Bay Area Jewish Youth Resilience Roundtable

A professional learning network for those sitting at the intersection of Jewish education, and adolescent well-being.

Online, In-Person

Those of us who work with adolescents know that we are in the midst of a youth mental health crisis. And, those of us who work within Jewish education, and engagement are also keenly aware of the protective factors identified by the Harvard Resiliency Study for bolstering resilience, and well-being.

To respond to this crisis, and anchor our shared work in the latest research as well as Jewish wisdom, Jewish LearningWorks is inviting the Bay Area community of professionals who work with Jewish adolescents to gather, connect and learn at a monthly resilience roundtable co-facilitated by network members, and a series of expert-led workshops from September 2025 to May 2026.

Purpose of Our Resilience Roundtable

  1. Create a learning network for Jewish communal stakeholders invested in Jewish educational, and engagement opportunities for adolescents*.
  2. Support professionals who sit at the intersection of adolescent well-being, and Jewish education, fostering the integration of these two disciplines into their day-to-day work.

Members of the roundtable will:

  • Have a regular opportunity to share trends, challenges and opportunities that they see arising in their work with Jewish adolescents;
  • Learn from each other and from experts in relevant fields;
  • Support one another in translating and applying those learnings to the educational/engagement spaces they facilitate;
  • Co-create programmatic and/or training resources to share and use within their own programs and organizations. 

*Jewish LearningWorks defines adolescence in its broadest, most inclusive sense. The WHO defines it as the phase of life between childhood and adulthood, approximately ages 10–19.

Become a Member of the Resilience Roundtable

Membership is by organization, and costs $180/year per organization. As a member, you express your shared commitment to bolstering the well-being of adolescents within our community through Jewish education and engagement, and you will receive ongoing professional development to the educators in your team.

Membership also includes being listed on our website, and entitles your organization to send representatives to the roundtable meetings, and workshops.

Program Details

  • When: Monthly meetings. Our first session will be on Thursday, September 18, and our last will be on Tuesday, May 19, 2026.
  • Where: As a hybrid program, some monthly meetings will be on online on Zoom (1 hour), and others in-person (2 hours) at rotating Bay Area locations.
  • Enrollment fee: $180/year per organization. You will be able to add up to four participants to your membership when you sign up.

Dates & Times

  • Thursday, September 18, 2025 from 10 -11 am (online)
  • Thursday, October 23, 2025. Our monthly meeting is replaced by the BeWell Research Summit in San Francisco, from 10 am – 2 pm. Learn more and register >>
  • Thursday, November 20, 2025 from 10 – 11 am (online)
  • Thursday, December 18, 2025 from 10 – 11 am (online)
  • Thursday, January 15, 2026 from 12:30 – 2 pm (In-person following workshop, location pending)
  • Thursday, February 19, 2026 from 10 – 11 am (online)
  • Thursday, March 19, 2026 from 10 – 11 am (online)
  • Thursday, April 23, 2026 from 10 – 11 am (online)
  • Tuesday, May 19, 2026 from 2 – 3 pm (In-person reception following The Ruby Award, location pending)
  • Thursday, October 23, 2025 from 10 am – 2 pm – BeWell Jewish Teen Wellbeing Study Convening (In-person at the San Francisco Jewish Community Federation). Learn more and register >>
  • Thursday, January 15, 2026 from 10 am – 12:15 pm – Topic pending (In-person, location pending)
  • Tuesday, May 19, 2026 from 10 am – 2 pm – Ruby Award (In-person, location pending)

A full schedule will be provided to member organizations upon registering. Reminders to RSVP, locations or Zoom links will be sent to all participants enrolled.

Structure & Expectations

Our roundtable will meet monthly, generally the third Thursday of the month except where noted. While most meetings will be on Zoom, we will meet in person approximately once a quarter. The monthly meetings will offer members a regular way to connect, reflect on trainings and professional development experiences, share ideas, expertise, trends, and rising concerns. This space will be co-facilitated by network members who will take turns bringing issues, teachings, and ideas to each other.

We also ask that each organization support the network by hosting at least one in-person meeting a year–either through providing the space to meet, or refreshments. 

Additional training events and expert-led workshops will happen outside the members-only, monthly meetings. One participant per member organization will receive complimentary admission to these workshops. Additional participants, and non-members will be able to join for a fee ($18 for online workshops; $36+ for in-person trainings).

Registration

Registration is open, and will remain open for the duration of the 2025-26 program year.

The cost of membership is $180/year per organization.

Membership is open to all Bay Area organizations that are communal stakeholders in Jewish adolescent engagement, education, and well-being.

