Strong, successful Jewish communities require confident and inspired Jewish community professionals and lay leaders, and through JCC Talent, JCC Association is committed to attracting, nurturing, developing, and retaining the most highly qualified people, as well as advancing JCCs as exemplary workplaces. JCC Talent includes JCC Association’s portfolio of well-established and successful talent offerings, resources, events, and networks and cohorts. In response to current and anticipated dynamics in the Jewish community, JCC Talent also designs, develops, and partners to deliver relevant, and innovative opportunities for JCC professionals and lay leaders.

JCC Association, through JCC Talent, offers opportunities that support JCC professionals and lay leaders across three pillars:

1. Enhance Jewish Learning: Expand and enrich JCC professionals’ and lay leaders’ understanding of Jewish principles, texts, values, and concepts, including Israel’s history, culture, and centrality to Jewish peoplehood, augmenting their ability to deliver services and to lead and manage within institutions committed to greater Jewish community and more vibrant Jewish life.
2. Foster Cultures of Inclusion and Belonging: Promote full participation, accessibility, equitable treatment, and kavod (honor) for all JCC professionals and lay leaders, making the active demonstration of respect and value for every individual essential in an environment in which they feel welcome.
3. Strengthen Talent Infrastructure: Assess and enhance design and develop processes and systems that best support recruitment, training, growth, and retention of JCC professionals and lay leaders, while working to enrich all facets of their workplace experience.

Through JCC Talent, JCC Association maximizes partnerships within and beyond the JCC Movement to train, educate, and connect JCC professionals and lay leaders. These partnerships address the unique needs of JCC professionals and lay leaders; bring specific expertise, critical content, and important experiences to JCC Movement audiences; and ensure access, relevance, and specificity in all offerings provided by other organizations.

Finally, JCC Talent builds upon and leverages the power of cohort experiences, journeys our people take with peers from other JCCs. In addition to delivering excellent learning and growth opportunities, cohort experiences develop relationships between and among JCC peers from coast to coast, supporting our belief that learning, growth, and culture building are best done, b’yachad, together.

A SAMPLE OF JCC TALENT COHORT OFFERINGS

For Early-Career Professionals

The Martin Pear Israel Fellowship: Honoring the memory and perpetuating the legacy of a longtime JCC Movement CEO, this cohort learning opportunity augments JCC Association’s ability to educate, train, and retain professionals early in their tenure within the JCC Movement. It also empowers and equips Pear Fellows to explore their own relationship to Judaism and, inspired by their experience, bring Israel to life in their JCCs in new and purposeful ways. The fellowship is made possible by a generous, multi-year gift to JCC Association. (Any JCC professional with early tenure in the JCC Movement is eligible to apply.)

Merrin Teen Professional Fellowship: Supported by the Anne Heyman and Seth Merrin Family Fund, this fellowship offers an intensive, transformative experience for early-career professionals who wish to work more extensively with teens, grow within the JCC Movement, and advance as Jewish communal professionals.

Tzedek: In partnership with Repair the World, the Tzedek (Hebrew for “justice”) initiative trains early career professionals at participating JCCs to plan and implement Jewish service-learning opportunities, augmenting their professional skills and increasing the Jewish service-learning programs their JCCs offer.

For Mid-Level Professionals

Bless Our Workforce Institute: The Institute teaches JCC managers to apply strategies that help motivate their staff teams to do their best work. Lessons are drawn from Jewish communal professionals’ narratives, secular management theory, and Jewish wisdom and tradition. The Institute is based on the book, “Bless Our Workforce: Changing the Way We Manage Our People.”

For Senior Professionals

Kivunim: Supported in part by the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Foundation, Kivunim is a one-year cohort experience designed to increase first-time JCC executive directors’ understanding of Jewish life and learning. Their participation in the program helps their agencies better achieve their goals related to Jewish living and learning.

For All JCC Professionals

JResponse^® Foundational Training (Hineni): Supported in part by The Travelers Companies, Inc., “Hineni,” which in Hebrew means “step up” or “Here I am,” enables JCC professionals to learn non-emergency crisis and disaster response skills—readiness, relief, recovery, and resilience—so they can help JCC communities prepare for natural and man-made disasters, as well as respond effectively when they occur. This training, a core component of JResponse^®, a signature program of JCC Association, promotes relationship building, augments professionals’ skills, and strengthens communities.

Awareness in Action: Jewish Mindfulness Practice: In partnership with the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, Awareness in Action uses the wisdom of Jewish middot (character traits inspired by Jewish values) and the mindfulness process to teach JCC professionals to build their personal resilience and provide relief during challenging times.

JCulture: Initially launched with a grant from the Safety, Respect, and Equity Coalition (SRE), JCulture uses Jewish wisdom and tradition as an underpinning and partners with other organizations to teach JCC professionals how to create and sustain a welcoming, safe, and respectful workplace. Such workplaces help create positive change on their teams, within their Js, and in the wider community.

KESHET: Leadership Project: In a partnership with KESHET, an organization that promotes LGBTQ equality in Jewish life, JCC Association’s KESHET: Leadership Project educates JCC professionals about creating safe spaces for LGBTQ youth, adults, and families. The program, which uses a curriculum customized for the movement and is rooted in Jewish tradition and lessons, offers intensive seminars and supports projects that promote cultural change in JCCs and the JCC network.