Technology for Temples

Adam Simon of the Schusterman Foundation writes on JTA's Fundermentalist Blog about his take on the Nonprofit Technology Network. I urge you to read it and the comments that follow. Here is mine:

Adam,

Very interesting piece. As a congregational educator I am interested both bottles, the old and the new. I know that for many --especially thos below 40 and especially for those below 30, web 2.0 is becoming hardwired into how they perceive the world. We can spend (end lose) the next generation asking people to come into the synagogue and turn off their various devices, or we can figure out how to use the emerging technologies to reach them and enrich their Jewish identity. Then we can draw them in the doors of the shul, where they will choose to pause their tweeting, etc. to be a part of an RT (Real Time) community.

To paraphrase John Dewey from over 100 years ago: we can't bring the Jew kicking and screaming to the synagogue, we have to bring the synagogue to where the Jew is. Right now, cyberland is covering a lot of the Jew's personal space.

I am not convinced that Web 2.0 is the only way to reach them. The life of a synagogue is still essential. But we ignore the technology at our (and the synagogue's) peril.

Thank you for bringing NTEN to us. I am not sure we will make aliya there, but I look forward to you and others bringing the message from that mountain so we can create the Rashi together!

Being Visionary

My rabbi shared an article from the CCAR Journal (published by the Reform Rabbinate) by my teacher Isa Aron, Steven M. Cohen, Lawrence Hoffman and Ari Y. Kelman called Functional and Visionary Congregations. It is a precis of a book coming out later this year from Jewish Lights, and it explores different approaches to what a congregation is and does.

In very simplistic terms, a functional congregation is one that focuses on servicing specific needs of members. The appraoch might seem consumerist (although that is a reduction). It is kind of like a synagogue as Wal-Mart. Jewish Education for children in aisle 15, Shabbat worship in aisle 22, senior programming in aisle 3, etc. It leads, they indicate, to a passivity among the members and a heavy reliance on staff to cater to their needs. It is very easy to leave a functional congregation. Just put your Bar/Bat Mitzvah certificate in the car and drive away.

A visionary congregation is different. Sure, it meets the specific needs of its members. It's focus however is on providing more than discrete products to meet the needs of the moment. It strives to make the members embrace theri own role in a Kehillah Kedoshah, a sacred community. It makes demands of the members beyond the financial. It sets up expectations for individuals and families, young and old, to engage in the life of the congregation and to advance in their own spiritual journeys.

I am being overly simplistic. I recommend the article and I expect to like the book as well.

My rabbi shared the article first with the senior staff and then with the Board of Trustees of our congregation so that we could use it as a lens for self-examination. The study is ongoing. My initial sense is that on the spectrum from functionary to visionary, we are more visionary than functional, but we have a lot of room for expanding the vision, both in terms of how we do what we do and in whom reach and how deeply.

I am fascinated by the metaphor and my teachers and I are going to use this lens as well. A version of the article is at http://www.ujafedny.org/atf/cf/%7Bad848866-09c4-482c-9277-51a5d9cd6246%7D/SYNERGY%20NL%20FALL%2008.PDF, in a publication of the UJA Federation of New York. I would love to hear from anyone reading this blog what you think of the concept, and more importantly, how a synagogue school might use it.

Happy Yom Ha'atzmaut!

An Israeli singer and a Palestinian singer in Israel's submission to the Eurovision song competition. Talk amongst ourselves...

An interview with Noa and Mira Awad--overly simplistic in their solutions? Maybe. But I think it was Rabin who said you can only make peace with your enemies, not with your friends.

Be a Traveler, Not a Tourist

I love the shows on the Travel Channel. When Anthony Bourdain or Samantha Brown take us exploring the world, it feels like we are there. We meet people and get to know a little bit about them. It feels like Tony and Samantha have made new friends wherever they go. The Travel channel’s slogan is “Be a Traveler, Not a Tourist.” Educator Daniel J. Boorstin said that the traveler is active; going strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; expecting interesting things to happen to him. He goes “sight-seeing.”

Fern Chertok, Theodore Sasson and Leonard Saxe - three Brandeis University researchers - have published a study about the Jewish engagement of young people returning from Birthright: Israel trips called Tourists, Travelers, and Citizens: Jewish Engagement of Young Adults in Four Centers of North American Jewish Life. They use the Traveler/Tourist idea and add one more: citizen. Although they were focused on young adults, I think the point extends to our setting. Some of us are adult citizens of B’nai Israel. You see them regularly at services, serving on committees or the board, helping in their children’s classrooms or participating in family education or adult Jewish learning. They have become locals, and they would love it if more of us took up residence.