Register to Become a Member

Questions

Please contact Alisha Pedowitz, Senior Educator, at alisha@jewishlearning.works or at (415) 259-5992 for any questions or more information.

Members of the Bay Area Jewish Youth Resilience Roundtable

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Recommended Resources

What does it mean to sit at the intersection of adolescent wellness and Jewish education? Here are just a few of the topics, research and resources we hold as we answer this call. We invite you to examine them, consider your top takeaways, and contemplate how they help inform the work that you do with Jewish adolescents.

Lisa Damour posits that the way to nurture empathy in teens is two fold: 1) model being deeply empathetic to their feelings and experiences and 2) encourage being in service/care to others. She also discusses the power of helping teens develop emotional language specificity for what they are feeling, in order to name and understand their feelings—and the power of using helping them do this in helping them feel seen and understood.

Listen to the podcast episode on Everthing Happens.

Learnings on student engagement and their impact on well-being from Challenge Success, a non-profit school reform organization based on Denise Pope’s research at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education, applied through a Jewish lens.

Published in the Jewish Educational Leadership Journal of the Lookstein Center at Bar-Ilan University.

Read it here.

A Double-Edged Sword: How Diverse Communities of Young People Think About the Multifaceted Relationship Between Social Media and Mental Health reports on the “mixed bag” of impacts social media has on young people’s mental health. It also includes a helpful guide to think about how we can help adolescents maximize the positives, and minimize the risks and downsides of their social media use.

View the Common Sense report.

Dr. Lisa Miller discusses her research on the neuroscience of spirituality with Rabbi Daniel Brenner, and shares how spirituality is neuroprotective against anxiety and depression. She defines spirituality as the experience of feeling, “loved, held, guided, and never alone.” Moving Traditions puts these principles alongside various questions and activities framed with Jewish values, wisdom, and ritual to nurture these for adolescents.

Listen to the webinar hosted by Moving Traditions.

Resources from Resilience Roundtable member organization Keshet for supporting LGBTQ Youth:

Adam Grant in conversation with Lisa Damour, discussing how to improving teen mental health.

Listen to the podcast episode on Worklife.

U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy writes, “As I finish my tenure as Surgeon General, this is my parting prescription, my final wish for all of us: choose community.”
Dr. Murthy makes the case that relationships, service and purpose create an ecosystem of meaning and belonging that are essential for fulfillment. These three elements form the triad of fulfillment. By contrast, modern culture has become increasingly centered on the triad of success defined by fame, money, power. We need a cultural shift that moves us toward the triad of fulfillment.

Read Dr. Murthy’s Parting Prescription.

An overview of a research study and findings that explored the relationship between purpose and healthy growth, the ways young people discover purpose, and the development of purpose among diverse groups of young people, including young people from different ethnic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds.

Read the article on Psychology Today.

A conversation with adolescent psychologist Lisa Damour on what’s actually happening in the emotional lives of teenagers—and what they really need from the adults who care for them.

Listen on the Kate Browler Podcast.

The Bay Area Jewish Youth Resilience Roundtable

Grounded in Our Collective Story and Imperative

What does it mean to sit at the intersection of adolescent wellness and Jewish education? Here are just a few of the topics, research and resources we hold as we answer this call. We invite you to examine them, consider your top takeaways, and contemplate how they help inform the work that you do with Jewish adolescents.

When Moses first heard God’s voice calling to him from the burning bush, he immediately responded “hineni–here I am.” As educators and Jewish professionals who serve youth,we believe it is imperative that we respond to the call of this moment with “hineni” in order to leverage the strength of our programs to do the crucial work of bolstering adolescents.

We are also inspired by Moses’ second response to God’s call–”mi anochi?–who am I?” Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sachs z”l explained that this question was existential–Moses asking himself, “how do I understand who I am, what aspects of my story and identity will I draw from, as I respond to this call and say ‘hineni?’”

Our collective Jewish story is one of resilience–of a people who time and again face challenges, and with the generative force of our creativity and way of being, find ways to strengthen and flourish. We seek to continue to learn from the wisdom of our tradition, the story of who we are, and from current research in adolescent development, to rise with a strong hineni and sit at the intersection of Jewish education and adolescent well-being.

Brought to You by Our Funders and Collaborators

Jewish LearningWorks is grateful for funding from the San Francisco Jewish Community Federation & Endowment Fund. Thank you for supporting the educators and engagement professionals in front of our adolescents.

We are also grateful and honored to receive the support of psychologist and philanthropist Dr. Ingrid D. Tauber.

The Bay Area Jewish Youth Resilience Roundtable is inspired by BeWell, a national Jewish youth mental health and wellness initiative.