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8/8/2019 Creating Change in a Complex System: A New Perspective on the Role of Central Agencies for Jewish Education

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97

IJJER

International Journal

of Jewish Education Research,

2010 (2), 97-115.

Creating change in a complex system: A new perspective on the role of Central

Agencies for Jewish education

Meredith L. Woocher | [email protected] and Evaluation Division

Te Partnership for Jewish Life and Learning

Abstract

Tis paper oers rst a historical analysis o the role o centralagencies or Jewish education in America, ollowed by a model o how central agencies today can best position themselves as communal changeagents. When Samson Benderly ounded the rst Bureau o JewishEducation in New York in 1910, he envisioned it as a “lever o change”and a “laboratory o experimentation” (as cited in Gannes, 1965, p.184)or Jewish education. However, Benderly’s vision was never ully realized,

due to a combination o actors, including the collapse o the New York Kehilla, and the shit in priorities o central agencies rom being agentso communal change to supporting and serving Jewish organizations.For the next century, despite the important work they continued todo in areas such as teacher training, school accreditation, and resourcedevelopment, central agencies were rarely seen as signicant players inthe eld o Jewish education or as sources o leadership and innovationin their communities.

oday, as the American Jewish community navigates a severely

challenging economic climate, the need or central agencies to enactBenderly’s vision is more pressing than ever. Fortunately, the insightsgleaned rom complexity and systems theory oer a model or how this canbe accomplished. Because change agents in complex contexts oten must



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Creating change in a complex system

operate without ormal authority (because there is no single authority inemergent systems) or the expectation o linear impacts (because complexsystems are unpredictable), the lessons o complexity seem particularly

suited or the realities o central agencies, and their challenges can becomeopportunities to develop unique strengths. As central agencies cannotcompel action or change rom their constituencies, they must becomeadept at mastering the skills that oster true and lasting change withinsystems: gathering and disseminating knowledge, creating networks andostering connections, and envisioning and modeling new possibilitiesin Jewish education.

Key Words: Central Agencies, BJE, transormation, systems,

complexity

Introduction

Imagine a Jewish organization whose core mission is to be a “levero change” and a “laboratory o experimentation” or Jewish educationthroughout a community. Rather than simply oering a “variety o services to dierent educational institutions,” this organization wouldtake on the ar more ambitious task o “rais[ing] the level o Jewisheducation…mak[ing] radical changes in approach to Jewish education,and bring[ing] about…transormation” (Benderly, as cited in Gannes,1965, p.184) I this sounds like a Jewish organization designed or thenew century, indeed it is, except that century is not the 21st but the20th. Te above words were written by Dr. Samson Benderly almost onehundred years ago to describe his vision or the nascent Bureau o JewishEducation in New York, the rst central agency or Jewish Education inthe United States.

Tat this image o a central agency as a communal change agent isstill compelling a century later speaks both to how prescient Benderly’svision was, and how dicult it has been or central agencies (includingthe one Benderly ounded) to make this vision a reality. At a time when aharsh economic climate has led to increased scrutiny o the eectivenesso nearly all Jewish organizations, it is particularly important to directly examine the challenges central agencies have aced over the last century and identiy new directions that could revitalize those agencies today.

Tis paper will rst trace the history and perceptions o central agenciesover the past hundred years rom the ounding o the New York BJE in1910 through the present decade. It will then oer a new model or how central agencies can best unction as change agents by drawing upon



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the contemporary elds o systems thinking and complexity theory, with illustrations rom the work o one particular central agency (theorganizational home o the paper’s author). As this paper will attempt to

demonstrate, by seeing themselves as components o a complex systemand identiying the critical points o leverage within that system, centralagencies can turn perceived weaknesses into strengths, and come closerthan ever to ullling Benderly’s compelling vision.

1910 – 1959: Origins and Evolution

Te New York Bureau o Jewish Education (the surviving remnant

o the short-lived New York Kehilla experiment) was ounded in 1910to ll a vacuum in Jewish communal lie. Formal Jewish education orchildren at that time was disorganized, poorly unded, and suering romthe pressures and demands o Americanization. Benderly, his proessionalcolleagues, and his community supporters sought to “bring order out o chaos” by creating a “lever or the study and improvement o primary Jewish education in New York City” (as cited in Gannes, 1954, p. 29).In practical terms, this would be accomplished by: “the scientic study o the acts [o Jewish education], the development o a new curriculumor the American environment, the training o leadership, the assistancegiven to raise standards or teachers, the preparation o new texts and theattempt to nd new approaches to Jewish education” (as cited in Gannes,1954, p. 30-31). Experimentation with “new methods and techniques” would occur in model schools which were to serve as laboratories or“setting new patterns in the educational process.” Although much o this would require direct, hands-on work by Bureau proessionals, theultimate goal was to stimulate the work o educational institutions

throughout the community. As Benderly wrote,“We planned that our work should not constitute the major eort o the community or Jewisheducation, but rather to act as leaven, both in New York City and in thecountry at large…Te policy o the Bureau has always been to do its work with an eye toward stimulating the work done by others” (as citedin Gannes, 1954, p. 50).

