PROOF | December 2015

DECEMBER 2015

The age of the ‘real book’ is not yet over.

PJ LIBRARY AND THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN JEWISH LIFE

BY DANIEL GORDIS

ALSO

AN INT RODUC TION T PJ LIBR O ARY’S P R OG R A M FOR AG ES 9-11 HOW P J LIBR A TR A N S RY FORM E D BOS T ON AN D M ORE!

PJ

BY THE NUMBERS

TOTAL NUMBER OF PJ BOOKS CANADA

9,915

NORTHWEST

3,613

MIDWEST

23,654 WEST

28,823

MEXICO

2,732

GLOBAL PRESENCE United Kingdom

2,513

Australia

1,106

Singapore

33

NEW!

Russia

2,000

PJ Library in Russian launched November 1st with 2,000 funded subscriptions available for children ages 4-7 in Moscow.

MAILED BY REGION AND COUNTRY IN NOVEMBER 2015

NORTHEAST

32,291

8,238,526 books have been distributed in the United States and Canada

MID-ATLANTIC

24,832

DID YOU KNOW?

SOUTHEAST

14,101

Sifriyat Pijama B’America delivers a monthly gift of children’s books and music in Hebrew to 14,860 children ages 2-8 in the United States.

Israel

245,000

Sifriyat Pijama, PJ Library’s sister program, gifts Hebrew language children’s books each

month to 245,000 preschoolers in Israel. This year the program launched Sifriyat Pijama l’Ktantanim (Sifriyat Pijama for Little Kids). Funded with women’s organizations WIZO, Emunah, and Na’amat, the program will reach 10,000 children in daycare centers (ages 2-3).

THE

FOREWORD O

n my first site visit last spring, Harold and I attended a cocktail party in Phoenix to thank local PJ Library funders–many of them young parents–for partnering with the Harold Grinspoon Foundation. As Harold and I approached the home where the reception was being held, I saw something I thought was unusual for a cocktail party. Outside were a dozen or so children, some in pajamas, waiting with their parents. I was worried the Q&A we had planned wouldn’t work with this surprise audience, but Harold was unfazed. My 86-yearold boss strode across the lawn to the families and started shaking hands, hugging babies, and signing autographs in PJ books.

“Ari, this is the man who sends you PJ Library books every month!” exclaimed one of the attendees to their young child. Photos were taken, the children left, and their parents filtered inside.

I’ve been lucky in my career to work with dozens of generous funders, but I’ve never seen one signing autographs until this experience with Harold. It’s not hard to understand why someone would want Harold’s autograph.

To them, he is more than a philanthropist.

His name evokes a quiet, important Jewish experience that parents around the world are having with their children. To my generation it’s like having the chance to thank Helena Rubenstein for Sesame Street.

If you recently learned about PJ Library, it may be difficult to comprehend just how far and how fast we’ve come. Ten years ago, PJ Library was a local program in our home community of Western Massachusetts. It started with 200 families! The speed of our growth is in part thanks to donors like the ones we met with in Phoenix, local families

Cover photo:The Stewarts, a PJ Library family in Brooklyn, New York

supporting PJ in their communities.

As the night progressed, many topics of conversation revolved around the reach of PJ Library. Harold’s partnership model has created connections that span states and cross oceans. It became clear to me just how far we could go.

With that in mind, in this issue we think about the future of PJ Library. I encourage you to start by soaking in the map on the previous page, and thinking about what we’ve done through individual and organizational partnerships in the last ten years.You’ll also read a moving piece from our friend Daniel Gordis. He writes about what the global PJ community could look like after another 20 years of PJ Library.

To another 20 years, and many, many more after that.

Will Schneider Director of Advancement

PJ LIBRARY AND

THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN JEWISH LIFE

BY DANIEL GORDIS

Photo by Stefanie Cohen Photography

A

Families create bubble wands while learning about Jewish connections to bubbles during “Summer Splash,” a PJ Library / Shalom Families engagement program by The Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando.

The Jewish world I imagine after another 20 years of PJ Library is a much better Jewish world. It’s a world in which thousands upon thousands of Jewish children who would not have had the opportunity now have a lifetime of memories of Jewish moments infusing their most intimate moments with their parents.

couple of years ago, I happened to be in the home of the children of friends of ours who, in turn, had three children of their own. It was a weekday afternoon. The father was at work and the mom had just come home from picking up one of the kids from school when the grandparents (our friends) and I joined the mix.

