our thinking and bring joy to Jewish learning, I hope you’ll give me a call.

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Woman Undefined

Lili Stadler

Whenever prompted with the topic of sexuality and gender identification, I had never thought twice. I would simply brush off the subject since I had always been confident in who I was and who I felt that I was: a girl. I always thought that was a confusing conversation topic, thinking that there was not much to discuss. More clearly said, sexuality was always something simple to me. When preparing for the conversation of gender and sexuality with Dr. Joy Ladin and my peers of the Strong Women Fellowship, I did not believe my thoughts would change. But, seeing different perspectives and hearing the struggles and stories of my peers completely altered what being a “man” or “women” could be.

When you look up the word “woman” in the dictionary, you will find the definition, “an adult human female” or “a wife, girlfriend, or lover”, plus other varieties of that nature. But, I have realized that the dictionary definition of this word barely scratches the surface of what being a woman actually means.

When finishing her empowering story of bravery and transition, Dr. Joy Ladin prompted me and my peers with a question: “What was your experience of growing up as a girl?” To my surprise, the majority of responses to the question, including mine, were negative. We discussed in our conversation the topics that us, as teenage girls in the modern world, face, most of which were feelings of adversity and fear. A few examples included memories of my peers’ parents telling them to change because they were “showing too much”, them getting dress code violations for their bra straps and thighs showing, and their constant fear of slut shaming.

“What was your experience growing up as a girl?”

To my surprise, the majority of responses to the question, including mine, were negative.

Hearing these things, at first, made me feel comforted that I was not the only one who had gone through these things. But, after a while of discussion, I realized how negative this conversation was. I knew we all love being women, but the growing sense of negativity made me feel unsettled. From here, the conversation unintentionally turned into one about what it means to be a woman.

Joy started off this conversation with the topic of gender versus sexuality. She explained to us that these two things do not need to go hand in hand, nor do they have the same connotation to every individual. Once again, this was something I had never thought about before, so my mindset was transformed. I realized that all of those negative memories of growing up a girl made up who we had become. With further discussion, I was inspired that gender and sexuality are not as simple as I thought, and that two people with totally different experiences of being a women could still be defined as one.

We should not be defined by who we are categorized to be, but who we feel we are.

The beauty of the hardships of growing up in fear and shame is that we learn to overcome it and hopefully become who we feel we are inside. The story of Dr. Ladin, although completely unique to the stories of everyone participating in the conversation, led us to the conclusion that being a woman and growing up as a woman can be defined in an infinite amount of ways. We should not be defined by who we are categorized to be, but who we feel we are. •