Unortunately, Benderly’s potentially transormative vision wasnever ully realized. While the Bureau did a great deal o substantive

work in the areas o teacher training, school supervision, and curriculumdevelopment, and while it inspired other communities around thecountry to create their own Bureaus and Boards o Jewish Education,it did not succeed in transorming Jewish education in New York to



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the degree that its ounders had envisioned. o a large extent, this wasdue to the ailure o the broader experiment that the BJE was oundedto advance – the creation o a comprehensive communal structure or

the New York Jewish community known as the Kehilla. As historian Abraham Gannes writes, “Te Bureau charted a wide course andexperimented with the community principle on a wide ront. Te plan,however, was premature. It grew out o the idea o an organic Jewishcommunity (Kehilla), but when this idea ailed to materialize, and theBureau remained an independent organization, it did not succeed inbecoming the agency responsible or Jewish education on a communitywide basis” (1954, p. 32).

Although it was the pioneer in the eld, Te New York BJE alsoeventually changed its course in reaction to the other central agenciessubsequently ounded across the country. Tese agencies developed avery dierent model or a Jewish community agency that was groundedin two ideas: the central agency as primarily a source o service andsupport or Jewish schools, rather than a “lever o change” or Jewisheducation; and the highest ideal or communal Jewish education being“unity in diversity” (Gannes, 1954, p. 38)

Much o the impetus or turning to the service model grew outo the reality that, unlike public Boards o Education, central agencieshad no authority over the institutions with which they worked. Tus, as Jonathan Woocher indicates, unless they could oer services that wereclearly and immediately useul to these schools and synagogues, theinstitutions would have no incentive to ollow their lead or grant accessto their teachers and students (private communication, 5 July, 2009).

At the same time, central agencies aced an increasing shit o supplementary Jewish education rom community-based almud orahs

to synagogue schools, institutions which are by denition shaped by andresponsible to particular denominations. Tis led to the idea o “unity indiversity” (Gannes, 1954, p.38), as expressed in the ocial “Principles o Policy o the Chicago Board o Jewish Education” in 1923:

In all o our work we must avoid imposing any one type o Judaismor any one program o Jewish education upon all schools aliated with us. We are strictly a non-partisan Board, reecting the interest o Orthodox, Conservative, Reorm, Zionist and non-Zionist Jews.While there is a undamental unity in all Jewish education, and certain common basic subjects o instruction, nevertheless in emphasis,in arrangement o curriculum, in the selection o teachers, we are toact in the capacity o advisors. Te nal determination in all o these



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matters must remain with the local group – the congregation and its rabbi. (Gannes, 1954, p. 40).

As synagogues gained stature and denominationalism became astronger orce, central agencies increasingly elt that their role was toprovide, in the words o Gannes,

“a uniying educational orce in each community i the community was not to be split up into many segments. Tis led to the practical acceptance o the idea o servicing all existing educational groups without interering with their ideological and religious philosophies” (p. 42).

It also, however, led to an increasing reluctance to espouse any specic orm o Jewish education, to experiment with new models, orto recommend any “best practices” or ear o alienating educationalinstitution that chose to ollow a dierent path.

Once the service and unity models were established, they drove the work o central agencies or the next decades. Writing in 1954, Ganneslamented that “the community educational agency has lost sight o the‘lever’ idea (experimentation) o the rst Bureau o Jewish Education,

which should be the core o its program” (p. 49). Instead, central agenciesocused most o their eorts on teacher training, running Hebrew highschools, gathering basic data on population size, school enrollment, andencouraging cooperation and joint activities between the various schools,synagogues, JCCs, and other Jewish organizations in a given community (p. 49). Gannes cataloged what he elt had been the central agencies’main achievements at mid-century: establishing Jewish education as acommunal responsibility; bringing disparate schools and organizationstogether to create a “respectable” system o Jewish education; oeringa central “address and clearing house” or Jewish education within acommunity; and consistently maniesting “optimism, aith, vision andcondence in the possibilities o Jewish education” (pp. 95-87).