No sooner were a couple of kids in the house than they noticed a package on the table, and began excitedly asking their mother if they could open it. “Read it!” they said to her. It was clear that everyone except for me knew what was in the package. I took a look. It said something about “PJ Library,” a program about which I’d heard something, but at that point, I knew almost nothing.

Since that time, I’ve had occasion to learn a substantial bit about what is clearly a highly creative and impactful program in the United States, Israel and beyond. PJ Library has grown to include more than 200 communities in the United States and Canada, and has sent out more than 8.6 million books–and more than 14 million globally. Each of the more than 140,000 children who participate in the United States and Canada receive 11 books and one music CD throughout the year. At present, children between the ages of 6 months through 8 years are eligible to participate.

This is infinitely more than a “sendsome-kids-some-books” program. About 51 percent of those who described

Photo by Stefanie Cohen Photography

themselves as having “very low” levels of Jewish engagement prior to the program report that PJ Library has led them to increase their Jewish engagement. Sixty-two percent report that the PJ Library experience has increased their family’s positive feelings about being Jewish, and 58 percent report that PJ Library moderately or greatly added to their family’s decision to add a Jewish tradition to their household or to deepen one in which they were already involved.

One of the conclusions that must now be drawn about Jewish identity in America from the studies that the Harold Grinspoon Foundation has conducted–along with other studies such as the Pew Portrait of American Jewry–is that Jewish identity is both eroded with relative ease in America, but it is also strengthened with well-defined, strategically timed interventions. The PJ Library project takes into account several factors that Jewish tradition has recognized for thousands of years:

A family waits for story time to start at a PJ Library / Shalom Families engagement program by The Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando.

• A critical dimension of Jewish identity formation is the responsibility of parents.

American Jewish life has, in large measure, built systems through which American Jewish parents can outsource that identity-building element of parenting to others– Hebrew schools and camps, and to a lesser extent, youth groups and synagogues–but the failing results are now obvious.

• B edtime is a virtually sacred time in the development of any healthy child-centered environment. Goodnight, Moon and many other children’s books recognize this, as does the Jewish tradition. When the tradition established that parents should sing the Shema to their children at night, when more observant families add to that moment the prayer, The Angel Who Redeems Me, as well as other liturgical elements, they are all recognizing the momentous power of bedtime, and the lifelong memories it can create. PJ Library taps into that great insight, as well.

• Identity is formed largely by storytelling. That is why Jews read the Torah at the center of their Shabbat morning worship–that is why Passover–the celebration of our freedom, is a ritual around the telling of a story, and that is why story telling has become such a central Jewish art and a central pillar of so many other traditions (think The Iliad and The Odyssey). PJ Library, in providing stories for parents to read to their children, enables them to connect to this longstanding human and Jewish tradition, as well, and in so doing, to help frame and deepen their child’s identities as Jews.

In addition to PJ Library dovetailing with these three longstanding Jewish commitments, it reflects another Jewish commitment, the importance of which is becoming even more pronounced in our own time–the need for a physical Jewish library. The age of the “real” book is not yet over, but the digital period is clearly challenging it. More and more, kids are playing not with Monopoly, Chutes and Ladders, or Battleship, but rather, are playing games on their parents’ (and their own) iPads.

PJ Library is thus, through the “simple” act of periodically delivering a book, restoring the role of Jewish parents in identity formation. PJ Library is equipping parents with tools to transform bedtime into a powerful Jewish moment. It is restoring Jewish storytelling to the center of Jewish life. And finally, PJ Library is equipping young families to begin building their Jewish children’s libraries.

So, where might we be in 20 years if PJ Library continues its work?

We have seen in American Jewish life that short, powerful interventions have the capacity to effect dramatic change in Jewish young people.

Beyond PJ Library, this is evident from Birthright, for example, in which a short trip to Israel at the dawning of adulthood dramatically alters young people’s attitudes to being Jewish, to Israel, and to their views on whom they should marry. Interventions do make a difference–that is clear.

The Jewish world I imagine after another 20 years of PJ Library is a much better Jewish world. It’s a world in which thousands upon thousands of Jewish children who would not have had this opportunity now have a lifetime of memories of Jewish moments infusing their most intimate moments with their parents. It’s a world in which, instead of thousands of young Jewish adults for whom being Jewish never meant anything at all, it is a Jewish world in which they harbor instinctive sensibility that

Photo by Stefanie Cohen Photography

Photo by Stefanie Cohen Photography

Children dance at a butterfly nursery during a Rosh Hashanah “Growing and Changing” event, and families enjoy a picnic dinner together at “Mother’s Day Shabbat in the Park,” at PJ Library / Shalom Families engagement programs by The Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando.

