שייכות (Belonging): DEI AND BELONGING FELLOWSHIP – PILOT COHORT
The Jewish Education Project is excited to launch our pilot cohort for our Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEI+B) Fellowship. This Fellowship is geared towards Jewish educators located in NYC, Westchester, and Long Island who are looking to deepen their work around affirming all identities and cultivating cultures of belonging.
While DEI+B work is interconnected, each of its four parts are as important as their sum. The four parts are:
DIVERSITY: The ways/identities in which people differ.
EQUITY: Creating fair access for what each person needs.
INCLUSION: The extent to which members of a community feel a sense of belonging. Inclusion is best understood as an orientation towards welcoming because of who they are as opposed to despite who they are.
BELONGING: Going beyond inclusion to ensure that each persons’ identities are affirmed instead of acknowledged.
- Explore best practices when working with DEI+B content.
- Identify a need within DEI+B in their space(s), create a strategy to address that need, implement an action plan, and document their process.
- Connect Jewish educators actively working to affirm all identities (dominant and marginalized) of those in their spaces.
This Fellowship focuses on the following marginalized communities within the larger Jewish population (in no particular order):
- Jews in Interfaith Relationships
- LGBTQ+ Jews
- Jews with Disabilities
- Jews of Color
- Sephardic / Mizrahi Jews
- Fat Jews
PLEASE NOTE: it is imperative that all communities make their spaces for DEI+B, regardless of if a community does not have any visible members of marginalized communities.
Additionally, all people deserve to feel a sense of belonging, regardless of they hold dominant and/or marginalized identities.
The Fellowship involves two in person sessions, and four virtual sessions. Click here to find our meeting dates and times.
Arc of Learning:
Fellows will have access to the following tools and explorations:
- Better understand their own internal biases;
- Discover more about developing DEI thought processes;
- Learn from a panel of experts working in the field of DEI+B;
Identify and begin to craft a DEI+B initiative in their own institution (whether a new initiative or one that requires editing);
Complete independent initiative work between meetings;
Draft, edit, and share with the Fellowship a presentation on findings of DEI+B in their own institutions.
Reflection and Growth Opportunities:
Fellows will have multiple opportunities to explore successes and key tensions which may come up for professionals committed to DEI+B work.
Network of Trusted Colleagues:
This Fellowship will include opportunities to build relationships with colleagues who share a commitment to and understanding of the importance of DEI+B work.
WHO IS THIS FELLOWSHIP FOR?
This Fellowship is designed for Jewish educators throughout NYC, Westchester, and Long Island have a desire to grow their DEI+B practice(s) and have engaged with our DEI eCourse prior to the start of this Fellowship.
Are there any prerequisites? Fellows must have taken our DEI eCourse, released in June 2023.
Due to generous funding of UJA Federation of New York, there is no fee to participate in DEI+B Fellowship.
COHORT LEADER
Eliana Rubin
Eliana Rubin (she/they) is a proud employee of The Jewish Education Project, serving as their Education Manager, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI) and Belonging. She is a graduate of HUC-JIR, where she received her Master of Educational Leadership. They also received their BFA in Drama from NYU / Tisch. Eliana has worked with synagogues and organizations across the United States, presented at conferences including the ARJE and ECE-RJ; participated in the URJ’s Jew V’Nation LGBTQ+ Cohort and the Klal YisraelFellowship; and was greatly honored as a recipient of the Women of Reform Judaism’s Women Empowerment Award. Additionally, she has taught in multiple religious schools from grades K-7. Eliana intertwines her artistic and Jewish passions through her creation of Jewsicals (Jewish musicals), short musical numbers centered around Judaic texts.
For additional information or if you have questions, please reach out to Eliana Rubin - erubin@jewishedproject.org