1960-2001: Visions and Challenges

Over the next hal-century, central agencies o Jewish educationin America repeatedly conronted the gap between visions o what these

organizations could be, and the challenging realities o Jewish communallie that oten limited their roles and impact. Tis tension can be tracedin the pages o Te Journal o Jewish Education, which rst addressed thetopic in a substantive way in 1965 and has revisited it approximately



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every ten years thereater. Reading the articles on central agencies asa corpus reveals how consistent both the challenges and the proposedsolutions have been throughout the decades. In 1965, Isaac oubin,

executive director o the American Association or Jewish Education(precursor to JESNA), described the weaknesses o central agencies ashe viewed them:

Te major unction o the Bureau [o Jewish Education] seldom goes beyond the elementary school level, and even here its role is oten that o passive observer and timid counselor. Examples o vigorous Bureaus,well nanced, with adequate staf and services, possessing authority to take initiative and embracing all schools o the community are

rare indeed. Is it any wonder, then, that a large number o Bureauexecutives consider their agencies to be in a state o crisis? (p. 192)

What is so striking about oubin’s words is that they could havebeen written at practically any time throughout the 20th century. In1975, David Rudavsky, Proessor o Hebrew Culture and Education atNew York University, lamented that although central agencies had madeprogress in terms o organizational solidity, overall they were “lackingin a vision, and are sorely in need o one to stimulate or inspire us tocounter the rustration or disillusionment rom which [they] suer”(p. 6). By 1990, the perception o central agencies had deteriorated tothe point where communal leaders and scholars were openly debating whether they were necessary at all. Political scientist Daniel Elazar gavehis pessimistic assessment o the relevance and uture o central agencies:

Te question must now be asked: Are central agencies or Jewisheducation needed at all? Te answer to that question must be blunt.Tey are only i they can make themselves needed to today’s important Jewish education constituencies…With a ew exceptions, the BJEs have no strong constituencies. Even in their best days, the congregational schools oten saw them as a burdensome imposition rom the outside or an imposed nuisance…. (1990, p. 9)

Even the renewed attention many communities gave to Jewisheducation and “Jewish continuity” in the 1990’s (ollowing in the wakeo the 1990 Jewish population study) did not seem to translate into

enhanced status or central agencies. As Chaim Lauer, director o the BJEo New York, wrote in 2001, “Tere has been a great deal o communalanare and eort about Jewish education over the last ten years. Onecould have expected local central agencies or Jewish education (BJEs)



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to play – or, at least, be invited to play – active roles in the process. Tishas not happened. In many cases, the opposite has occurred.” (p. 64).

Not every assessment o the work o central agencies was as

uniormly negative. Jeery Lasday, director o the St. Louis Central Agency or Jewish Education, believed that by 2001, “throughovercoming many o the central challenges o the 1990’s, central agenciestoday have been able to overcome adversity and regain their leadershiprole in Jewish education” (p. 22). However, the evidence he cited – closerties with Federations, increased unding, and an expanded ocus beyondcongregational schools – seemed to suggest at best incremental changesduring the 20th century, not a undamental transormation o the role or

status o central agencies in the community.Educational leaders’ suggestions or changing central agencies

reveal what they elt was lacking in these institutions and why they had oten been perceived as marginal players in Jewish communal lie.Some proposals, echoing Lasday’s assessment, argued or improving andexpanding current roles: more and better teacher training, expansion roma sole ocus on congregational education into camping, youth groups,and adult education, better use o technologies, etc. Others ocused onaddressing the external actors that impeded the unctioning o centralagencies – lack o sucient unding, low status in the community, andreluctance o other communal agencies to act as partners – although itis not quite clear whether these actors were the cause or the eect o central agencies’ mediocrity.

Still others, however, envisioned a new kind o central agency thatcould provide vision, planning, and knowledge or a community, and thusbecome a true central address or Jewish education. Sara Lee, Directoro the Rhea Hirsch School o Education at Hebrew Union College,

wrote in 1990 that central agencies must act on their potential as the“conveners, networkers, and acilitators o communitywide educationaleorts that include schools, but include many other institutions as well.” o do so, the agencies would have to “develop the planning andresearch capacities required or communitywide development o Jewisheducation,” something that would require a undamental shit in the“mindscape” o the agency and its leaders (pp. 13-14). Barbara Steinberg,then Executive Director o the Commission or Jewish Education o the

Palm Beaches, similarly exhorted central agencies to become sources o vision, expertise, and planning or their communities:

Bureaus must take a leadership role in providing their communities with a vision o Jewish education – and o Jewish lie – that will create



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a climate in which Jewish learning and living can ourish. Bureaus must assume high visibility in community activities; provide think tank opportunities or dreaming and problem solving; [and] create

planning processes that involve the entire Jewish community, no matter how dicult that is. (1990, p. 48)

