Vision – Why Jewish Peoplehood?

To create and sustain a vibrant and thriving Jewish People whose institutions nurture belonging and commitment to the Jewish collective enterprise for the purpose of enriching Jewish life and making the world a better place.

 

Mission – Why CJPE?

There is a tremendous growth of interest in education for collective Jewish belonging, often focused in the areas of Jewish Peoplehood and Israel education.

Despite the interest and the many individuals and organizations who are now working in this area, the field is still in a nascent state. The Center for Jewish Peoplehood Education (CJPE) will serve as a resource and catalyst for developing this field.

CJPE will serve as the central entity to address the challenges of Jewish Peoplehood education. It will offer institutions and individuals the resources and support to obtain professional development, content and programmatic development or general Peoplehood conceptual and educational consulting.

 

Goals:

  • To provide an address for individuals and organizations grappling with the challenge of developing and nurturing modes of meaningful Jewish belonging attuned to contemporary times.
  • To initiate strategic interventions in building the field of Jewish Peoplehood and Israel education through the development of educational content and pedagogy
  • To enhance Peoplehood discourse, collaboration, resource sharing and dialogue.

 

Realizing Our Vision – Main Objectives

To build a “one stop” resource center offering consulting and educational resources in strategic areas, including:

  1. Educational Development – Advance the field through:
    1. The development of resources and materials (such as the Peoplehood Toolkit)
    2. Empowering educators through training and dissemination of resources.
  2. Intellectual Development –Catalyze and enrich the Peoplehood conversation, and in particular the practical and policy oriented dimension, through publications (such as the Peoplehood Papers) and conferences.
  3. Convening the Field – Development of networks of leaders and practitioners (such as the Round-table) that will move the agenda of Peoplehood in practice forward.
  4. Organizational and Leadership Development through:
    1. Assessment of organizational capacity
    2. Development of organizational vision and implementation strategies
    3. Lay leadership development
    4. Professional development
    5. Development of custom-made Peoplehood curricula and programs
    6. Development and implementation of leadership development modules
    7. Research and evaluation

 

Projects

  • Created together with UJA-Federation of New York the Peoplehood Educational Toolkit.www.jptoolkit.org
  • Created the Peoplehood Papers as “the publication of the field” and published twelve issues thus far (currently working on issues 13 and 14).https://jpeoplehood.org/collection/peoplehood-papers/
  • Published the core book on Peoplehood education – Jewish Peoplehood Education:  Framing the Field (in both English and Hebrew).https://jpeoplehood.org/library/
  • Provided Peoplehood training for the professionals of the Global Jewish Connections – an initiative of the Commission on the Jewish People of the UJA Federation of New York that included twenty New York institutions and twenty Israelis.
  • Provided Peoplehood trainings to the Hillel directors of Israeli universities.
  • Created a group of Center Fellows and Advisors from the U.S, England and Israel.https://jpeoplehood.org/team/
  • Provided training and leadership development services to: Pittsburgh Federation, Hillel Israel, the Gvanim program, the Diller Teen Fellows among others.
  • Published Israel Education Matters: a 21st Century Paradigm for Jewish Education by Lisa Grant and Ezra Kopelowitz (2012). https://jpeoplehood.org/library/
  • Facilitated the convening of the Federations’ Roundtable on Peoplehood.

 

Partners and Supporters

The UJA-Federation of New York through the Commission on the Jewish People

The Koret Foundation

Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies

The Bob Friend Family Foundation

Taube Foundation for Jewish Life & Culture

The Jewish Agency for Israel