The 2013 Threshold Fellowship is under re-design. We are excited about taking the lessons learned from our innaugural Fellowship and applying them to the next cohort. Please check back in early November for further exciting details!

Education is arguably one of the fields in most desperate need of innovation. The Threshold Fellowship, an important new incubator for Jewish Educational Entrepreneurship, was introduced by HaOhel Institutions, Yad Yaakov’s Jerusalem branch, to enable Fellows to create their own meaningful ventures and occupations, while continuing their lifelong dream of living in Israel. On Thursday, June 28, Threshold’s first cohort of Fellows pitched their ideas that aim to solve some of the greatest challenges facing Jewish education. Launch Night was the culmination of the Fellows’ hard work over the course of a six-month program where they learned about visioning, prototyping and assessment, business models, finance, and fundraising. The Threshold Fellowship is a PresenTense Community Entrepreneur Partnership (CEP) that strengthens the connection between young adults and their Jewish communities through a fellowship that engages local innovators and professionals in cooperative ventures.

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1. Inspiration: Critically examine and diverge from initial ideas.
2. Ideation: Converge on a business model and prototype. Test assumptions.
3. Implementation: Actualize the final concept.

Learnings occur within in the following components, concluding with Launch Night at the end of June:

1. Seminars: The program kicks off each month with a Seminar, giving the Fellows the tools and structure they need to move their venture to the next phase. At the core of our pedagogical model is trans-media theory, enabling us to use narrative storytelling to explain difficult concepts such as value proposition, business model development, operation planning and more.
2. Clusters: Fellows are grouped into clusters of three to four, determined either by the stage of the venture and/or the area of focus. The goal of the clusters is to build a practice of reflection and openness to feedback, as well as a community of peer-support to enable to the Fellows to advocate for one another throughout their development. The Fellows meet with their clusters every month. During each cluster, two Fellows are invited to workshop a challenge they are experiencing, and is moderated according to Harvard’s Hotseat methodology.
3. Venture Milestones: After participating in each Seminar, the Fellows are responsible to apply the lessons learned and turn in a Venture Milestone assignment; coaches help them along. The Fellows will submit a total of 6 venture milestones throughout the course of the Fellowship, the last of which is an executive summary created from the previous five. By the end of the program, fellows have the foundation for a solid business plan.
4. Round Tables are case studies by entrepreneurs that relate the topic of the current phase to their experiences starting their companies. Throughout the course of the Fellowship, Fellows meet with at least six different Round Table presenters.
5. Mentors: Drawn from a community’s skilled professionals, mentors support fellows through counsel in an area of expertise, support through potential networking opportunities, and as an example and a role model.
6. Launch Night is both an educational opportunity to learn networking and promotion and also a no-holds-barred opportunity for social entrepreneurs to pitch their venture to potential investors and partners in the community. And it’s a whole lot of fun.

Welcome to the Threshold (www.Threshold.org.il), a Jewish educational entrepreneurship incubator in Israel, an incubator to help educators not only thrive financially in Israel, but do what they do best – educate.

It’s Thursday night and the presentation hall at the Hebrew University Givat Ram campus is full of energy and verve.

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The energy was high, the introductions were great, and the fellows were…..

Let’s just say that they were a formidable bunch for the inauguration of the Threshold Fellowship! They set the standard pretty high!

Here are some pictures:

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We know that where necessity is the mother of invention, boredom can easily drive us towards innovation as well. I’m speaking, of course, about food. Each and every one of us knows what it’s like to compulsively open and close the kitchen cabinets, drawers, and refrigerator in search of something new to eat, and we are constantly inventing new flavor combinations and ways to present the foods we already feel accustomed to. This may very well explain why cookbooks are a $400 million a year industry. With all the food crazes sweeping the world, the kosher consumer finds himself a bit more alone, only drooling over the images on TV, the smell wafting out of Taco Bell, and his inability to participate in work sponsored lunches.

A Brooklyn-based marketing consulting firm posted that in 2011, that there were 12,250,000 kosher consumers in the U.S. alone. Of these consumers, only 8 percent actually keep kosher all the time, while 55 percent buy kosher products for health and safety reasons. This minority also needs to satisfy its pallet and fulfill a basic desire we all share- gastronomic renewal! With so many messages flooding food product advertisements, kosher food trends have largely been determined by local tastes and trends, giving birth to a world of processed masked foods, in an attempt to satisfy our national pallet.

Some of the earlier products to hit the imitation food wave were “breaded shrimp” and beef-stick “Slim Jims”. Not long after, the kosher sushi craze swept the nation and “surimi,” imitation crab meat made its debut. Instead of looking for natural Jewish food sources, the food industry sought to merely create artifical imitations of non-kosher foods.