Finally, Chaim Lauer, writing optimistically in the present tenseto describe what was in reality still only a uture potential, oered hisvision or how central agencies could be “change agents” within the eldo Jewish education:

By the choices they help make, the consensus they help develop, and

through the priorities they stress, central agencies are the systemic change agents that communities need to be proactive, responsive and state-o-the-art in the areas o Jewish education and renewal. Tey tailor general knowledge and procedures to local Jewish needs and priorities.Tey are where Community and Curriculum merge. (2001, p. 70)

New Directions: Complexity and Change

During the rst decade o the 21st century, many central agenciesaround the country have worked towards increasing their relevancy and impact within their communities and the Jewish education eldas a whole. In a 2008 report, JESNA ramed the recent work o centralagencies around the idea o “linking silos” (Wertheimer, 2005, p. 2)in Jewish education, bringing together institutions, proessionals, andprograms to create a more systematic approach to serving the needs o the Jewish community. Some o the noteworthy initiatives cited by thereport include: multi-synagogue congregational education initiatives

in Hartord, C and Philadelphia; the Jewish een Alliance o SanFrancisco, a task orce o program providers, lay leaders, teens, andunders that plans and coordinates outreach to teens throughout thecommunity; the concierge program in Los Angeles, in which Jewishproessionals oer counseling and reerral services that help amiliesnd and take advantage o educational settings and resources that are well-suited to their needs and interests; Cleveland’s creation o “twonew amily educator positions in preschools to serve as ‘bus drivers’

linking amilies to additional Jewish involvements during and ollowingpreschool”; and the myriad o proessional networks among educators inmultiple Jewish communities across the country (Belzer, 2008, p. 19).

oday, as the American Jewish community, along with the rest o



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the nation, navigates a severely challenging economic climate, the needor central agencies to enact Benderly’s vision is more pressing than ever.Te bad news or central agencies is that even as communal resources

shrink, many o them ace the same challenges o support, legitimacy,and authority that plagued them throughout the 20th century. As longas central agencies are viewed as primarily providing service and supportto a limited range o mostly mediocre Jewish educational programs (toencapsulate the typical image and stereotype o a “BJE”) it will be nearly impossible to demonstrate why such agencies should continue to receivecommunal unding. Fortunately, only a handul o communities have, atthis writing, reached the drastic conclusion that their central agencies are

no longer necessary. Yet we know that many more are teetering on theedge, as communal leaders careully weigh the value o central agenciesagainst the needs o the numerous other Jewish educational and socialservice organizations that seek the community’s limited unds.

Countering this gloomy picture, however, is the act that theeld o Jewish education has been revitalized in the past two decadesby innovations and insights that have created an environment ripe orcentral agencies to take a new role in their communities. Advances inresearch and thought both within and outside o the Jewish world havegiven us new understandings o what it takes to become a “systemicchange agent” (Lauer, 2001, p. 70) in a complex system such as theone comprised o Jewish institutions, proessionals, educators, andlearners. Te eld o complexity theory emerged in the later decadeso the twentieth century as a useul and popular way to conceptualizesystems and organizations o all kinds, rom businesses to schools toentire communities. Jonathan Woocher, then President (and now Chie Ideas Ocer) o JESNA, was the rst to suggest that complexity theory

could be used as a ramework or understanding Jewish education andits structural components. In 1999, at a gathering o educational leaders within the Reorm Movement, Woocher identied the characteristicso complex systems that are most relevant to the behaviors o Jewishinstitutions, educators and learners: the ways in which small actionsor actors (such as a particular curricular choice) can have broad andunpredictable impacts, wholes being more than the sum o their parts(such as in a synagogue or a school), the infuence o networks and

“attractors” (such as charismatic leaders) on the paths o individuals,and the necessity o learning and knowledge or successul adaptation(1999, p. 7).

Since that time, a number o thinkers in the elds o education



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and organizational change have explored urther how individuals andinstitutions can aect change within a complex system. Because changeagents in complex contexts oten must operate without ormal authority

(since there is no single authority in emergent systems) and with noexpectation o linear, immediate impacts (because complex systemsare multi-dimensional and unpredictable), the lessons o complexity seem particularly suited or the realities o central agencies. Within thisramework the challenges aced by central agencies become opportunitiesto develop distinctive strengths. Because central agencies cannot compelaction or change rom their constituencies, they must become uniquely adept at mastering the very skills that oster true and lasting change within

systems: gathering and disseminating knowledge, creating networks andostering connections, and envisioning and modeling new possibilitiesin Jewish education. In other words, to become true agents o change,central agencies must re-envision their role in their communities anddevelop their potential to inorm, involve , and inspire .

