Printer Friendly

Email to A Friend

Friday August 12, 2005

Bay Area scores well on list of innovative groups

by rachel pomerance
jta

The Bay Area is well-represented on a new list of the 50-most innovative Jewish groups in America.

Those groups were listed in “Slingshot,” a guide that showcases meaningful but often cash-strapped programs to philanthropists who can help fund them.

“Slingshot” is published by a division of the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies that works with family foundations. Organizers expect the guide to be published annually.

The idea is the brainchild of young Jewish philanthropists who wanted to fuel innovation in the Jewish world.

The Bay Area groups listed in “Slingshot” include the San Francisco-based Jewish Partisans Educational Foundation, which seeks to educate people about the role of the partisans in the Holocaust; The Tribe, also of San Francisco, an in-progress film that is meant to provoke discussion about Jewish identity among unaffiliated Jewish young adults; the Berkeley-based Rockwood Leadership Program, which has facilitated retreats for young Jewish activists; and the Berkeley-based Ritualist, which seeks to study and facilitate independent lifecycle events for Jews unaffiliated with synagogues.

After assembling recommendations from Jewish philanthropists, 25 foundation professionals who fund Jewish programs chose the final 50 groups based on their performance in innovation, impact, leadership and efficiency.

The “Slingshot” project comes just months after the demise of a key grantmaker for American Jewish innovation, the San Francisco-based Joshua Venture: A Fellowship for Jewish Social Entrepreneurs, which awarded two-year fellowships to young Jews pioneering pluralistic programs in the Jewish community.

After five years, the program closed in March due to a shortfall in funds. But many of the programs begun as Joshua Venture projects are still going and are listed in Slingshot.

The organization that garnered the most recommendations among the “innovative 50” is the American Jewish World Service. The group, which focuses on long-term economic projects in the developing world.

According to the “Slingshot” preface, the challenges that American Jews face in 2005 stem from assimilation. Because Jews are not externally compelled to live Jewish lives, they must inspire each other internally to feel connected to the Jewish community.

Many of the guidebook’s picks are programs that blend Judaism with American culture and society, allowing participants to nurture each side of their American Jewish identities.

Other organizations with Bay Area ties include AJWS, which maintains an office here; Progressive Jewish Alliance, which began in Los Angeles but opened a Bay Area office earlier this year; The New York-based Curriculum Initiative, which began on the Peninsula this year, and Israel 21c, which began in Silicon Valley but has since moved to the Los Angeles area.

The Newish Jewish Catalogue, a Guide for Co-Creators of Jewish Life, also made the list. A New York-based organization, its executive director is Ari Kelman, the son of Rabbi Stuart Kelman of Congregation Netivot Shalom and Vicky Kelman of the Bureau of Jewish Education, who grew up in Berkeley.

J. staff writer Alexandra J. Wall contributed to this report.

Did you find this article interesting? Subscribe to our FREE newsletter and you'll be notified each week when "J." goes online. We'll tell you about the most important stories of the week and give you a link to each one.

This page contains a BETA version of Amazon contextual links. They are marked by the dashed underline.  Your purchases support our site. At times they point to items which are not related to the actual link. Please alert us by email if you discover objectionable links.