In keeping with its mission to engage Jewish young adults in the possibilities of Jewish life, The Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life has partnered with The Paul E. Singer Foundation to launch OneTable, a ground-breaking initiative to promote Friday night Shabbat dinner as an entry to Jewish connection. OneTable is an online and in-person network that enables Jews in their 20’s and 30’s to find, share, and enjoy a Shabbat dinner experience in diverse ways, from small gatherings at home to larger dinners out.

OneTable provides support to hosts who create elevated experiences for guests. Support is practical and personal so that hosts and guests can feel comfortable and have fun, ending their week with intention, joy and meaning. Launched in New York City in 2014, OneTable has expanded across the United States to advance its goal of making Shabbat dinner an enduring practice in the lives of Jewish young adults.

http://www.onetable.org

The Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish life is proud to announce a significant grant to Queens College of the City University of New York for the establishment of the Master of Arts in Teaching Hebrew Program. The Queens College Masters of Arts in teaching (MAT) in Critical Languages Education for Hebrew will be run through the World Language Education Program in the Department of Secondary Education and Youth Services at Queens College.

The program will train post baccalaureate, graduate candidates for K-12 contemporary Hebrew instruction and New York State certification. The program will create new curriculum and assessment resources to develop and support modern Hebrew language programs and will conduct research on the professional development needs of those teachers and programs.

Professor Jennifer Eddy of Queens College who directs the MAT program in Critical Languages Education will work closely with Professor Arnold Franklin, Director of the Center for Jewish Studies at Queens College and Professor Vardit Ringvald, Director of the Consortium for the Teaching of Hebrew Language and Culture at Brandeis University as she oversees this important teacher training program. The program will be a member institution of the new Consortium for the Teaching of Hebrew being developed by Brandeis University and which the Foundation also supports.

Professor Eddy will also collaborate with Hebrew Public: Charter Schools for Global Citizens to train Hebrew teachers for Hebrew Charter Schools in the New York area. We hope that this program will create a pipeline of certified Hebrew teachers for area public Middle Schools and High Schools wishing to add Hebrew as a foreign language option to their World Languages programs.

Students will begin their course work for this program in January, 2024.

Middlebury College is a leader in the field of foreign language education, known for the rigorous and immersive curriculum of its summer Language Schools. Middlebury’s School of Hebrew was founded in 2008 with 28 undergraduate students and now currently educates over 150 students each year in both undergraduate and graduate programs. Believing strongly in the importance of increasing the number of Hebrew language teachers and improving the quality of Hebrew language education overall, The Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life has supported the School of Hebrew’s graduate-level programs since 2015, particularly through scholarships to maximize the number of talented educators who can benefit from Middlebury’s experience to become leaders in their field.

http://www.middlebury.edu/ls/hebrew

Consistent with its efforts to revamp and revitalize the fields of Jewish, Hebrew, and Israel education, The Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life participates in The Areivim Philanthropic Group, a unique entrepreneurial consortium of major North American philanthropists who are committed to developing and supporting broad-reaching transformational projects and ideas that will significantly impact the next generations in Jewish life. Focusing on both formal and experiential Jewish, Hebrew, and Israel education, Areivim’s projects will be a resource and catalyst for the renaissance of Jewish life concomitant with the Foundation’s commitment to reaching out to all Jews, with an emphasis on those who are on the margins of Jewish life. Areivim’s projects also align with the Foundation’s commitment to bring Hebrew and Israel literacy to the general population.

Since its founding in 2005 under the leadership of William Davidson, z”l, and Michael Steinhardt, Areivim has viewed the collaboration and partnership of its members as being just as important as the financial impact of the Group. Areivim members support an ongoing process of research and development through working groups committed to fleshing out new breakthrough ideas in various educational areas. Its philanthropists aim to leverage their resources to impact the Jewish community by investing in a small number of new ventures that substantially upgrade the quality of education, stimulate, complement, and support innovative educational institutions; and/or inspire and engage the philanthropic community to renew and support Jewish, Hebrew, and Israel education.

Through its projects, Areivim hopes to inspire the re-prioritization of Jewish, Hebrew, and Israel education as a central and urgent philanthropic value, leveraging additional donor, Foundation, Federation, community, and public-sector funds and engaging and mentoring new and next-generation philanthropists with a sense of vision and responsibility.

