Staff Stories

For the past year, Claudia Horwitz, Shifra Bronznick, and I have been working together to discern how the Nathan Cummings Foundation can continue to strengthen Jewish movements for justice for the long-haul at a time of racial injustice, growing antisemitism, assaults on democracy, and growing global authoritarianism. 

The exploration is part of a larger body of work in the Voice, Creativity, and Culture portfolio that includes building the power and capacity of multifaith movements for justice to shift dominant narratives about race, class, gender, and ethnicity and building the solidarity and empathy necessary for a multiracial, democratic society. 

We are writing to update you on our progress and let you know about a significant investment the Nathan Cummings Foundation is making to deepen the internal and spiritual capacities of Jewish justice leaders. 

We heard from many of you that, in order for the US Jewish community to more directly lend our collective power to the birthing of a multiethnic democratic society in America, the Nathan Cummings Foundation — in addition to our funding for the Jewish justice movement ecology — should explore long-term, capacity building investments (like the foundation did fifteen years ago with the Selah Leadership Initiative) in the internal and spiritual capacity of Jewish leaders engaged in pursuing justice. 

We heard a clear, collective hunger to steep movement work in the Jewish tradition’s rich lineage of sacred text, prophetic teachings, ritual, and song.  

We heard a call to support Jewish justice leaders in deepening  their analyses on antisemitism, racism, economic inequality, and other forms of oppression, and the ways they feed on one another.  

We heard a need to help Jewish organizers better understand their relationship to non-Jewish communities and for catalytic investments in the leadership of Jews of Color, LGBTQ Jews, working-class Jews, and other Jews more likely to be on the margins. We heard that a range of experiments are already underway to make this well of resources more accessible and impactful for more people in our community and our movement. 

Responding to these needs, the Board of the Nathan Cummings Foundation approved an initial $900,000, two-year grant to the Rise Up Initiative, which will fund, coach, and convene a range of initiatives that strengthen the internal and spiritual capacity of the Jewish community to lend its power to intersectional movements for justice. 

The Rise Up Initiative will focus on funding and supporting experimental initiatives at the intersection of transformative leadership rooted in Jewish tradition and justice movements, helping to amplify and synthesize their fruit. Shining and mirroring this work out to a larger circle will scale up impact on individuals, organizations, institutions, and existing networks.  Ultimately, we hope this work will equip Jewish justice leaders with internal capacities to boldly lead in helping to birth a multiracial democracy in America. 

The Rise Up Initiative’s strategies will be: 

1. Grantmaking to spur innovation, with a focus on experimental work that has seen early success and/or the potential to transform both social justice institutions and movement building.  Limited rapid response funds are also available. 
2. Offer tailored leadership and organizational assistance through coaching, training, consulting, and mentorship.  This is designed to help leaders manage adaptive challenges, and cultivate shared leadership, deeper listening, and strong strategy. 
3. Convene “bright nodes” of work to deepen relationships, cross-pollinate capacities, and integrate wisdom.  Recognizing the energy it takes to bring people together, we will make creative use of available virtual modalities for connection to both build toward and sustain follow up from in-person convenings.
4. Capture and share stories and strong practice through participatory research and multi-media dissemination.  We want to help folks create innovative ways to document and share their work through a range of mediums.
5. Lay groundwork for a Radical Yeshivah, an exciting idea that emerged during the interviews and has the potential to respond to many of the aspirations named by practitioners. A diverse group will take this ancient form, and lessons from current exciting iterations, and design an approach that embodies the social justice movement in form, content, and spirit. 

The Rise Up Initiative will be staffed by Claudia Horwitz and fiscally sponsored by the Social Good Fund. Regular update calls and communications will provide opportunities for ongoing feedback and updates on the initiative. We hope over time to attract additional funding partners to grow The Rise Up Initiative’s potential for impact and capacity for grantmaking. 

The Rise Up Initiative will continue to work with key partners that helped immeasurably during our strategy development.

• Inside Out Wisdom and Action Project, led by Rabbi David Jaffe and Dan Gelbtuch, builds capacity of Jewish social justice activists through classical Jewish spiritual practices (Chasidut and Musar) to turn burnout and despair into creativity and resilience. 
• Jewish Women of Color Resilience Circle, led by Yavilah McCoy, supports Jewish women leaders of color through a transformational leadership development practice that links activism, relationship building, spirituality, and self-care. 
• Taproot, led by Rabbis Irwin Keller, Diane Elliott, and Eli Herb and organizers Adam Horowitz, Rachel Plattus, and David Bronstein, supports an immersive, week-long gathering of intergenerational Jewish study and experience for a diverse group of activists, artists, and changemakers to tap into their Jewish background for resilience strategies and wisdom in the Bay Area. 
• Reconstructing Judaism’s Reset Initiative, led by Jessica Rosenberg, supports Jewish justice organizations to develop approaches of combining spiritual and other resilience practices to transform and invigorate organizational culture. 

It has been a sincere pleasure to speak with so many of you about this project, and we welcome your thoughts and questions. If you are interested in learning more about the work as it evolves or how to get involved, click here to sign up for updates.