Inform: Creating and Sharing Knowledge

In a living system, knowledge and inormation aren’t merely useultools; they are the very medium through which change occurs. In thebook Getting to Maybe: How the World is Changed – an exploration o the complex and unpredictable nature o social change – the authorsillustrate the role o knowledge as a powerul social orce throughthe example o a nomadic Ethiopian tribe who quite literally rely onknowledge or survival:

Te Aaris believe it is a sacred responsibility to listen and share dagu

– a word that means inormation, though it implies more than pure data. Te Aaris are nomadic cattle herders, and they have existed or thousands o years in a harsh environment where most nomadic tribes have been wiped out. Tey claim that dagu is the secret to their longevity. “Dagu is lie” is an Aari expression.

…Te exchange o dagu trumps all other responsibilities. [Te Aaris] share what they have seen or heard about the environment, about health issues (both cattle and human), about political tensions, about

new relationships. As they talk, they provide the acts as they have seenthem or heard them, but also their interpretation o what these acts mean. Tey collectively make sense o the patterns that are emerging…Te Aaris do not believe that they can control the patterns, but that i they can understand them deeply, they can work within them and



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potentially nudge them or inuence them. (Westley, Zimmerman, &Patton, 2007, pp. 133-134)

As the patterns o Jewish lie today constantly and rapidly shit andevolve, the Jewish world needs to be as attuned to these patterns as the Aari are to the world around them. o this end, generating, analyzing,and disseminating knowledge are critical roles that central agencies canplay to maximize the chances that we can positively infuence the patternsunolding around us. Te Partnership or Jewish Lie and Learning –the central agency in Greater Washington DC – has created a Researchand Evaluation Division that works both internally with the agency’sprogramming areas and initiatives, and externally with proessionals and

organizations throughout the community. Te impetus or devotingsignicant resources to research and evaluation – a airly unusual choiceor a central agency – is the belie that knowledge cannot be adequately embedded in the communal culture through national research eortsalone. National research centers and studies have provided invaluabledata and insights about the Jewish community and the contexts in which Jewish education occurs. However, they are limited by their necessary distance rom the local communities and environments where Jewish

lie actually takes place. Tey provide a 30,000 oot view o the Jewish world, with at best an occasional snapshot o any given community orinstitution.

A community-based center or research and evaluation, incontrast, can study a single community over time and rom multipleperspectives, and oer a portrait o its Jewish lie with ar greater depthand nuance. Also, by creating ongoing relationships between research/evaluation proessionals and Jewish education practitioners and policy

makers, a central agency can help ensure that research actually inorms work on the ground rather than sitting unexamined on a bookshel.Such a body can veriy that evaluation is seen not as a “report card,” butrather as a valuable opportunity or learning and growth. Although, as will be explored more ully in the next section, knowledge is generatedrom the myriad connections and relationships that exist throughout acommunity, a central agency is uniquely positioned to help a community understand the patterns that emerge rom seemingly disconnected bitso inormation, and thereby to enable them to turn data into meaning.

Involve: Fostering Connections

Although central agencies can and should play a key role in gathering,



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analyzing and disseminating knowledge in order to eect change, thedescription o the Aari above illustrates the act that knowledge andinsight oten emerge not rom a single mind working in isolation, but

rom the collective power o many creative minds working towards thesame goal. In the words o organizational consultant Margaret Wheatley (whose work is largely inormed by complexity and systems theory):

Living systems create their own solutions. Somewhere in the system are people already practicing a solution that others think is impossible. Or they possess inormation that could help many others….o nd these solutions, the system needs to connect to more o itsel...It is crucial toremember that, in organizations [and communities], we are working

with webs o relationships…[Within these webs] we need processes tohelp us weave connections, to discover shared interests, to listen to one another’s stories and dreams. We need processes that take advantage o our natural ability to network, to communicate when something is meaningul to us. We need processes that invite us to participate, that honor our creativity and commitment. (2007, pp. 106-107)

With its links to Jewish proessionals, leaders and institutions acrossa community, a central agency can help weave the web o connectionthat is so critical to the health and momentum o living systems. Oneparticularly eective model or this is the community o practice, aconcept that took root rst in the business and general education worldsand is now becoming increasingly common among Jewish educators.Communities o practice, as dened by sociologist Ettienne Wegner (whodeveloped the concept), are “groups o people who share a concern, a seto problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledgeand expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis” (Wenger,

McDermott, & Snyder, 2002, p.4). Te key words in this denitionare “knowledge” and “interacting,” as communities o practice aregrounded in the theory that knowledge is socially constructed and thusgained not only through ormal study, but through “inormal learningprocesses such as storytelling, conversation, coaching and apprenticeshipo the kind that communities o practice provide” (Wenger et al., p. 9).Tis kind o social learning has, o course, been going on or as long ashuman history. oday, however, as our society and our work becomes

increasingly atomized, the kind o social learning that once happenednaturally must be careully orchestrated and cultivated. Although Judaism is rooted in community, our Jewish proessionals and educatorsoten work in isolation, with little opportunity or individual day school



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or congregational school or youth educators to connect with and learnrom their proessional peers.

