By Jenni Mangel, Senior Director of Impact and Evaluation at Jewish LearningWorks.
When I was selected to be a participant in a Jewish LearningWorks fellowship program for youth professionals in 2001, I had no idea that I was setting myself for a quarter century of friendship, learning, and community.
This lesson was brought full circle for me when Jewish LearningWorks hosted a gathering for alumni of the fellowship programs we’ve offered over the last 25 years. Youth professionals, family educators, Jewish service learning educators, and women+ leaders gathered with us in February for a lunch and learn focused on what is required for The Steady Heart of Leadership. In a session led by expert facilitator Mindy Gold, the people in the room explored creative ways to think about leadership and strategies to identify joy in our work as communal leaders.
For me, it was sheer joy to be in the room with people who span my full 27 year career in the San Francisco Bay Area. There were people in the room who I met before I met my husband (tikea fellowship for youth professionals; Family Ed Fellows, Common Ground Fellows); people from multiple programs I ran over the decades (Shofar Fellowship for youth professionals; Jewish Service Learning Certificate Program); and even current participants in our current Voices for Good Fellowship cohort. My outer extrovert loves a good party and to see this gathering, but my inner introvert really delighted in listening in on table and small group conversations — especially when people from different fellowship groups were co-mingling.
This, for me, is part of the secret sauce of what we do at Jewish LearningWorks: we bring people together so that educational leaders feel nurtured, supported, and connected in the work they are doing. Yes, I love a good, spirited text study, for sure, but it’s what we do with the ideas generated in the text study that gives me the most excitement and momentum for what we do next.
