Get Them Young

The Emerging Jewish Teen Philanthropy Movement

Teens cannot drive. They cannot vote. But now hundreds of Jewish teens are pooling and donating their post-bar/ bat mitzvah resources and skills every year, and they are being taken seriously by the nonprofits vying for their money. In other words, these teens are taking on significant personal and communal responsibility.

A Million Points of Light

The Growing Potential of Online Giving

Never has your 18 dollars been worth so much. 

The way donors and nonprofit organizations relate to each other has changed drastically over the last few years, putting more power into the hands of every individual. Last year’s economic crises have brought these changes into sharp relief, as fewer donors have funds to spare and many organizations struggle to survive.

Judaism of the Brain: How College Life Has Changed Judaism

One day in Hebrew School, a bored classmate of mine wriggled out of the classroom window, started walking home, and didn't stop until he got there.

The Urge to Emerge: New Communities Blossom

Something is happening in the fields of the Jewish world, where new communities are sprouting up like colorful wildflowers amidst the tall drying grass of old school Jewish institutions. In the past decade, this flowering has occurred across the globe: not just in the usual major Jewish population centers like New York and Los Angeles, but across North America, Israel, Europe, even Australia. The wildflowers are a diverse bouquet, but they share some key characteristics.

It Takes a Village: Tiferet Artists' Colony Hits Cleveland

Cleveland, Ohio has been known for baseball futility and urban decay, but now one American rabbi wants to make it a center of Jewish spiritual renewal. Many Americans have long been enticed by the prospect of creating ideal spiritual communities. Whether as notable participants in experiments like Esalen, the California New Age collective known for naked massage and radical religious experimentation, or as builders of black-hat fundamentalist enclaves, ews have been influential in these efforts for decades. Tiferet Village, a Cleveland Heights-based community housed (for the moment) mostly in the mind of its founder, Rabbi Yakov Travis, is a recent stab at creating a free-form spiritual commune. 

Walking the Talk: Trekking for the Kids

Upon meeting Bradley Cohen—who only recently arrived for an extended stay in Israel after extensive travels throughout Japan, Nepal, India and Africa—it's hard not to think of the familiar fable of the traveler who journeyed far beyond his village, only to discover treasure in his own backyard.

Wandersurfing in the Online Shtetl: Jews and Social Media

Within the last year, I've had to disable most of my Facebook e-mail notifications in order to avoid the glut of all the Jewish group invitations. The Say-Tehillim-For-My-Sick-Pet-Gerbil groups. The I -Went-To-Salt-Lake-City-Community-College-Hillel-In-December- 1976 groups. The Neighborhood-Shul-Bulletin-For-Those-Who-Don't-Have-Patience-To- Navigate-Our-Official-But-Poorly-Designed-Website groups. And yet my Inbox hasn't received a single invitation to join any of the “Jewishly-branded” social networking sites, the JewTubes, the WebYeshiva's, the Shmooze.com's. 

Meet-ups and the Modern Jew

In April 2006, Tamara Eden wrote a short post on her two-year old blog about the failures of her Jewish education. Avi, a Canadian blogger who was studying for conversion, left a comment which turned into a long conversation about education, prayer, and spirituality. Comments led to phone calls, which led to vacations inCanada and Los Angeles and in the fall of 2007, the two bloggers married.

Large Knit Kippas and Flowy Skirts Not Required: Neo-Soul Hippie Culture in Israel

It was raining in the Old City on Friday night and the Western Wall plaza was empty—except for the members of Ezra Amichai's minyan,or prayer group, who took advantage of the inclement weather to turn the holy place into the shul of their dreams.

The Lein in Spain: A Glimpse of Life in the New Sefarad

It was a breezy June evening in Madrid's Plaza de Oriente, the public garden area in front of the Spanish Royal Palace. The crowd, a densely-packed group of three-hundred people, clapped their hands to the sinuous rhythm of the Ladino melody. Cheering began and a group of women formed a dancing circle, a whirlpool of bodies pulling the crowd inside to spin and twirl in Jewish folk dancing—a spectacle loaded with sadness, defiance, and forgiveness, epitomizing so much change.

 
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