Fostering these kinds o connections and communities is a natural

and imperative role or central agencies. More such institutions aroundthe country are working to either create or strengthen proessionalnetworks and communities o practice or the educators in their regions.Using Washington again as an example, the central agency has putcultivating communities o practice at the center o its proessionaldevelopment work, as it creates, acilitates, and advises such communitiesamong early childhood directors, adult Jewish educators, youtheducators and congregational education directors. A recent proessional

development workshop or teachers in congregational schools revealedthat these educators also sought greater connections to same-grade-levelteachers in other congregations, and as a result the Partnership will helpthe education directors create listservs and other means o connection,some o which will hopeully also evolve into true knowledge-sharingcommunities.

A second and related role or central agencies is that o modelingthe use o technology to attract, connect and involve Jews throughoutthe community, and indeed throughout the world as technology makesgeographic barriers obsolete. Most central agencies are just at thebeginning o this process, as they and the technology evolve together.In the near uture, however, we could easily see: a community’s Jewishproessionals gathering at the central agency to study with mastereducators in Israel through live, interactive “webinars”; congregationaland day school educators exploring the latest Hebrew-instructionsotware and web resources in a central agency’s computer lab; adulteducation classes, lectures, and seminars being videoed and presented

as podcasts and “vidcasts” available or viewing and downloading romthe central agency website; and central agency-sponsored interactive websites with engaging and relevant content or all segments o the Jewish community – young children and teen-agers, parents, seniors,and others.

While technology will never replace ace-to-ace learning andinteraction, it oers a powerul tool or widening the reach and scope o Jewish education. Te interactive nature o technology also helps ensure

that knowledge sharing is not a unidirectional process, with proessionaleducators as the sole “content providers” and community membersas merely a passive audience. As central agencies seek to provide new educational directions to their community, they can now harness



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technology to, as Margaret Wheatley advocates, “involve everybody whocares” in the change process:

Te simple act is that we can’t design anything that works without the involvement o all those it afects. None o us is smart enough these days to know what will work or others…We can’t orce anybody to change.We can only involve them in the change process rom the beginning and see what’s possible. I change becomes meaningul to them, they will change. I we want their support, we must welcome them as co-creators. (2007, pp. 110-111)

Inspire: Envisioning and Modeling Innovation

As the above quote declares, in addition to inviting people to beco-creators in change, we have to make them eel that the change weseek is meaningul and valuable. In other words, true, lasting changeoccurs not through imposition, but through inspiration. Or, to put itin slightly more provocative terms: “Living systems cannot be directed along a linear path…Te challenge is to disturb them in a manner thatapproximates the desired outcome” (Pascale, Milleman, & Gioja, 2002,

p. 6). “Disturb” might seem an odd word to use under the headingo “inspiring” change, but as we instinctively know, disturbing andchallenging the status quo is inherent in the process o innovation – thus“inspiring” and “disturbing” are oten two sides o the same coin. Tebusiness expert Clayton Christensen, in his classic work Te Innovator’s Dilemma, similarly reerred to innovations as “disruptive technologies.”rue innovations, he proclaims, are disruptive to existing institutions,markets and customers because they oten require a complete paradigm

shit in order to appreciate their value and commit to the changes they bring (2000, p.xv). Te authors o Getting to Maybe use an even morevivid image, applying a classic economic term to natural ecosystem, orthe dramatic impact o innovation: “creative destruction.” A orest remight seem to be the death o a orest, but in act clearing away dead wood can be the avenue to new growth and continued lie. Te authorscaution that, “Change…is always dicult. It oten means stoppingdoing something that we have done or years…But the adaptive cycletells us that unless we release the resources o time, energy, money and

skill locked up in our routines and our institutions on a regular basis,it is hard to create anything new or to look at things rom a dierentperspective” (Westley et. al., 2007, p. 68).