Others are tourists—occasional visitors hoping to see the sights. They tend to drop off their children or drop in for a celebration or service when they receive an invitation from a friend. The authors of the Brandeis study suggest that for too long the model of Jewish communal life has focused on the dichotomy of Tourist vs. Citizen. They submit, and I am convinced, that we need to find ways to help our tourists become travelers before we can even think about citizenship. We need to help each other empower ourselves to deepen our connections with each other and with the synagogue. And it is happening.

Last month I attended the Religious School Parent Social at my synagogue. Over fifty people came for a purely social evening. No praying, no teaching, no fund-raising. The U Conn semi-final NCAA game was projected on a screen. Music played from the speakers in the pavilion from someone’s I-pod. There were competitive tastings of appetizers and desserts brought by those who were there. And a lot of people whose children are in religious school with each other got to meet one another and hang out. It was awesome! There were some citizens in the room and some tourists as well. By the end of the night, though, I think most were thinking like travelers – at least for that one night.

Our Religious School Committee and our faculty are exploring how we can expand this idea of developing communities of travelers to our classrooms as well. Look for some exciting developments for Kitot Daled – Vav (4th – 6th grades) that we hope will establish or deepen connections the students have to one another.

We have invited the adults in our congregation to help us, to join the journey.
Be a traveler. Drop in, call or e-mail another traveler.

Our Israel Problem

I believe that the State of Israel is central to the identity of the modern Jew. There. I said it. One problem is that the data do not support it. There have been many reports published over the last two decades that tell us how few of us have visited Israel, how many of us don’t make it a point to read or follow Israel in the news and how much Israel has faded into the background of the average Jew’s perception. Still I believe it she (Medinat Yisrael – the State of Israel – is a feminine word form) is central to us all. Like a loved one we haven’t thought about in a long time. So, in light of this, how do we process, connect to and teach about Israel in a time of war – especially the current conflict?

My friend and teacher Joel Grishaver writes in his blog for teachers and parents:

"Crossing the internet are two prayers. One is a prayer for Israel’s soldiers. The other is a prayer for the civilians of Gaza. Both are recommended as the way for teachers to begin their classes.

The problem is not that one is being asked to choose between these two prayers. Supporting both wishes is not a problem. Prayers for safety can’t be too many. And the problem is not that prayer seems to be the major response to war. Prayer is a good response to war. The problem is that this seems to be the only major public response besides a zillion causes to join on Facebook."

On November 10, 1975 the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 3379, stating that “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.” I remember helping to organize 3 busses from my high school to the Chicago Civic Center Plaza (where the Blues brothers were finally captured in the film). There were hundreds of buses and tens of thousands of people there from all over protesting the foul resolution.

Because Israel is at War, we need to be shouting “you are connected to Israel.” “You have a relationship with Israel.” “Israel’s future impacts your future.” Now is the time to emphasize knowledge about Israel, Zionist (or post-Zionist) ideology, and simple family relationships. We can teach “The War” or not teach “The War,” but we need to teach “the love.”

What I – and I think most of us really want is for our kids to care about Israel the way that I care about the Chicago Cubs. I rarely go to games, since I live in Fairfield. But Chicago is one of my homelands and the loveable losers of Wrigley Field are ingrained in my neshama – my soul. I keep a schedule above my desk and track the wins and losses. I have the team news feed on my Google home page. Ideally, I’d want our students to care more about Israel than I care about the Cubs, but at the very least, like me and the Cubs I want them to care about the outcome.

So now is a time to make falafel and sing “Im Tirtzu.” We need to be dancing “Hinei Mah Tov u’Mah Nayim” and “Mah Na’avu.” Students should be finding Haifa on the map and learning that Ben Gurion like to stand on his head cause he thought it was good for his health. What we – as teachers and parents need to be doing is teaching Israel more than ever. And, if we do so, the questions about The War will come, and we will be able to answer them the way we want to answer them, providing we add, “And you are still connect to the land, people, and Nation of Israel—no matter how you feel about some of her actions.

And now for something (almost) completely different…

Let’s try something different. Let’s move forward. Let’s focus on goals and outcomes, on growth and on moving Jewish Education and the role of the teachers and lead educators to the next level. Facebook, e-mail in boxes and phones have been busy for much of the past week with friends and colleagues talking about, wondering and speculating about what will happen to CAJE—the Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education—now that they have announced the cancellation of this summer’s Conference on Alternatives in Jewish Education.