One of the most classic examples of underutilized potential and exciting food sources are the dozens of kosher bird varieties uncommon in our diet, including quail, pheasant, and partridge. Man was told by G-D in Genesis to go out and conquer the earth. I’d like to think that being passive won’t fill our bellies. This negation of our G-D given resources is what drives me as a chef, and has given birth to my venture, Super Slav Quail Farm. This small shkitah program is a call to action. It addresses major issues with us as consumers, and as traditionalists. As consumers, we have an opportunity to experience newness. As traditionalists, we have a unique opportunity to revive a waning tradition and set the trend, while the world follows us for a change.

In closing I’d like to thank the Threshold Fellowship for their unwavering guidance in helping me hone in on my project’s concept, and for the platform to share my passion with you.

Chaim Davids hails from Baltimore, Maryland where he was raised in a Jewish religious family in a lower-middle class neighborhood. As the youngest of six, and the child of working parents, his earliest dreams were to pursue a career in fine dining. Chaim made Aliyah in April 2010 and is currently living in Jerusalem. In his own words, “The world of food is very much who I am. I have mastered many facets of food service including international cuisine, butchery, and wine-making. My colorful career has led me to Israel, where my ideological pursuits are leading me to plant deeper roots in settling the land and ultimately contributing my portion to the future of the Jewish people. Often when people are asked who they are, they respond with their profession. I am fortunate that my profession is my passion – i.e., food creation through working with the earth.”

Jewish education can do better. There is widespread agreement that K-12 day schools in the Diaspora are failing. Institutions are struggling with sustainability, and parents are grappling with prohibitive tuition. And the most inconvenient truth, widely recognized but seldom discussed, is that Jewish educational outcomes are very weak.

In fact, while stakeholders in Jewish education range the full spectrum of denominational and religious differences, almost all agree that graduates should have the basic Jewish literacy to read Hebrew, engage Jewish texts (ritual, prayer, historical, etc.) and familiarity with core Jewish content including Bible and Jewish history. And yet, schools of all types, after school programs, community schools and day schools underperform their own expectations and fail to deliver Jewish literacy to many students.

Schneider Learning brings a fresh, practical solution to restore the vitality of Jewish education in the 21st century, and secure Jewish future for the “People of the Book.” It all begins with an idea. Learning should move to mastery. That means that a student – every student – should progressively acquire knowledge and skills that serve as the foundation for a lifetime of independent learning. It also presupposes the recognition that students differ from one another; they differ in their interests, their learning styles and their skill sets, just as they differ in their hair and eye colors.

Schneider Learning individualizes Jewish education and increases outcomes by mapping-out a comprehensive set of foundation knowledge and skills, assessing each learner and personalizing the learning experience to engage and move the learner towards mastery. Two students are scoring 70′s in Bible study, and their homework assignments and class lessons are exactly the same as those of all their 20+ classmates. But a careful assessment reveals that Jonny asks great questions, but his pronunciation and translation skills are so weak, he often makes (incorrect) educated guesses. Steve on the other hand, gets the same grade on the test but struggles for an entirely different reason. His assessment reveals that his word-for-word translations are quite accurate, but he does not understand the context (the bigger picture) or the flow of ideas and how they relate to each other. This assessment indicates two different solutions for Jonny and Steve, even though they score the same marks!

The next hurdle is how does Mrs. Rosen differentiate instruction to different students? What if Rabbi Green is really good at inspiring and entertaining, but he is not trained in specific skill building or teaching visual learners? The answer is, they can only do their best, but their best requires sacrificing some students as collateral damage. In reality, there is a way for Mrs. Rosen and Rabbi Green to identify students’ needs and deliver individualized learning experiences. Schneider Learning gives teachers, and their educational colleagues, access to lessons and modules that do some of the work for them.

Already 17-months in development, with a 2-year pilot program with over 200 students, Schneider Learning leverages technology as a platform for assessment and content delivery. By doing so, there is newly added value in Jewish education, scalable to reach institutions, students and independent users around the world. By empowering teachers with meaningful, user-friendly visual profiles for each of their students, they can see each student for who they are. And by using Schneider Learning for content delivery, teachers can give each student what they need to succeed! With a deep bank of lessons, multimedia and interactive modules, Schneider Learning assessments prescribe specific content. For homework, or class work time, Mrs. Rosen can send Jonny and Steve to work on the Schneider Learning platform on their computer or iPad. Jonny can learn the vocabulary and conjugations he’ll need through a gamified interactive module. And Steve can learn more about the overall narrative, key figures and terms that will come-up in the class lesson by watching selected animated videos, narrated by some of the best educators in the world.