PJ Library is thus, through the “simple” act of periodically delivering a book, restoring the role of Jewish parents in identity formation. PJ Library is equipping parents with tools to transform bedtime into a powerful Jewish moment. It is restoring Jewish storytelling to the center of Jewish life. And finally, PJ Library is equipping young families to begin building their Jewish children’s libraries. being Jewish is fun, that it’s about living according to certain hallowed values.

It’s a world in which Jewish children (and their parents) have warm and loving memories of the same book– precisely the kinds of memories that bind people together to serve as part of the glue that makes communities.

The Jewish world that I imagine after another few decades of PJ

Library is a world in which children grow up knowing that there are Jews who are very different from them (because they’ve read about them in PJ Library books), but they know–and feel–that they are part of the same people, and they feel a connection and a commitment to them. It’s a world in which Jewish families have an awareness that their lives were enriched by the generosity of their own community–can we even imagine what that might do to their own commitment to tzedakah down the road?

The Jewish world I envision–a Jewish world “planted” by PJ Library but then cultivated by camps, by Birthright, and by a host of other inputs–is a Jewish world in which the slide away from Jewish non-caring (as illustrated by the recent Pew study) has been halted or at least slowed, in which Jews are beginning to embrace their tradition once again. PJ Library, in a Jewish world in which many American Jewish parents do not know how to get started, may be

exactly what is needed to get families to embark on this conversation.

Jewish life and Jewish identity have always started in the home. We know that the first 2,000 days of a child’s life are enormously important in shaping his/her future commitments, loves, and identity. When Jewish homes can no longer sustain or foster Jewish identity, during those 2,000 first days or thereafter, Jewish communities have no future. We are beginning to see the impact of the Jewishly empty homes that now characterize American Judaism –but we are also witness to what a smart, strategic program like PJ Library can accomplish. When Jewish homes do regain the capacity to infuse Jewish values and warmth into the lives of their children, Jewish life at large has a brightly shining future. It will need cultivation, but there is cause for great hope.

That hope is the product of the insight, creativity, and generosity behind the project called PJ Library.

Daniel Gordis is Senior Vice President, Koret Distinguished Fellow, and Chair of the Core Curriculum at Shalem College, Israel’s first liberal arts college, in Jerusalem. His latest book is Menachem Begin: The Battle for Israel’s Soul. He is now writing a concise history of the State of Israel.

THE NEXT CHAPTER OF PJ LIBRARY

PJ OUR WAY W

hat’s next?” is the question often heard from community partners, funders, and families when children age out of PJ Library after age 8. It is no surprise that families want the PJ Library experience to continue for their children. Meanwhile, community partners have the added challenge of engaging older kids in local programming. Once PJ Library ends, so ends much of the natural pathway that connects families and children to community activity and outreach.

PJ Our Way is the next chapter of PJ Library. As a program aimed at 9-to 11-year-olds, PJ Our Way is designed to engage subscribers from the moment they sign up on the website to well after they finish their books.

Kids in this age group are not yet teens and still care deeply about adult approval, yet they crave avenues for independence, creativity, and peer-topeer connection.

While PJ Our Way still boasts the highquality books with Jewish themes, the new program has additional features to reach this older audience: • Each month, kids visit www.pjourway.org and choose one book from a selection of four titles reviewed by a panel of PJ educators, parents, and kids. A book does not automatically arrive in the mail, it has to be chosen each month.

• The PJ Our Way website is a platform where kids can share their ideas with peers and post reviews about the books they’ve read. For each book offered, the website has book summaries, author bios, quizzes, polls, kid reviews, and tween-produced book trailers to help subscribers make their monthly choice.

• T he PJ Our Way strategy is to empower kids to create their mode of interaction. Subscribers can apply to be part of the national Design Team, which receives early access to PJOW books and creates videos and reviews for the website. Community partners are encouraged to develop local Design Teams, whose activities are highlighted on the website. Kids from around the country review books for the lineup and weigh in on major program decisions.

AGES 9-11

“

I think it’s an amazing program. Aside from the nice feeling of receiving a book, it also fosters the feeling of community and a sense of responsibility to keep it strong. Programs like these make me feel cared for and that me and my children matter.