Areivim-sponsored programs include:

• Hebrew Public: a national initiative to create, support and grow a network of Hebrew language charter schools with rigorous goals for language acquisition and academic excellence (see below).
• Legacy Community Project: a national initiative to promote legacy giving toward endowment growth in five pilot communities.
• Kayitz Kef (formerly the Areivim Hebrew at Camp Project): an initiative in partnership with the Foundation for Jewish Camp to support Hebrew language immersion programs in Jewish summer day camps in the US and Canada that surround elementary-school-age campers in a Hebrew language environment where they conduct the full range of camp activities surrounded by a supportive staff of Hebrew language speakers who gradually initiate them into Hebrew fluency.
• Onward Israel: a mid-length (6-10 weeks) Israel experience program for students and young adults structured around opportunities such as internships, service learning, and academic courses.
• Israeli Scouts Atid: an English language track of the Israeli Scouts in the US which that includes exposure to Israeli life and culture, scouting and outdoors experiences, social interaction and values of responsibility and Jewish belonging.

http://www.areivim.org

Recognizing the importance of the Hebrew language and its potential as a vital force in the American public sphere, The Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life has been a pioneer in the Hebrew language charter school movement.

Schools across the United States offer dual-language programs in a wide range of languages, including Chinese, Spanish, Greek, and Arabic. These programs are a proven method of making students more engaged in their studies, building literacy, raising academic achievement, and preparing children to live and thrive in a multicultural global environment. An intensive focus on foreign language acquisition in a school’s curriculum supports positive evidence-based learning and developmental outcomes among students.

In addition to the numerous benefits intrinsic to studying a second language, the study of Hebrew offers several particular advantages. Hebrew has gone through a profound revitalization over the past century and a half as it has been reborn from a classical into a living language. The modernization and secularization of the language and its transformation to a spoken, cultural medium has been central to the development of a secular Hebrew-speaking society and culture in modern-day Israel. This unique historical occurrence—the renaissance of a language and its role in the creation of culture and society—is deeply instructive, offering meaningful opportunities for students to explore the evolution and purposes of language and its function in building and sustaining communities worldwide.

Hebrew also powerfully exemplifies the capacity of language to unite people across time and space. Even prior to its revitalization, Hebrew served as a connector of communities around the world. The study of the Hebrew language, therefore, is a valuable vehicle for encouraging students’ development as global citizens and fostering students’ commitments to dialogue and understanding.

Through its support of Hebrew language charter schools, The Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life works to promote Hebrew understanding and literacy in the general population.

Hebrew Public was founded by the Areivim Philanthropic Group with the in-kind and philanthropic support of The Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life in 2009 to help advance the Hebrew language charter school movement. Hebrew Public’s mission is to lead a national movement of exceptional, diverse public charter schools that teach Modern Hebrew to children of all backgrounds and prepare them to be successful global citizens. Beginning with Hebrew Language Academy Charter School, launched in 2009, Hebrew Public’s network of five managed and six affiliate schools has grown across the country.

Hebrew Public works with planning teams across the country to help develop new Hebrew charter schools. Once a new school opens its doors to students and families, Hebrew Public provides a full range of ongoing support to individual schools including curricular resources, coaching and mentoring for school leaders, operating loans and grants, and more.

The Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life has given both financial and in-kind support to Hebrew Public.

The Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life is a founding funder of the Consortium for the Teaching of Hebrew Language and Culture at Brandeis University. The Hebrew Consortium aims to transform Hebrew teaching and learning on a global scale, increasing exponentially the number of Hebrew-proficient individuals. To establish a shared philosophy about Hebrew language acquisition, the Hebrew Consortium will systematize pedagogy and best practices as well as conduct research across sectors. In so doing, the Hebrew Consortium will demonstrate the vitality of Hebrew and its indispensable role in enhancing deep connection among speakers and with Jewish and Israeli culture.

