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8 New Summer Programs for Jewish Teenagers in 2015

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The Jim Joseph Foundation has awarded more than 900 grants, all with the common purpose of enhancing Jewish education.

In order to expand the marketplace of options for New York’s Jewish Teens, The Jewish Education Project and UJA-Federation of New York are launching a cohort of 8 new summer programs designed to match specific interests and needs of Jewish teens in New York. The programs will all be part of a nurturing Incubator experience and will receive start up support from the newly formed New York Teen Initiative for Immersive Summer Experiences for Jewish Teens, a $9.2 million, four year initiative supported by the Jim Joseph Foundation and UJA-Federation of NY.

These 8 new Jewish learning experiences include local opportunities—like a Jewish surf camp and a theater program—and travel opportunities including an interfaith trip to Israel and a Teen Institute for Innovation centered around a trip to Panama, amongst others. The summer programs also will be strategically designed to connect to year-round meaningful Jewish learning opportunities for teens.

“Summer is a great time to engage teens in Jewish experiences,” says Robert Sherman, CEO of The Jewish Education Project. “We are going to expand the marketplace of opportunities to include specific interests such as social action or meaningful internships and target particular audiences such as the Russian Jewish community or teens with special needs.”

The programs in the Incubator will receive financial support, personalized coaching, marketing assistance as well as a broad series of interactive educational workshops.

“The Incubator gave us the inspiration to take a risk on something we felt would benefit Jewish teens and had never been tried before. It also provided the structure to try something that is clearly out of the box,” says Daniel Mishkin, Co-Director of Sababa Surf Camp and Incubator grant recipient. “Receiving the spot in the Incubator gave us confidence to jump in with both feet, knowing that others like this idea as much as we do. That was a big deal to us.”

The goals of the New York Teen Initiative and Incubator include increasing the number of teens participating in accessible, affordable, and inspiring Jewish summer experiences over the next four years and more than doubling available scholarship dollars to $800,000 annually to NY teens for a broad range of experiences. The Incubator will also provide professional development opportunities for summer program providers – designed for both those participating in the Incubator, as well as other programs currently in the marketplace.

The full list of new programs include:

Sababa Surf Camp –Temple Israel of Great Neck and Forest Hills Jewish Center

Intergenerational Jewish Service-Learning Teen Internship Program – Dorot, Inc.

Intern NYC – JCC Manhattan

JustAct NYC – Union for Reform Judaism in partnership with Irondale Theater

JAM (Judaism Action Mitzvot): Memphis – American Jewish Society for Service

Jewish Teen Institute for Innovation: Panama – PresenTense and Think Impact

Interfaith Israel Teen Fellowship –Big Tent Judaism and Interfaith Israel

AЯTEL Teen Fellowship – Edith and Carl Marks Jewish Community House of Bensonhurst and JCC Association

In addition to the projects included in the Incubator cohort, the initiative is also funding a limited number of innovative and emerging summer programs for project development through a separate program reserve. The first grants from this New Ideas Reserve were approved to The National Ramah Commission to pilot a Special Needs track on the Ramah Israel Seminar and to the 14th Street Y in partnership with Brandeis High School programs to pilot an arts program entitled, “Pop Up NY.”

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