Tere is arguably no area in Jewish education more in need



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o “creative destruction” and a paradigm shit than congregational/supplemental education. In the past central agencies have sueredbecause they were so closely associated with a orm o Jewish education

that was widely perceived as mediocre at best, and a ailure at worst.oday central agencies have the opportunity to turn this once negativeassociation on its head by leveraging their longstanding relationships with congregations and religious schools to aect dramatic change whereit is most needed. One such eort is underway in the Washington area, where the central agency is leading an initial cohort o six congregationsin an initiative entitled “CE21 – Congregational Education or the 21st Century.” CE21 seeks to create disruptive technologies in the educational

systems o these congregations by encouraging a systemic transormationrom a schooling model to a learning model. Rather than being centeredon a classroom-based program that is largely removed rom students’experience and that usually ends when children “graduate” at thirteen,congregational education would ideally be an integrated system in which congregants o all ages have multiple opportunities or Jewishlearning that connect Jewish values, texts, and teachings to what is mostimportant and meaningul in learners’ lives.

Each o the participants in CE21 has gone through an extensiveprocess to dene the culture and values o their congregation, and createa vision o the congregation’s uture in which these goals o universallearning and engagement can be met. Over the next six months thecongregations will develop concrete models o innovative new learningstructures which will be implemented in the all o 2010. By then, asecond cohort o congregations will be launching their visioning process,the new models o the rst cohort will have been monitored andevaluated, and the lessons learned rom the entire initiative will have been

compiled, analyzed, and shared with the community and nationwide.In that way, the educational innovations within one local group o congregations can disturb the system o congregational educationenough to send ripple eects throughout the entire eld. Undoubtedly the process will not be smooth; already the congregations have had toanticipate and address internal concerns and doubts about the changesthey wish to bring about. Reinventing the religious school may indeedeel to some like “destruction” (creative or not) o an institution that was

at least amiliar and predictable, i not especially eective. But with thecentral agency as the hub o this initiative – oering planning, guidance,expertise, encouragement, and vision – the congregations will have anentire system supporting them and continuing to oer inspiration when



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and where it is most needed. Another area in which central agencies can inspire/disturb the

system in positive ways is in adult Jewish education. While most

communities oer numerous learning opportunities or adults throughsynagogues, JCCs, and independent organizations, adult learning as aeld lags behind other areas o Jewish education in terms o inrastructure,quality control, and connections among individual program providers.In addition, as technology changes the ways in which people today acquire knowledge, make meaning, and create community, adult Jewishlearning providers and practitioners must seek out new venues andmodalities in order to keep pace with learners’ needs and expectations.

Strengthening adult Jewish education thereore requires creating acommunity-wide inrastructure to support and enhance the learningopportunities and institutions that already exist, while at the same timedeveloping new prototypes that take advantage o the latest educationaltools and technologies.

Central agencies are the natural orce within a community to llthese gaps. As discussed in the previous section, expanding boundariesand connections through technology should be a ocus o every centralagency. In addition to providing web-based learning opportunities suchas podcasts and virtual study groups, central agency websites couldprovide a searchable clearinghouse and database o all adult Jewisheducation oerings in a given community. Tis would enable learnersand potential learners to access up-to-date inormation about courses andevents and raise awareness among institutions and organizations abouteach others’ work, thus acilitating communication and collaborationamong them. As an example o one program designed to enhance thequality and consistency o adult Jewish education, the central agency

in Washington has created a corps o Partnership eaching Fellows,early-career proessionals selected or their demonstrated and potentialteaching and leadership abilities. Tese educators are teaching high-quality introductory and advanced Jewish education courses throughoutthe community, building their skills through a community o practiceand mentorships with veteran educators, and developing new curriculato bring to the eld at large. As with CE21, it is expected that their work – initially on a relatively small scale – will have exponential eects, as

these educators model, promote and inspire excellence in adult Jewishlearning throughout the region.



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Conclusion: From Lever to Leaven

In describing what he hoped to accomplish with the BJE o New York

at the beginning o the last century, Samson Benderly used two evocativemetaphors. He spoke o the BJE as both a “lever or… improvement”and as the “leaven” that would allow the Jewish institutions o New York to thrive (Gannes, 1954, p.29; p. 50). Although these might bothseem to be useul metaphors or the work o any central agency, inthat they describe an object or substance that is an agent o change,in act the second is ar more meaningul or central agencies today. A lever exerts orce and creates movement, but the object acted upon

remains undamentally the same, just in a dierent position. Leaven,in contrast, completely transorms separate ingredients – such as four,eggs, and water – into a new and ar more appealing entity. In addition,the lever remains distinct rom the object it moves, while the leaven isthoroughly integrated into the substance it creates. As the authors o Getting to Maybe remind us, “We don’t stand outside the complex system we are trying to change: when it changes, we do; when we change, itdoes.” (Westley et al., 2007, p. 46). o be eective agents o changein their communities, central agencies must avoid attempts to act aslevers rather than leaven – to desist rom trying to impose movementor change on reluctant people and institutions rather than seeding thechange by providing knowledge, vision and resources that others will wish to embrace. Tis reality is slowly beginning to be understood. Inthe last ew years the central agencies in Washington, Los Angeles, andRhode Island each redrated their mission statements to include the ideao acting as a catalyst in their communities.

