JOFEE Fellowship: May 2016 – May 2017
The JOFEE Fellowship aims to train the next generation of JOFEE educators and leaders. The year-long certification program will provide intensive trainings, 10-month site placements throughout the country, and mentorship.
JOFEE Fellows will work to effect change in local institutions and communities by organizing and running JOFEE programs that focus on education, action, and institutional change work.
Why should you apply?
15 JOFEE Fellows will deepen and strengthen their skills around:
- Jewish education and Jewish thought
- pedagogy and facilitation
- outdoors, food and environmental education
The JOFEE Fellowship is ideal for:
- Early career professionals who would complete the fellowship after an immersive JOFEE experience such as Adamah, Urban Adamah, or Teva
- Recent graduates of related masters programs who would complete the fellowship to further advance their credentials
- Professionals interested in a career in JOFEE and who want to or will be able to advance with skills and experience obtained by a certificate
Applications are accepted on a rolling basis beginning in September 2015. Fellows will receive tuition-free certificate training, a full-time stipend, plus full medical coverage and travel costs for participation in in-person training retreats.
JOFEE events are opportunities for the public to engage with and support the very intensive work happening in the field of Jewish outdoor, food, and environmental education. Not everyone can be a Jewish food educator, or run environmental programs at their local day school, or be a Jewish farmer – but everyone can be inspired by short-term immersive experiences that motivate their ongoing engagement with JOFEE programs in their home communities. JOFEE events cultivate a community of advocates and change-makers, who are the base for raising the awareness and the funds that will enable the JOFEE field to transform what it means to be Jewish in the 21st century.
- Adamah Adventures
- American Jewish University: Experiential Fellowship
- Amir Project: Amir Farming Fellowship
- Burning Bush Adventures
- Camp Newman: Kibbutz Yarok– staff program
- Camp Tawonga: Wilderness Department
- COEJL Conferences*
- Derech HaTeva/Teva Adventure
- Eco-Activist Beit Midrash*
- Eco-Israel Semester Program
- Eco-Israel Summer Program
- Eden Village Camp GreenFaith Fellowship Program
- Jewish Farm School: Farm Apprenticeship
- Jewish Farm School: Organic Farm Alternative Break
- Jewish Farm School: Seminar in Organic Agriculture and Educational Gardening
- Pearlstone Center: Alternative Spring Break Program
- Pearlstone Center: Beit Midrash
- Pearstone Center: Chesapeake Watershed Pilgrimage
- Pearlstone Center: Integrated Sustainability Apprenticeship
- Pearlstone Center: Summer Farm Kollel
- Pearlstone Center: Sukkot Retreat
- Ramah Outdoor Adventure
- Torah Trek Guides Track
- Torah Trek Retreats
- Urban Adamah Fellowship
- Wilderness Torah Retreats: Passover in the Desert
- Wilderness Torah Retreats: Sukkot on the Farm
- Yiddish Farm: Yiddish immersion farming program
* These programs are no longer in operation
What could a Jewish community that values JOFEE look like?
It would include some (or all) of the following:
- Integrated food policies at all the local Jewish institutions
- Annual Jewish Food Festival
- Teva programs integrated into Jewish day-school and synagogue-school programming
- Jewish urban farming and food justice programs
- Summer bus tours for teens to sustainable farms
- Gardens at a majority of synagogues and JCCs
- Jewish institutions using the shmita year as an opportunity for reflection and release
- Orchards planted on Jewish communal properties, with intergenerational programming on everything from pruning techniques to orlah
- A flourishing of local, sustainable food businesses
- Sukkot harvest festivals
- Prayer hikes
- And so on
If you’re a practitioner – a Jewish food activist, a Jewish environmental educator, a Jewish outdoor leader – feel free to consider yourself within the overall JOFEE field. And if you’re involved in leading a Jewish institution, think about how you’re currently using JOFEE programs at the moment – what is working, what is not – and how you might use a greater range of JOFEE programs in the future.
This is the field that includes organizations like Adventure Rabbi, Amir, Eden Village, The Gan Project, Ganei Beantown, Jewish Farm School, the Jewish Food Justice Fellowship, Pearlstone, Ramah Outdoor Adventures, Shoresh, Wilderness Torah, Yiddish Farm – not to mention pretty much everything that Hazon does, including our CSAs, Food Conferences, Food Festivals, Adamah, Teva, Israel Sustainable Food Tour and Bike Rides.
In fall 2012, a collection of Jewish funders – Jim Joseph Foundation, Leichtag Foundation, The Morningstar Foundation, Rose Community Foundation, Schusterman Family Foundation, and UJA Federation of New York – collaborated with Hazon to conduct the first national research study on experiences that integrate Jewish outdoor, food, and environmental education (JOFEE), focusing on immersive JOFEE programs lasting four days or longer. The Improve Group and Informing Change gathered and analyzed data to explore JOFEE programs, participants, and professionals. On March 10, 2014, Seeds of Opportunity: A National Study of Immersive Jewish Outdoor, Food, and Environmental Education (JOFEE) was released. We’re grateful to the Advisory Group for their guidance throughout this research project:
Institutions
If you would like to strengthen JOFEE in your institution, please let us know what you’re interested in. We’ll be in touch to help you out.
Click here to provide us with your details.
Individual Practitioners
Between now and 2016, we would like to expand the Adva Network (a network of Adamah alumni and Teva educators) to include people who have been involved in JOFEE immersive experiences. If you’re interested in working in this space on a full- or part-time basis, please let us know. We will keep you posted on opportunities as they emerge.
