BBYO and JSU Partnership:
Shaping the Future of the Jewish Community
Stacy Heller
Hebrew College
Indiana University
Abstract
BBYO and JSU Partnership: Shaping the Future Jewish Community Connecting Jewish teens to their Jewish identity and providing them with meaningful and educational experiences will help the Jewish community ensure Jewish continuity. The purpose of this paper is to explore how BBYO and the Jewish Student Union (JSU) can replicate the successful partnership built in Chicago at the national level. Findings will be based on interviews from BBYO, JSU and Chicago Jewish Youth Professionals. It will also include survey data collected from BBYO members in the Chicago area as well as Judaic and business reports and research. Through interviews and research I found that BBYO and the JSU have potential to create synergies in order to maximize one another’s programs. This in turn will impact Jewish teens across the country and ultimately engage the unaffiliated.
Project Overview
I chose this topic for two reasons. The first reason is I thought it would be interesting from the business perspective to learn more about partnerships between two organizations. I also wanted to apply what I have already learned from Kelley to this project. The second reason I chose this topic is because I think BBYO and JSU can actually move forward and implement a national partnership. I have seen success in Chicago and I would love to see the partnership replicated in other cities. I think a partnership like the one in Chicago can only help strengthen BBYO and JSU as well as the Jewish community. This project is a culmination of what I learned in business school, Hebrew college and a great opportunity in which I wanted to raise the awareness about for BBYO that can directly affect the organization as a whole.
My capstone project will be a business proposal for BBYO to form a National Partnership with the Jewish Student Union (JSU). I will identify the key elements that will motivate BBYO to form a National partnership with JSU in order to further engage, impact and educate the Jewish teen community based on the Chicago success model.
This proposal will be composed of three major components. The first part will answer the question of “How a partnership between BBYO & JSU can help meet BBYO’s mission of “More Jewish Teens, More Meaningful Jewish Experiences?” I will take a deeper look into how this partnership will benefit both of the organizations from a business and Judaic perspective, how the two missions align and how this partnership will fit within the parameters that BBYO is a pluralistic organization and JSU is a “non-denominational program.” Through data collection and teen interviews I will show how JSU has benefited BBYO in Chicago and visa versa. I will also show how JSU is not seen as a competitor in Chicago, but rather a gateway to BBYO. I will provide examples of how a partnership between BBYO and JSU will fit directly into the BBYO’s strategic plan and will help engage more teens in the BBYO program.
The second component will go into detail about how BBYO can utilize a partnership with JSU to advance BBYO’s Judaic content and how BBYO can provide leadership training for JSU teens. These two topics are very important to the field of Jewish education because the two organizations have the opportunity to educate and empower Jewish teens. The Jewish community is relying on these teens to help ensure Jewish continuity through the Jewish education and leadership knowledge they develop during their teen years and beyond. I will explore how the partnership on the local level (in Chicago) is currently impacting Chicago Jewish teens (through Jewish education and leadership). Furthermore, I will show how this partnership will add to BBYO’s strategic plan. There will be a specific emphasis on how JSU can help meet BBYO’s Jewish objectives by deepening the BBYO experience through the education JSU can provide for BBYO members. Finally, I will propose other ideas on how the JSU staff can be integrated into the BBYO program.
The final component of my capstone project will talk about how this proposal can be executed at the International and Regional Levels. I will specifically focus on staffing opportunities and suggestions on how to begin to implement this partnership through pilot regions.
By the end of my capstone project I hope to have created a solid business proposal answering the question: Can BBYO replicate the Chicago BBYO-JSU model in other cities and regions across the country.
Introduction/Background:
Six years ago, BBYO and the Jewish Student Union (JSU) professional staff held a meeting at the North American Alliance for Jewish Youth conference in Washington, DC. The purpose of the meeting was to begin to build a relationship among staff at the Regional level. There were conversations about how BBYO and JSU could potentially work together in our own communities to help enhance one another’s programs. The JSU professional from Chicago was not present at the conference, but ironically the Chicago professionals from both BBYO and JSU formed relationship that continues to be even stronger today. The successful BBYO and JSU partnership that has formed over the past six years in Chicago is a great model for a potential national partnership. This research will propose that BBYO and JSU form a national partnership and replicate the Chicago model in pilot cities around the country.
Who is the Jewish Student Union (JSU)?
“The Jewish Student Union is a national organization dedicated to establishing Jewish clubs in public high schools.”[1] JSU was founded with four clubs in Los Angeles in 2002. It was created by NCSY and many of JSU’s volunteers are from NCSY, however JSU is now it’s own organization. Though JSU is not a youth group, it strives to:
· Enhance each teen’s Jewish identity
· Nurture a connection to the State of Israel
· Inspire an enduring relationship with the Jewish people
· Provide a portal for deeper involvement with the Jewish community
JSU is a national organization serving more than 220 clubs across North America, reaching more than 9,000 teens annually. In most cases wherever there is an NCSY office there is a JSU office (shared space). The Director of Operations is located in Chicago.
