PresenTense: NYC

By Miriam Bader, Director of Education at the Eldridge St. Museum

A central goal of the Jewish day school movement is to instill students with a strong Jewish identity. Students need to be able to answer the questions of “Who am I” and “Where do I come from.” The study of Jewish history helps students shape their understanding of the Jewish people and their role within it. Most Jewish history classes focus primarily on ancient Jewish history, the Holocaust and Israel. American Jewish history often does not make the cut even though the topic is most relevant to students’ lives.

At the Museum at Eldridge Street, I take thousands of students through the Landmark 1887 Eldridge Street Synagogue, the first great house of worship built by Eastern European Jews in America. As they explore the magnificently restored sanctuary, they step into history and grapple with the challenges faced by what was once the largest Jewish community in the world.

Out of all the student groups that come from both public and private schools, only a small percentage visit from Jewish day schools. As the Director of Education, this continues to surprise me. As a PresenTense fellow, I have been working to solve this mystery.

Four fifths of American Jews descend from the 19th century immigrant experience, yet how many Jewish day school students learn about this period? When I teach about this historical era, I am struck by the similarities between the Jewish immigrants 100 years ago and contemporary Jewish life. Just as Jewish immigrants debated which synagogue to attend, who to elect as community leaders and what role gender plays in ritual life 100 years ago, Jewish day school students are similarly confronted with these issues. Exploring these issues gives students insight into the development of American Judaism and new perspectives on their role as members of the Jewish community.

With over 5,000 years of Jewish history, figuring out which periods to study in the classroom can be daunting. What place do you think the 19th century Jewish immigrant experience should have within the day school curriculum? Is it extraneous or relevant?

By David Winitsky, Founder of the Jewish Plays Project

I’ve spent my entire adult life making theater. And theater doesn’t make any sense.

Here’s how it works: Group A, (let’s call them the audience) sits in a dark room and stares at Group B (let’s call them the actors), all of whom are working very hard to pretend to be people they are not. That’s weird, right?

But here’s the really crazy part: in the theater, Group A actively chooses to believe Group B. The audience, enlightened adult members of modern society, makes a conscious choice to believe that the actors are who they say they are.

The technical name for this bizarre phenomenon is “willing suspension of disbelief”, and it’s one of the most important things in the world.

When we suspend our disbelief, we take a break from our fact-laden world. We loosen our grip on the need to be right, to be correct, to be shown proof. When we suspend our disbelief, we make a leap that is – dare I say – religious. For what is faith but the active choice to believe things for which there is no objective proof?

When we gather in the theater and suspend our disbelief, we open ourselves to the possibility that there might be a world that we don’t know, a world that is different, and perhaps better, than the world we are in right now. And we do it together, as a group, as a people.

That’s crazy. And it’s beautiful.

It’s easy not to believe. It’s simpler to give in to the hard, hard world and disbelieve anyone who tries to change it. At PresenTense, we are so fortunate to find an entire community –Mentors, Coaches, Staff and supporters – that so willingly suspends that disbelief. Their faith in our ventures is inspiring and awesome and intensely Jewish in ways that make the daily trials of the entrepreneur’s life a joy to bear.

This process of making the Jewish world better is crazy. With PresenTense on our side, it’s beautiful, too.

By: Sarah Sokolic, Founder of Arts By Day
an Artist-In-Residency Program for Jewish Day Schools

It’s in there.  It is. The vision, the concept, what the final product will look like.  It’s all there in your head, your heart – in the gut of your belly.  Marinating, curating, gestating.  For weeks, months, sometimes years.

Where it isn’t is on paper, in a clear, articulated plan for the entire world to see and applaud you for your ingenuity and brilliance.  You wish someone had invented that perfect brain dump.  A digital download that would magically compose and sort all of your thoughts and ideas into a compelling, articulate business plan or proposal.  Yeah, that would be nice.  One day there will be an app for that.

In the meantime, there’s PresenTense. And the thoughtful planning and preparation process they take their Fellows though in helping to bring our ideas from concept to paper to fruition.  The ongoing workshops, case studies, coaching and mentorship all serve as infusions of pitocin, stimulating ideas and accelerating the process, ultimately enabling us to “give birth” to our ideas.