Building on the successes of the Hebrew language charter schools movement, The Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life is also proud to support the Areivim Hebrew at Camp Program – also known as Kayitz Kef. Kayitz Kef is an initiative in partnership with the Foundation for Jewish Camp to support Hebrew language immersion programs in Jewish summer day camps in the US and Canada for elementary-school-age campers. Campers are immersed in a Hebrew language environment where they conduct the full range of camp activities surrounded by a supportive staff of Hebrew language speakers who gradually initiate them into Hebrew fluency. Camp staff are provided with training in the Proficiency Approach to second language acquisition as well as mentoring, professional development, and curriculum support to develop summer camp programs that increase the Modern Hebrew proficiency of campers and instill in children excitement for Hebrew and the life and culture of Israel.

Hebrew at Camp gives American Jewish youth the ability to converse in Modern Israeli Hebrew and to own contemporary Israeli culture as part of who they are. Hebrew provides rich and authentic content for one’s Jewish identity without necessarily requiring religious commitment. Kayitz Kef is at the forefront of a movement to inspire a new generation united by passion for Hebrew, Israel, and worldwide Jewish connectedness. This program is now positioned to ramp up and go to scale.

Kayitz Kef began in 2013 at Camp Ramah in Nyack, New York, and was implemented at 20sites in the summer of 2022. The program has also received funding from The AVI CHAI Foundation, Fooksman Family Foundation, Koum Family Foundation, The Marcus Foundation, the William Davidson Foundation, Les & Abigail Wexner, and the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto.

In 1999, in an effort to enhance Jewish identity and to restore the centrality of Israel to the lives of young Diaspora Jews, Michael Steinhardt partnered with Charles Bronfman to create Birthright Israel, the revolutionary program to enable every young Jewish person between the ages of 18 to 26 to have a living and learning experience in Israel. The program makes a profound affirmation of the unity of clal yisrael by establishing, for the first time in history, a birthright for every Jew in the world of a free round-trip ticket and ten days of intensive Jewish educational experiences in Israel.  To this day, Birthright Israel sends thousands of young Jewish adults from all over the world to Israel as a gift in order to diminish the growing division between Israel and Jewish communities around the world; to strengthen the sense of solidarity among world Jewry; and to strengthen participants’ personal Jewish identity and connection to the Jewish people.

More than 700,000 young adults from all over the world and from all Jewish religious backgrounds have been to Israel on Birthright trips. The program has made a trip to Israel one of the transformative milestones of modern Jewish identity. The goal has been to change the framework of Jewish life so that travel and study in Israel ranks with the Bar/Bat Mitzvah as a universal life-passage experience for non-Orthodox Jews.  Birthright Israel trips spark a passion for Jewish life and Jewish education while strengthening the sense of solidarity between Israeli youth and Jewish communities around the world.

http://www.birthrightisrael.com

As part of The Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life’s ongoing efforts to understand the full dimensions of American Jewish life, Michael Steinhardt established the Steinhardt Social Research Institute (SSRI) at Brandeis University. The Steinhardt Social Research Institute is dedicated to providing unbiased, high quality data about contemporary Jewry. The institute conducts socio-demographic research, studies the attitudes and behavior of U.S. Jews, and develops a variety of policy-focused analyses of issues such as intermarriage and the effectiveness of Jewish education. The institute’s work is characterized by the application of cutting-edge research methods to provide policy-relevant data. Steinhardt Social Research Institute researchers have been audacious in their application of new social scientific approaches and their willingness to tackle key societal challenges. Institute researchers have created new estimates of the size and characteristics of the United States’ Jewish population and conducted similar analyses of other religious minorities.  SSRI research informs discourse about religious-ethnic identity and, in so doing, aids efforts to ensure a vibrant future for the American Jewish community.

http://www.brandeis.edu/ssri/

YAFFED (Young Advocates for Fair Education) was founded by individuals raised within the ultra-Orthodox communities of New York City and is committed to improving secular education in Hasidic and ultra-Orthodox schools. YAFFED’s goal is for these schools to offer their students the general education they deserve in subjects such as English, math, science, and social studies, substantially equivalent to what public schools provide and what New York State law requires. Believing that education is a core Jewish value, The Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life supports YAFFED in its work with parents, community leaders, and state officials to ensure children in ultra-Orthodox and Hasidic schools receive the knowledge they need to engage with and succeed in the wider society.

www.yaffed.org