Schneider Learning is all about making mastery more possible. For every learner, there is an individualized learning experience. For every teacher, there are multiple ways to incorporate the platform without adding any time to the schedule (for blended learning, flipped classroom instruction, differentiated class work or homework assignments). For every school, there is an opportunity to increase student engagement and student success. And for every shareholder interested in accountability, better outcomes and a return on their tuition investment, there is a way to ensure our students and institutions’ success.

Uri Schneider is the founder and director of Schneider Learning (www.schneiderlearning.com). He is also co-director of Schneider Speech (www.schneiderspeech.com) with offices in NY, Israel and via Skype.

Join us at Launch Night to meet our superstars- June 28!

Learn more and RSVP here: http://www.threshold.org.il/launch-night/

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Being a Threshold Fellow this year has been a real eye opener. Being that I was already in the midst of the pilot program of the Israel Herb School (www.IsraelHerbSchool.com), it has been a great aid to my thinking to be attending sessions on subjects related to organizational development at the same time as putting these into practice. Out of this experience has come a greater perspective for the work I am engaged in seeing that the possibility is much more than just a school. I have thus been able to envision and put to work a greater initiative than I thought possible. While I started off with a pilot program of the Israel Herb School, we have since expanded. The new home for the Israel Herb School and its affiliate programs is the Elah Initiative.

Haelah Initiative is a land restoration and experiential education organization based in the Emek HaEla. The Elah Valley is one of the treasures of botanical richness, wildlife, and archaeological abundance in Israel. It is also a place where development, building, and mining are taking their toll on the environment. Having worked in experiential education for over 15 years teaching ecology and botanical medicine, we have watched the seasons come and go and many hillsides fall away as tractors push the topsoil aside to make way for buildings and quarries dig out the bones of the earth. This, of course, is a saddening direction to see in our beautiful valley. It has however, given a strong sense of the deep value that nature offers to us as source for food and medicine, and as the great stimulator for artistic expression. These changes have also awakened us to the need to actively engage in botanical diversity preservation, education, and seed banks for posterity.

The Elah Initiative has been formed to enable residents and volunteers to come together to preserve the natural wealth of the area through the Israel Herb School and these additional projects:

Wild Plant seeders Project: Seeds will be gathered, preserved and regrown in our “garden library” and then re-sown in the hills in areas where populations of wild plants are declining.
Seed Bank Library: A place where the botany of the area will be studied and documented. This will then be a resource for organizations and individuals who wish to work in the area to preserve the biodiversity that is present.
Land Stewardship Scholarship Fund: The fund was created for students who wish to study botany, plant medicine, art, and botanical restoration/preservation in depth. Individuals who are qualified will pass through a 5 month course of study to become intimate with the terrain of the Emek Haela and the many healing and edible plants that exist here. Graduates will then be able to work in the seed bank and in the Wild plant seeders project to replenish the hill sides with Native plants.
Nature of Art/Art of Nature: An incubator for aspiring artists to go deeply into their work and bring forth a fresh vision of Human and Nature in a mutually beneficial relationship.
Volunteer based Protect the Hills campaign “Leave no Trace”: 
Effective waste receptacles, instruction in “leave no trace” principals, and monitors to walk the hills will be set up and maintained during the busy flower seasons. These monitors will educate people about the natural bounty in an informal way and point out endangered plants and how to protect them. These monitors will also talk about the trash issue and point out where the trash receptacles are. As it is now, much trash is left in the hills from folks who don’t know better or know the importance.

Through these projects of The Elah Initiative we are aspiring to take Botanical Medicine back to the nature from which our school gets its name and to establish a health balance with nature for posterity. Thanks to Threshold for the inspiration and help in making this happen.

Baruch Shapiro is a husband, father, herbalist, and director of Israel Herb School in the Emek Haela of Israel. He has created a school where the teaching of the land based skills of farming and healing go hand in hand with Torah and open minded Judaism. He has been teaching and gardening for 12 years, is active in ecological and social issues within the Emek Haelah. Baruch loves playing and learning with his children, practicing the classical guitar, and investigating the ancient and new wisdom of the Jewish People. He is an avid gardener as well and enjoys starting seeds and vegetable and herb gardens and teaching people to take care of their health using available botanical remedies from the garden.