But then there’s the labor.  It’s the toughest part, really.  No one really tell you about that part at the beginning.  It’s where we are right at this moment.  Our ideas are out there but we need to continue honing, editing, refining.  It’s painful and sometimes we wish we had never gotten ourselves into this situation to begin with.  “YOU did this to me!” we yell at ourselves as we stare at our weary reflection in the mirror.  But our mentors and coaches are right there with us.  They are the doulas of innovation.  Partners standing by our sides, offering care and support and pushing us to push harder when necessary.  

We could use an epidural at this point.  Something to cut some of the pain of the process.  Maybe we’ll throw back some drinks at the mentor dinner.  Maybe more than a few afterwards.  But after that we must only forge forward, push through the hard parts and try to enjoy the process along the way.  In the beginning we didn’t know exactly what our ideas would but we knew they would be amazing and would change the lives of hundreds if not thousands of people. In the end we will be able to look back with pride at the relationships we developed, the lessons we gleaned and at the process that transformed us from visionary to full-fledged entrepreneur.  So until there’s an app that can magically grow a seed of an idea into the birth of a new endeavor, we can be thankful for organizations like PresenTense. 

What does it mean to develop and Sustain the Jewish Day School educational experience?

Do you have an idea for a venture that will strengthen religious purposefulness,  Jewish literacy, or an understanding of Jewish people hood for Day Schools? 

Perhaps you have a solution to the financial hardships facing families who want to send their children to Day School but cannot afford to do so?

If you have an answer to any of the above questions, we invite you to apply to the PresenTense NYC Fellowship to our Jewish Day School Innovation track.  We are recruiting three Fellows that are dealing with Jewish Day School innovation, and hope that your idea will be the next greatest solution! 

On Tuesday we had our first team meeting with the Steering Committee members.  An unbelievable group of artists, marketing consultants, philanthropy advisors, event planners and technology gurus - the Steering Committee is an amazingly diverse representation of the voices and experiences of the NYC Jewish community.

We captured this energy by coordinating a Cloud Storm.  Basically, we asked the Steering Committee to think about the problems in the NYC Community for which they would like to find solutions.  They wrote their ideas on sticky-notes, and then grouped these notes on the walls around the room in 9 different categories.  Afterward we reviewed the outcome and determined that NYC needs to find solutions to the following problems in the areas below.

Review their ideas, and add some thoughts of your own.  And if your motivated enough to do something about it - we encourage you to apply as a Fellow for our training program, launching this January. 

Collaboration

• Sharing best practices between public and private sectors
• Bringing in young outsiders to take fresh look at Efficiency in the Jewish NFP sector
• Interdenominational communications
• Connecting teachers through technology
• Using the Arts in Business promotion

Networking

• Bridging the Financial Gap
• Connecting new graduates with Jobs
• Outreach to the unaffiliated
• outreach to intermarried families

Work-Life Balance

• Professional Development
• Ways to find spirituality Jewishly 
• Healthy eating
• Access to cheaper, healthy foods
• Individual vs. community life

Technology

• Using technology for engagement
  

Young Families:

• Using sports to engage
• Meeting significant others - creating families
• Youth engagement
• Identity Building
• Psycho Social support for PEDS patients
• Helping parents to find time for selves w/ kids taken care of
• Support for single parents

Day Schools

• Jewish art exhibits with student artists
• Affordability of participation in Jewish communal institutions
• Building confidence for writers and artists
• Saving Day Schools from Financial Crisis
• Using unemployed/laid-off executives to manage day school finances

Gender Issues

• Religious understanding and acceptance
• More female participation in music and education
  

Israeli Population

• How to be a light onto the nations
• How to define Zionism in a post-Holocaust world
• How to reach the Israeli musicians in NYC
• Cross-cultural unity opportunities (ex. Jewish-Muslim)
• Bringing together Israelis @ Israel events with other Jews
• Bringing Jewish music to mainstream venues

Miscellaneous

• Artist business help with time, taxes and networking
• How to deal with the price for Jewish participation
• Upper West Side relationship with lower income housing
• Food Sustainability and avoiding waste
• Energy/conservation
• Combining Kashrut with organic sustainability initiatives 
• Job skills training for lower income communities