JOI

Beyond the work experience, five fundamental elements comprise the JOI Fellow experience: the August community building retreat, the weekly sessions, retreats, the Group Project, and fund-raising for JOI. JOI expects fellows to participate fully in all areas as described below.

August Community Building Retreat

The JOI program officially begins with a weeklong retreat, usually the last week in August. This has been held both at Camp Ramah in the Berkshires and at an ecumenical retreat center outside of Boston. This is the first time that the entire group of fellows meets together. The gathering revolves around community and relationship building activities, including unstructured time for the fellows to get to know each other. The first community Shabbat celebration also happens at this retreat. The goals of the retreat, are as follows: 1) To develop the foundation of a Jewish community that will support fellows and foster learning throughout the year. 2) To begin discussion about Jewish identity, Jewish tradition, and justice that will continue throughout the year. (The group will begin to explore Jewish texts, as well as prepare for and celebrate Shabbat together.) 3) To begin learning some of the basic theories of working for social change through active learning (i.e., work in the community, videos, readings, and discussions) and reflecting on their experiences.

Weekly Sessions

These sessions are the "glue" of JOI's program. In general, fellows learn together about social change, justice, and community building. The session draw on both Jewish and non-Jewish texts and resource people for information and inspiration. In addition, they provide a space for fellows to discuss their work and provide and receive support on specific issues. JOI holds sessions in synagogues, Federation conference rooms, and other places. In this way, fellows meet people in the Jewish and social justice communities. Sessions always include food.

Sessions often follow this schedule:

Individual Check-ins: During this time, fellows are encouraged to talk for several minutes about what their lives have been life for the past week or to update the group on important issues in their lives. Often, fellows use the check-in time to talk about their workweek.

Text Study: For the first half of the year, the Program Director organizes text studies. They include studies of holidays, traditional texts from the Tanakh, Mishnah, or Midrash, and Jewish social commentary. By January, the fellows are encouraged to lead text studies and other parts of the weekly sessions.

Main study: These weekly sessions focus on learning about social change, Jewish topics, and sometimes cases or questions raised by the group. About half of the time, the main study involves outside speakers who range from community organizers to Jewish communal professionals and rabbis. The topics and content of the main study sessions are scheduled by JOI through the first half of the JOI year. At the halfway point, fellows begin to actively guide the sessions. They have the opportunity to develop topics for learning as well as facilitate the sessions with assistance from the Program Director and outside presenters.

Click here for a sample list of annual training topics.

Retreats

JOI holds one Shabbaton (Shabbat retreat) in the fall, one three-day weekend retreat in January, one day-long retreat in the spring, and one final Shabbaton in the summer. These retreats serve as important community-building events, as well as times for reflection and Jewish learning. For example, the January retreat generally focuses on the fellows' spiritual learning and allows time for program evaluation and reflection on the JOI experience.

Fellows' Fundraising

The JOI fellowship requires a commitment from each fellow to raise $500 for JOI. This provides fellows with the challenge of "reaching out" to ask others for a concrete commitment, which is an important skill to have when working for social justice. The process reminds fellows of their influence on the organization, both in what they can contribute themselves and in how they are able to influence others to contribute. Fellows often discover that, through their relationships with people, they are able to raise a significant amount of money for JOI, reinforcing the notion that relationships have real power to affect change.

JOI provides some formal training and coaching in fund-raising early in the year. Most fellows raise the money in small amounts from family, friends, and colleagues. We have generally had much success with this process. Fellows have cumulatively raised thousands of dollars for JOI.

The Group Project

Each year JOI fellows do a group project. The project should serve the outside "community" and be related to Judaism and justice. Fellows should design a project that can be successfully completed. While not required, we recommend that the scope of the group project be focused on an activity that will take place at a specific time and place. For example, one group of fellows wrote their own Haggadah with a special social justice perspective and conducted a community Seder (attended by 60 people). Another group of fellows wrote and performed a series of skits for 75 teens at the summer Genesis program at Brandeis University.

Organizing is sometimes defined as "accomplishing with a group what you cannot do by yourself." The group project challenges the group to perform and complete a task together that none of them could, or would, attempt to do by themselves. The challenge of the project can provide opportunities for learning, especially by allowing for reflection on group processes, group dynamics, group facilitation, leadership intervention, and any other issues that may arise during the process.

The group project is also intended as a potential opportunity for the broader community to learn about JOI. This has, in past years, inspired others to get more involved Jewishly, to work for justice with a Jewish heart, and helped JOI develop greater support and resources.

We suggest that the group begin planning in November, and complete the project by late spring. Where needed, JOI staff helps the fellows facilitate the process, but it is primarily the fellow's project. We emphasize the importance of reflection during this process and give time to the group to do this, whenever possible. The group project planning process provides valuable opportunities for group and individual learning on issues of leadership, accountability, task avoidance, consensus building and delegation.

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