The difference I am suggesting is that we not get bogged down in history, gossip or recriminations. I believe that the lay and professional leadership of CAJE is doing everything they can to solve the fiscal dilemmas that led to the decision. And I have tremendous respect for them and for CAJE Executive Director Jeff Lasday in particular. I am not a finance person. I don’t have the answers. I call upon everyone who cares about Jewish Education to be part of that solution. If you have ideas or access to serious funds, contact CAJE directly.

I believe we cannot wait for that solution before beginning the conversation. So let’s have another conversation at the same time. Let’s talk about what’s next. The conversation might be helpful in revitalizing CAJE. It might be useful in figuring out where our field is going. We can’t wait because our students are not going to be able to wait for us to figure it out.

Enduring Understandings
CAJE was born amidst the protests and self-assertion of the young people of the Sixties. The founders wanted the Jewish Communal Establishment to pay attention to and fund the development of teachers and of innovative methodologies. The history is written elsewhere – and it is worth reading. As educators we should approach the dilemma of where next by wiping the slate clean.

[By “educators” I am referring to classroom teachers, directors, principals, clergy, bureau/agency personnel, JCC folks, informal educators, college teachers and program professionals, artists of all kinds serving early childhood, synagogue schools, community schools, day schools, camps, Israel programs, adult learners…you get the idea. The whole gamut of people engaged in transmitting our heritage and identity from all movements and non-movements. The usual suspects!]

What are our goals for the first half of the 21st century?

1. We need to develop the skills of new teachers and recruit lead educators from their ranks. We need to connect them with the vatikim – the veterans – so they can learn from the masters.
   
2. We need to develop the skills of the vatikim. We need to connect them with the newer, younger teachers so we can learn from their creativity and enthusiasm.
   
3. Moore’s Law says that that the data density of integrated circuits double every 18 – 24 months. That means computers continue to get faster, more complex and able to store more data more cheaply. Just as computer capacity has expanded, so too have the lives and capacities of our learners (and their teachers). Remember “Alternatives?” It’s not such a counter-culture term any more. We need to foster creativity in and out of the classroom and in the design of our learning structures. We need to be nimble and we need to talk about how we do that, share best practices and brainstorm together. Some of this can be done on Facebook, wikis and blogs. Some of it needs to be done face to face. Perhaps in smaller local meetings as well as at a conference
   
4. We need a place where we can gather as a learning/teaching community. Some have suggesting regional conferences. Others – myself included – believe the impact of a national conference is essential. While the expenses to individuals might be greater, the ability to bring teachers and scholars and artists to a single location once in a year and the economies of scale make a compelling argument. I remember the impact on me as a first year religious school teacher at CAJE 10 in DeKalb, IL when we sang La’asok B’divrei Torah over Voice of America to the Hebrew teachers of the Soviet Union. The impact is significant.
   
5. Finally, we have to lose the “The way we have always done it” or the “we don’t operate that way” approaches. They lead to stagnation. There is something valuable in consistency. There is also something valuable in responding to current realities. Maybe summer is not the best time to meet—or maybe it is. Perhaps there are alternatives to college campuses—or perhaps they are best suited to our needs. I don’t know. I just know we need to see what works now. That doesn’t mean we have to repeat every conversation every year. We just need to check in once in a while and compare our actions to our goals. When they don’t match, one of them has to change.
   

The Challenge
As many have been, I have been re-inspired by the candidacy and election of President Barack Obama. I am not particularly moved by his ethnicity or politics. I am moved by his message of hope, by the idea that we can each live the American dream if we work for it together.
So here is the take-away. I was not elected for anything. I am not more or less skilled or knowledgeable than you are. I do not have all of the answers. But I believe that together we do have them I have shown you preliminary list of what I think we need to do for our teachers and ourselves. I am still expanding and refining it. Join me. What are your needs as a teacher? As a learner? As an educator?

Let’s begin the conversation. At some point—very soon—we will need to figure out how organize and implement those needs and how to pay for them. Hopefully, while we are learning together, our colleagues will right the ship of CAJE and that can continue be our community’s vehicle. Kein yehi ratzon…

[I want to thank my friends at Torah Aura for giving me a larger platform than my Facebook status to share what I have been thinking and discussing with a few people for the past week. I am not running for anything. I just wanted to go beyond the usual “someone-ought-to-do-something” in which we all engage from time to time. Someone ought to. Someone is you and me.]

