Jewish Kids Group comes to South Orange
Joins B’nai Abraham in Livingston in program from Atlanta-based program
Hebrew school has become less common a way for kids to be Jewishly educated,” Kendra Wolpe, the cohort director for the Jewish After School Accelerator, said.
JASA is a project of Jewish Kids Groups, an organization that operates Jewish afterschool programs in Atlanta. “We found a model of Jewish education that really works,” Ms. Wolpe, who has taught in the JKG program, said. It’s a model “that incorporates the joyful, camp-like atmosphere that so many Jews — especially young Jews — know and love and combines it with convenience for parents by providing a service that they already need.” It’s also a model that provides “a dailiness to Jewish education which has been missing since Hebrew school” became less popular.
In 2023, with a seed grant from the Marcus Foundation and support from the Zalik Foundation, JKG created JASA to “package the magic of Jewish Kids Groups and disseminate it across the country to different synagogues,” Ms. Wolpe continued. The three-year accelerator program helps participating organizations start their own similar afterschool programs. The first two cohorts include 10 synagogues from across the country that have opened programs. “I’m really thrilled to say that we have added almost 300 new students being given joyful Jewish education in just a couple of years of operation,” Ms. Wolpe said.
Temple B’nai Abraham in Livingston, an unaffiliated synagogue, is a member of the inaugural cohort. Its program, called JPlay, opened in the fall of 2023. It’s been very successful, Ms. Wolpe said; more than 40 children are enrolled. Programs also have opened in Los Angeles and Oakland, California; in Miami and Naples, Florida; in Boston; and in Plano, Texas.
Congregation Beth El in South Orange, a Conservative shul, is one of eight synagogues that was recently selected to join JASA’s third cohort. This cohort’s seven other participants are in Los Angeles; Boulder, Colorado; Northbrook, Illinois; Newton, Massachusetts; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Philadelphia. Cohort members are eligible to receive matching grants of up to $100,000 to offset start-up costs over the course of the program.
The three-year accelerator begins with about seven months of workshops and coaching before participants start their afterschool programs. “We have a lot of knowledge and information to impart to our cohort,” Ms. Wolpe said. JKG has a six-year curriculum that looks at the Jewish calendar through “value lenses.” It’s flexible and can be adapted by individual after-school sites. Learning activities are “experiential, activity-based, hands-on, and joyful” because the students “have just been at school all day.
“They need to have a kind of learning experience which is inviting their curiosity and getting them active and not just having them sit at desks.”
As JASA’s cohort director, Ms. Wolpe coordinates the workshops and does some of the one-on-one coaching.
The pre-launch phase covers logistics too, including licensing, transportation, and staffing structure. Sessions also focus on marketing the afterschool program effectively. “One of the points of the program is to reach outside of the normal audience and the normal range of a synagogue and bring in families who may not have as much access,” Ms. Wolpe said. “Maybe they are nondenominational or maybe they’re multifaith families. That’s part of who we’re trying to reach.”
And the goal is not just to reach the families’ youngest members. “We see the afterschool programs not only engaging kids in a new and more joyful way with their Judaism but also connecting families to the synagogue,” Ms. Wolpe said. “We had a really beautiful experience in Temple Sinai in Oakland, one of our Cohort Two participants. We met a father in a multifaith family; he has a non-Jewish background but his wife is quite religious. He said, ‘I’ve been coming to synagogues and services and doing Jewish events for 14 years, and this is the first time I’ve ever felt comfortable in a synagogue because I walk in the door and I know I have a purpose. I’m not just my wife’s husband, I’m a father and I’m here to pick up my kid, and I know where to go and I know who to talk to and I know what to say.’ And it helped him to feel so much more connected to the whole community and feel more at home there.
“So I’m seeing that impact on a national scale and it just really enlivens me.”
Once cohort members launch their afterschool programs, the training becomes less intensive. Coaching at this stage is intended mostly to provide support, “but of course we’re always available as needed,” Ms. Wolpe said. “We also make JKG staff and infrastructure more available to them once they’re in operation. So our director of education, or even our chief finance officer, will be able to meet with them and help them troubleshoot more specific issues. What we find as we go along is that because we’re using a very flexible model, these synagogues kind of diverge more and more in their needs going into the second and third years of the accelerator.”
The programs also are “helping teachers to reconnect with their Judaism in a new way, through the lens of joyful, experiential learning, and camp-like fun all year long,” Ms. Wolpe said. “I had a reconnection with my Jewish identity working as a teacher for JKG, and I see this magic happening in real time, where people are brought back into the fold to engage Jewishly in a way that feels really new and exciting.”
And it’s “a huge service to families,” she added. “It’s a way for them to have their kids taken care of in a community that they know values them and uplifts their culture and makes them feel like they’re a part of something bigger.
“Having been all over the country and seeing the different shapes that this program can take, but ultimately the same outcome of making families and kids feel at home in Judaism, it’s really inspiring. It makes me feel excited for the future and what could help to revitalize Jewish learning in a way that serves everybody.”
Nomi Kornfeld is Beth El’s director of K-12 education. The synagogue applied to join the accelerator because “we’ve been thinking about innovative ways to offer Jewish education to families, and there’s a real need for afterschool programs in our area,” she said. Like Ms. Wolpe, Ms. Kornfeld sees afterschool offerings as an alternate portal of entry to the synagogue community. “It’s a way to engage Jewish families who are not engaged elsewhere,” she said. “It provides a way for families that are not affiliated yet to have some Jewish community and a building where they feel comfortable and at home.”
Ms. Kornfeld came across the afterschool model when she was thinking about “the synagogue’s larger educational vision, and different ways that our families might interact with Jewish education,” she said. Joining the cohort “really allows us to experiment with the model,” she added. Aside from the grant money, participation comes with “a whole slew of resources,” including a full curriculum, coaching sessions, workshops, and budget spreadsheets. “They’re really working to develop this network of Jewish afterschools that can depend on, and collaborate with, one another.”
She has found JASA’s knowledge and experience from previous cohorts to be particularly valuable and hopes to use program coordinators at B’nai Abraham as a local resource. And she’s excited about the program. “It’s a big endeavor, but I think it’s a really good opportunity for people to just get into the synagogue building and have that built-in community,” Ms. Kornfeld said. “I’m looking forward to seeing what it looks like within our synagogue. We have a really amazing community, and I’m excited to see how we grow with this.”
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