Tere are those who would argue that a central agency is in act

too “central,” too embedded in the status quo, to be an agent o change. A recent report exploring the “innovation ecosystem” created by Jewishstart-ups over the past decade argues that

Te Jewish communal inrastructure o the last century was built touniy, centralize, and coordinate the ragmented landscape o…Jewishorganizational lie in America…Where the unity-ocused system o the twentieth century sought to bring together a diversity o individuals in a single organization, the innovative ecosystem osters a diversity o organizations that serve specic interests, or niches. (InnovationEcosystem, 2009, p. 5)

While the vitality and creativity that many o these new



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organizations have brought to Jewish lie is evident, by arguing thatinnovation primarily occurs through organizations with specic niches orinterests, they misunderstand the nature o change in a complex system.

It is precisely because they are embedded within networks o programs,practitioners, and institutions that central agencies can catalyze the kindso connections rom which the most resonant and lasting innovationshave the potential to emerge. By ocusing on inusing knowledge intothe system, connecting the system to itsel, and creatively “disrupting”that system by providing inspiring models o vision and innovation, acentral agency can help create a healthy, living Jewish community, in which the whole is greater than the sum o its parts, each dimension is

linked by a shared sense o mission and purpose, and the entire system works in concert to adapt, innovate, and thrive.

References

Belzer, . (2008, March). Linking the silos: Reports rom the eld: How central agencies are building connections and engaging consumers. Lippman

Kaner Institute Research Brie. Washington, DC: JESNA.. Retreived romhttps://www.policyarchive.org/bitstream/handle/10207/14581/Linking%20 the%20Silos% 20--%20Reports%20rom%20the%20Field.

Christensen, C. M. (2000). Te innovator’s dilemma: When new technologies cause great rms to ail.Boston: HarperBusiness.

Elazar, D. (1990, Fall/Winter). Te uture o central agencies. Journal o JewishEducation, 58 (3,4).

Gannes, A. P. (1954). Central community agencies or Jewish education.Philadelphia: Bricklin Press.

Gannes, A. P. (1965, Spring). Te role o the central agency or Jewisheducation: comments. Journal o Jewish Education, 35 (3).

Te innovation ecosystem: Emergence o a new Jewish landscape.(2009). Los Angeles and New York: Jumpstart, Te Natan Fund, and Te SamuelBronman Foundation.

Lasday, J. (2001, Fall/Winter). Central agencies or Jewish education: A decadeo challenge and transition. Journal o Jewish Education, 67 (3), 19-26.

Lauer, C. (2001, Fall/Winter). Educating the system. Journal o JewishEducation, 67 (3), 27-31.

Lee, S. S. (1990, Fall/Winter). Future directions or central agencies o Jewisheducation. Journal o Jewish Education, 58 (3, 4), 11-14.

Pascale, R. Milleman, M., & Gioja, L. (2002). Surng the edge o chaos: Te laws o nature and the new laws o business. New York: Crown BusinessPublishing.



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Rudavsky, D. (1975, summer). Ater ty years: Spotlight on ve centralagencies o Jewish education. Journal o Jewish Education, 44 (1), 6-8.

Steinberg, B. (1990, Fall/Winter). Redening bureau eectiveness. Journal o

Jewish Education, 58 (3, 4), 47-49.oubin, I. (1965, spring). Te role o the central agency or Jewish education:

Comments. Journal o Jewish Education, 35 (3), 192-194. Wenger, E, McDermott, R., & Snyder, W. M. (2002). Cultivating communities

o practice. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Wertheimer, J. (2005). Linking the silos: How to accelerate the momentum in

Jewish education today . New York, NY: Avi Chai Foundation. Westley, F., Zimmerman, B., & Patton, M. Q..(2007). Getting to maybe: How

the world is changed . oronto: Vintage Canada.

Wheatley, M. (2007). Finding our way: Leadership or an uncertain time . SanFrancisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.

Woocher, J. (1999). A Jewish education strategy or the 21st century. Paperpresented at the UAHC Convention. Orlando, FL.

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