Originally posted on the Torah Aura Bulletin Board Blog, January 23, 2009

Mentoring as a Growing Activity

When I was a student in the Rhea Hirsch School of Education, I was blessed to have clinical faculty members—professionals in the Los Angeles community—serving as my mentors. They provided a strong practical counterpart to the formal learning we did with Sara Lee, Michael Zeldin, Isa Aron, Bill Cutter and the rabbinic faculty. These mentors helped shape me as a temple educator, modeling behaviors, giving me responsibilities within their schools and then helping me to reflect upon those experiences and draw lessons from them. When Evie Rotstein invited me to be a part of the Leadership Institute, I knew that it was my opportunity to pay forward the gift the College-Institute. I would like to share three ways in which my participation as a mentor in the Leadership Institute for Congregational School Educators has impacted my practice as an educator—as a mentor, as a learner and as a colleague..

As a Mentor
When my wife and I were expecting our first child sixteen years, ago we devised a test for ourselves. We called it the Ethan-test. We used it to examine our own actions. We asked ourselves whether we would do something we were contemplating if our unborn son were ten years old and watching us. Would we want him to emulate us? If the answer was no, we didn’t do it. It was a great way to parent reflectively.

I have found myself being more proactively reflective as an educator because of my involvement as a mentor in the Leadership Institute. As I prepare for and engage in meetings with my mentees, I fond that I use a variation of the Ethan-test—call it the reflection test. This is a little different. In essence, I try to look back to when I was a student at HUC meeting with one of my mentors. They were both gifted and/or well-trained enough to know that I needed their help in developed analytical skills of reflection, not just their accumulated wisdom. So my self-test is to think about what would have been most helpful to me as a mentee.

During my three years as a mentor, I have fought the natural impulse to respond to questions or problems posed by my mentees by either telling them what I would do or merely by telling them about a similar situation I have faced and how I dealt with it. To be sure this is sometimes appropriate, but I have found it to be more beneficial to the mentee in the long run to ask probing questions that help him or her to examine the situation and develop their own strategies. It’s like the Chinese parable about teaching someone to fish so they can feed themselves forever. While it would be flattering to have them hang on my every word and to continue calling for my help for the remainder of our careers, that would not be helping them. And in developing their skills, I further refine my own.

As a Learner
The opportunities to continue my professional learning with the scholars who have shared their work and insight with the LIC has been incredible. Sometimes I feel like I am working on a second masters. It is rare that was professionals get to return to the safety and warmth of the College-Institute for such in-depth study, and that has been an incredible gift.

I remember near graduation in 1991 I promised myself I would find time for study on a regular basis. While I have had varying degrees of success with that, both on my own and with various chavruta partners, the Leadership Institute has given me a renewed discipline. Moreover, most of my chavruta study has been in the classic texts of the Talmud and Midrash. The institute has brought me to the feet of some of the top minds in education today, such as Joseph P. McDonald, Dr. Bonnie Botel-Sheppard, Dr. David Ellenson, Dr. Jonathan Woocher, Dr. Lisa Grant Jo Kaye, Dr. Jeffrey S. Kress and Dr. Steven Brown. Learning from them as well as from all of the Judaic teachers has been a trhill. And more importantly, when I was a student seventeen years ago, my classmates and I were all embarking on new careers. Our conversations had the high certitude of the relatively inexperienced. I knew everything because I had been a teacher and a camp counselor.

Nearly two decades later, I am learning with my fellow mentors and participants in the program as professionals in the field, with a wide range of experiences. The conversation is now among seasoned people who are only too well-aware of how much we don’t know. The learning is much richer and deeper, because we are all capable of digging deeper. We can truly appreciate what our teachers are saying and are more able to make meaning from it. My mentees and I have all had the opportunity to apply methodologies learned at the institute to our practice as educators.

As a Colleague
Joshua ben Perachyah said: “Provide for yourself a teacher and get yourself a friend.” His words in Pirkei Avot 1:6 remind us that Jewish learning is not meant to be the solitary activity of a scholar in a tower or a hermit in a cave. We need partners in learning. My participation in the institute has given me many such partners and enriched the network of colleagues on whom I can count on to tell me the truths I cannot see and imagine possibilities I could not visualize on my own.

This has spurred me to try and create similar mentor/mentee and collegial relationships among the teachers in my school. My congregation and view my participation in the LICSE as an honor. We also view it as some of the most meaningful and essential professional growth for me ever available.

I want to thank the College-Institute, the Seminary and the Federation for the insight and vision to create the institute, and Evie, Dena, Jo Kaye and Steve Brown for making it a reality and for me to participate.

Originally presented to the Board of Governors of the Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion, May 4, 2008