There are four communities where JSU stands on its own: South Florida, Denver, Westchester and San Francisco. JSU recently received a large grant of $1.476 million dollars from the Jim Joseph Foundation to help replicate the Chicago program in South Florida, Westchester and San Francisco. The Rose Community foundation is funding the Denver Community. An article titled “Serve them pizza and they will come” was published on ejewishphiplanthropy.com, which talks about how the grant is based on the JSU pilot program in Chicago where clubs went from 230 to over 750 students.[2]
All JSU clubs operates similarly regardless of the school they are in. The JSU staff is trained to be inclusive, to work with other youth professionals from all denominations, and to provide opportunities for diverse Jewish experiences. The clubs are student run in Public High Schools and meet during non-instructional time. This includes the lunch hour, and before or after school. JSU programs include speakers and presentations from a variety of Jewish organizations, discussions on timely topics of interest to the participants and interactive activities. Kosher pizza, falafel, holiday foods or other snacks are always on hand in plenty. As far as it’s leadership goes, all of the clubs have a club president, however there’s no leadership training. JSU heavily promotes the Jerusalem Journey summer travel trip, a five-week Israel discovery program created by JSU’s partners at NCSY. Other JSU programs include; A trip to New York over presidents day weekend, dinner and learning opportunities during the week in various locations, a trip to local Universities and the staff run a variety of non-Jewish summer camp programs.
Throughout my research, the question of whether a Jewish club in a public high school is a violation of Separation of Church and State was brought up numerous times. On JSU’s website it clearly has the following answer:
“No. The Equal Access Act (“EAA”), adopted in 1984, requires that public schools treat all student- initiated groups equally. Specifically, if the school permits non-curriculum-related groups (such as the chess club or cooking club) to meet during non-instructional time, it must also permit other groups regardless of the religious, political or other orientation. Further, The Supreme Court reinforced this in its 2001 decision in “Good News v. Milford.”Consider a French club at your school. ThereFrench culture, history, holidays, cuisine, language and current events arediscussed. Substitute Jewish culture for French and we have the JSU Clubat your school.”
Furthermore, JSU is required to be open to all teens at the public high school. The organization is not allowed to exclude anyone from club meetings because of the Equal Access Act. This fact brings up an interesting argument about who is attending the JSU clubs. JSU offers its club participant’s free pizza (or other food) during the club meetings, which draws in some non-Jewish teens. I don’t think this is a bad thing as the Jewish teens in the club interact with non-Jewish teens all day long in their classes and it’s great if non-Jewish teens actually want to learn more about Judaism and Israel. However, I do question how this affects the organization’s mission and goals, specifically if the teens are going to JSU clubs to get the opportunity to interact with other Jewish teens. I can imagine this is a difficult challenge to address within the organization and for JSU funders especially because they are dealing with public school rules.
Chicago as Partnership prototype
Since the partnership formed in 2006, BBYO and JSU have continued to work together on a variety of Jewish teen programs and opportunities in Chicago. The BBYO professional staff makes visits to the JSU clubs at local high schools. JSU staff, one in particular joins BBYO at a variety of Regional Conventions and programs. This year, BBYO and JSU are bringing a delegation of teens to the AIPAC Policy Conference in May working on J-serve together and creating a March of the Living trip for 2012. In the past we ran a program during the summer called “Club Summer,” and are currently in conversation about potentially bringing this back. I interviewed Hallie Shapiro, a colleague in the Chicago Jewish teen community who works closely with BBYO and JSU to ask her from her perspective on what works or does not work about the BBYO-JSU relationship. Her response was:
From my perspective, the relationship between BBYO and JSU is strong in Chicago. I'm not sure how much of the success in Chicago is attributable to the organizations themselves, vs. the strengths of the local staff. We are lucky to have amazing staff for both BBYO and JSU here in Chicago, along with a community structure that promotes the building of relationships between organizations. I think the youth professionals in Chicago have worked hard to develop strong relationships with each other that have made collaboration possible where it would prove more challenging to implement in other communities.
Hallie brought up an important point in saying she isn’t sure how much of the BBYO and JSU success is unique to Chicago because of the local staff rather than the actual organizations. Jewish youth professionals in Chicago in general have a strong working relationship with one another. We all meet on a monthly basis and have formed our Kehillah – community, amongst ourselves. We don’t see one another as competitors, but rather as organizations that may collaborate on a variety of programs and projects with one another. As a group we have applied for grant money together, planned citywide Jewish teen events and hold annual Chicago informal Jewish educator conferences. I can confidently say that many of the youth professionals have built relationships beyond our work; we have formed personal friendship and relationships. This brings up the important question of whether or not other Jewish teen communities have professionals that have built similar relationships or do they still view one another’s organizations as competition? If the answer is the latter, is there a way for those communities to break down the competition and realize that working together will benefit all organizations and more importantly the Jewish community? The biggest key to the BBYO and JSU partnership working in Chicago is because the professional staff of both organizations has built strong relationships from the beginning and has maintained those relationships throughout the years. One JSU professional along with myself have each been with our respective organizations from the beginning of the partnership. This consistency has helped the relationship stay strong and has played an important role in affecting our teens. BBYO members in Chicago know that BBYO and JSU have a good relationship mainly because of the staff.
Current Situation Nationally
Nationally, BBYO and JSU have had some opportunities to work on various projects together. This year, BBYO and JSU teamed up for J-serve. Many JSU advisors applied for J-serve grants so that they can implement J-serve projects within their clubs. BBYO held a conference call with JSU Advisors where 8-10 of them called in to hear about this new partnership. According to Ayelet Oser, Program Associate for the Panim Institute for BBYO: “BBYO is now expecting about 10-12 projects in various places which is many more than we thought we would get in the first year of offering the grant so at this point I would say that the partnership has worked very well. “