JEIC proudly views itself as a positive disrupter, also known as a changemaker. Therefore, we were honored to partner last month with JFNA on its program called “Changemakers,” a three-week summer intensive program that fosters growth, engagement, and leadership in the Jewish community among undergraduate and graduate students and young professionals. Together with JFNA, we created a cohort that focused on Jewish education.

At a Changemakers session given by Rabbi Justus Baird of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, for the first time, I heard the steps of creating enduring change articulated extremely clearly. These steps really resonated with me as these are the things that JEIC does each and every day.

According to Rabbi Baird, there are essentially three phases of changemaking and three roles that people play at various times:

• The first phase is agitation, or bringing grievances to public awareness. The challenge in this phase is to articulate the issues in a way in which even opponents can relate, so that a broad swath of people will buy into the issue and want to address it.

• The second phase is innovation, or creating actionable solutions in order to address the identified issue or problem. It is important to include end users in crafting solutions as the solution will impact them, and it is also important to try to predict any unintended consequences that may arise from this innovation.

• The third phase is orchestration, or coordinating actions across groups to scale and implement the solution. The orchestrator needs to identify and access allies and to assist in the implementation. During this phase, one needs to be aware of mission drift that might occur given the number of people and therefore ideas and opinions added to the venture.

It is important to clarify in which phase any change project is, as well as to assure that everyone’s roles are crystal clear to avoid any overlap or infighting. 

As we consider our major initiatives at JEIC, we realize that this is what we have been doing unconsciously all along. We identify and publicize an issue such as the dearth of spiritual education in many Jewish day schools through such portals as Manette Mayberg’s GPS speech at our 2019 Innovators Retreat. We then innovate [the phase which is embedded in our name] by doing such things as creating a film about this issue and convening people to brainstorm how to address this issue. 

Finally, we orchestrate. We share the film broadly, facilitate conversations in classrooms, boardrooms, and people’s living rooms, and assist Jewish day school stakeholders across the country in addressing the issue by providing them with professional development and curricular guidance.

Our “God Expansion” initiative is just one way that JEIC is making change in Jewish day schools. Other programs address improving professional development initiatives in schools, elevating tefillah, creating alternative pathways for students to develop and strengthen their Jewish identities, and enhancing text study to make it more meaningful to the students.

We invite you to join us on our quest to create positive change in Jewish day schools.

What would you like to agitate about? Please share your ideas with us so we can move forward with innovating and orchestrating improvements to assure the strength of the next generation of Jews.