SKILL-BUILDING
From our groundbreaking work with early childhood professionals to our Leadership Institute for congregational leaders, the URJ trains Jewish professionals and lay leaders to bring excellence to all their endeavors. Young people and teens also benefit from programming designed to enrich them and their communities.
Chicago Early Engagement Leadership Initiative (CEELI)
In 2017, with generous support from the Crown Family Foundation and an anonymous donor, the Chicago Early Engagement Leadership Initiative (CEELI) experimented with and launched new initiatives that enriched marketing strategies and tools, enhanced technology, and implemented projects to retain teachers. CEELI also developed a series of “boot camps” that offered essential skills for engaging families with young children. In total, 90 people from 48 distinct organizations, including 23 Reform congregations – nearly every Reform synagogue in Chicagoland – participated in at least one of these new initiatives.
Scheidt Seminar For Congregational Presidents
The URJ Scheidt Seminar, established in 1998, gathers presidents and presidents-elect to learn from and network with the leaders of the Reform Movement, discuss solutions to everyday congregational problems, improve leadership skills, increase Jewish knowledge, meet and network with presidents of other Reform congregations, and share successful program ideas. Funded through the generosity of Rudi and Honey Scheidt, more than 1,500 presidents representing more than 420 congregations, have benefitted from participation at a Scheidt Seminar since 2010.
For the first time in 2017, we held two identical URJ Scheidt Seminars – one on the East Coast and one on the West Coast – to accommodate demand. Attendees came from 35 states and provinces and represented congregations ranging in size from 40 to 2,000 members.
“I am bringing home with me a much clearer vision of what I'd like to accomplish as co-president; a greater appreciation of how I might best partner with clergy and lay leaders; a broader understanding of resources on which our community can draw; and a wonderful network of 70+ incoming presidents at diverse congregations. This conference was so meaningful to me. I would urge any new president to attend.”
— Derek Dorn, East End Temple, New York, NY
L’Taken Social Justice Seminars
The annual Bernard and Audre Rapoport L’Taken Social Justice Seminars brought 2,203 Reform Jewish high school students from 34 states to Washington, DC, where they lobbied their legislators in nearly 450 visits on Capitol Hill. Accompanying the students were 395 chaperones, including rabbis, cantors, educators, and youth professionals from 196 congregations.
URJ Kutz Camp
URJ Kutz Camp brings together hundreds of the most passionate Reform Jewish teen leaders from around North America for a summer of leadership development, deep learning, and joyful Judaism. In 2017, Kutz leadership developed a new mission statement that better reflects the tremendous value of Kutz as the pinnacle Jewish teen leadership development program.
URJ Kutz Camp is the flagship summer experience for Reform Jewish teens worldwide who are seeking deeper learning, purposeful skill-building, and leadership development.
Kutz Camp continues to foster generations of proud, compassionate, creative, cultured, and joyful leaders who will ensure a vibrant Jewish future.
Supporting Congregational Youth Professionals
The URJ supports youth professionals and educators across the Reform Movement, especially when quick action is required. When Netflix launched the television show “13 Reasons Why,” which catapulted teen suicide and mental health issues into the national conversation, the URJ partnered with the Association of Reform Jewish Educators, and Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) to provide information, a live webinar, and resources to more than 300 youth professionals and educators so they could create parent programs, ask questions, and access mental health support for their communities.
Youth Professionals 101
The “Youth Professionals 101” development programs, supported by the Covenant Foundation and offered in partnership with Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR), provides peer-to-peer engagement and offers opportunities to explore meaningful, sustainable, and best-in-field youth engagement models. Topics include: how to create a vision for your youth engagement program, navigating relationships and structures of congregations, strategies to publicize events, crisis management, and bringing Jewish content into youth engagement work.
“As a first-time congregational youth professional, I am so thankful for my YP101 Cohort. I have received incredible support from my mentor and the other fellows that has been fundamental in my success this year. I look forward to our bi-weekly calls and the opportunity to learn, laugh and grow together.”
— Yael Farber, YP101 Fellow
Community Synagogue of Rye in Rye, NY