A wise person once relayed to me the following allegory: life is a ballroom, and we as the dancers, move in graceful harmony with the tune emanating from The Conductor on high. Inevitably, the time comes when the dancers must re-adjust their steps when a different tune begins to fill the atmosphere…

As social entrepreneurs, we must remain particularly keen to the ever-changing conditions permeating our particular business niche. Perhaps the most major shifts occurring within the ecosystem of Jewish initiatives over the past five years, and one that Present Tense has clearly picked up on, has been the manifest untenability of continuing to rely on philanthropy. Following several discussions I had with experts in the Threshold network, I accepted the reality that my vision for producing the Cruisin with DAJUS App was indeed predicated on this unsustainable and antiquated model.

Running parallel to this process was my peripheral involvement with another burgeoning project in the world of Jewish education. Over the past few years, I have had the tremendous privilege of being acquainted with Rabbi Doniel Katz. In an astonishingly brief amount of time, the youthful yet unmistakably wise Rabbi Katz has risen to become one of the most sought after Jewish educators on the international circuit. Having spent more than a decade immersed in the holy works of Chassidus, Kabbalah, and Mussar, his secular background as a spiritually driven award winning filmmaker in Australia shines through in his unique teaching methodology as he eloquently weaves vibrant a tapestry of Jewish mysticism, dramatic narrative, and contemporary culture.

One of Rabbi Katz’ most successful classes is a 13-part series entitled When Boy Meets Girl: A Kabbalistic Perspective. He has been developing and refining this material for over six years. As the story goes, Rabbi Katz first initiated the course in the modest context of the Aish HaTorah essentials program. Within a few weeks, it occupied an entire auditorium as 150 young people consistently flocked to the Old City every evening in order to experience 2.5 hours of transformative Torah.

There are too many aspects of this course to sufficiently summarize its contents. However, in Rabbi Katz’ own words, the course “is a provocative primer on the mystical model of male/female relationships which leveraged and expanded to explore many themes of the world we live in, including science, psychology, history, modern culture, spirituality and the profundity of Torah’s wisdom in all areas of our life.”

Having been a personal friend, spiritual mentor, and media adviser of mine, Rabbi Katz asked me to join him as a creative producer in order to help transform the Boy Meets Girl course into a dynamic online video series for worldwide distribution. Recognizing my passion for dynamic multimedia and skills in event organizing on a transnational scale, Rabbi Katz has opened up a window for me assume a leadership role in bringing this paradigm-shifting project to life. The plan is to adapt the Boy Meets Girl content into 24 highly-addictive one hour episodes marketed to a global universal audience, both Jewish and non-Jewish.

Within this context, Rabbi Katz invited me to bring my creative visioning into the initial project development, video production, and marketing processes. For the later, I envision the first 12 episodes being rolled out on a bi-weekly basis at a gala event taking place in a different city across the world. Each event will feature a screening of the new episode, musical performances, and a panel discussion with local leaders, visionaries, and cultural personalities, all in front of a live studio audience. The resultant experience would be broadcast live via the internet. Given the palpating international demand for Rabbi Katz as a lecturer, as well as my own international connections in the world of Jewish thought, media, and innovation, pulling off a blow-away multimedia educational event of this magnitude is doubtlessly within our grasp. The episodes themselves will be available for direct download at $2.99 a piece. Coupled with our savvy launch and marketing strategy, this is a product that has the power to generate significant international buzz, reach a wide and universal audience, and generate substantial profit.

Beyond the lucrative prospects of this project, there are ideological objectives which run parallel to what I have been trying to achieve in my work with DAJUS. Lamentably, there exists very little authentic spiritual content emanating from the Jewish world that is accessible to wider non-Jewish public. Part of this project is about putting Judaism back on the map as a universal force capable of delivering highly stimulating spiritual content and practical tools for living more fulfilled lives. If we are successful in this endeavor, what inevitably follows is a tremendous Kiddush Hashem that has the power to wholly reinvigorate the relevance of Jewish identity for the countless disengaged young Jews of our generation.

Given my profound belief in the content of this series, my desire to produce transformative media and events at an international level, and the evident profitability of this venture, I felt that this new melody was one worth adjusting my dance to. Let the song begin! http://www.thesongbegins.com/
Born in 1985 and raised in Arizona, Yaakov earned a B.A. in Global Studies from the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he was intensely involved in environmental and community activism, ultimately organizing a (now annual) 3,000 person music and arts festival based on zero waste principles. He went on to earn an M.A. in Global History from the London School of Economics and an M.A. in Global Studies from the University of Vienna. Yaakov was a Founding Member of Moishe House Vienna and is Founder and Director of DAJUS (‘Da Jews’), an organization dedicated to publicizing the Torah values of Diversity Awareness Justice Understanding and Sustainability through creative media. Yaakov recently won the Jewlicious Festival Jewish Film Competition for a series entitled “Cruisin with DaJus”. Yaakov is proficient in Hebrew and Mandarin Chinese.