I’m hopeful that my kids will receive a similar message.To know that we are not alone and that we have a community that cares for us not only in times of need, but always.

”

PJ Our Way Parent, Miami

As a program aimed at 9-to 11-year-olds, PJ Our Way is designed to engage subscribers from the moment they sign up on the website to well after they finish their books. Kids in this age group are not yet teens and still care deeply about adult approval, yet they crave avenues for independence, creativity, and peer-to-peer connection.

In October of 2014, the Harold Grinspoon Foundation launched PJ Our Way pilot programs in 10 communities. We then hired Tobin Belzer, PhD., a sociologist at University of Southern California, to conduct a formative evaluation of the pilot. A 47 percent response rate reflected high interest and engagement with PJ Our Way. Respondents were very enthusiastic about the program overall: almost 75 percent indicated they are very satisfied with the program, while 85 percent of parents said they were very likely to recommend

the program. Parents from every community offered positive feedback about PJ Our Way. Many mentioned how the program is helping their children expand their reading options and that PJ Our Way has brought books into their lives that they would not otherwise have discovered.

This fall and continuing through the next year, more than 40 additional communities will implement the program. We look forward to expanding PJ Our Way and furthering the connection PJ Library creates for participating families and their communities.

Watch design team videos and read PJ Our Way book reviews by visiting www.pjourway.org

HOW PJ LIBRARY IS TRANSFOR

BY MARK SOKOLL, PRESIDENT AND CEO, JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTERS OF GREATER BOSTON

We are all enriched by every family that becomes a part of the community and are grateful that PJ Library provides that entry point for so many in the Greater Boston area. It is not only what they might have always needed and did not even know it, it is what our community needs to grow and thrive now and in the future.

O

n a warm sunny Sunday, two years ago, more than 1,700 people attended PJ Library Celebrates Purim with Boston Children’s Museum, an event sponsored by the JCCs of Greater Boston and Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP).

A variety of Purim-themed programs was offered to connect families with each other, the Jewish community, and the traditions, fun, and frivolity that is the holiday of Purim. One mother from an interfaith family was talking to a JCC staff person about the “amazing” PJ Library books now mailed to her home each month. “This is what I needed and I didn’t even know it,” she said.

This mother needed and wanted to connect with others like herself

and to experience a community happy to welcome her. In addition to the PJ books, she got the tools she needed to engage her family in Jewish life. As the author of some very famous books for children might say, “Oh, the places she and her family will go!”

Most PJ Library communities understand the power of the program to connect young families to the joy of Jewish life and heritage, and to make an impact on their Jewish experience in the process. Less evident–and almost never quantified–are the enormous dividends the program yields to the community and its institutions. It is an unusually good investment in the future!

The numbers bear this out. This summer we surveyed Boston’s PJ

RMING BOSTON

BOSTON’S PJ LIBRARY FAMILIES ARE inclined to attend Jewish community events and programs 79% more inclined to enroll in a Jewish 62% more summer camp or preschool

63% more likely to join a synagogue re inclined to celebrate 94% a Jewish holiday mo

AS HAROLD GRINSPOON LIKES TO SAY, THE ROI HERE IS TERRIFIC.

Library families (for a cumulative number of between 10,000 and 11,000).

Data from more than 500 respondents indicated that of those not already inclined, PJ Library families were: • 79% more inclined to attend Jewish community events and programs • 62% more inclined to enroll in a Jewish summer camp or preschool • 63% more likely to join a synagogue • 94% more inclined to celebrate a Jewish holiday As Harold Grinspoon likes to say, the ROI here is terrific.

Several years ago a consultant from the Harvard Business School asked our JCC leadership two questions that have significantly impacted the evolution of our organization:

1. What business are you in?

2. Who will miss you most if you go away?

The JCC ultimately answered that we are in the business of helping families and individuals construct a contemporary Jewish identity that has meaning for them. And, we concluded that families with children would miss us the most.

At that crossroads, it was clear that forging a deep partnership with the Harold Grinspoon Foundation and PJ Library would enable us to reach every constellation of contemporary Jewish family living in what Longfellow called, “every Middlesex village and farm” in the

Greater Boston area. The results have been breathtaking.

The great 20th century rabbi and teacher Rav Joseph Soloveitchik once said, “every individual possesses something unique, rare, a special color to add to the communal spectrum. He contributes something which no one else could have contributed...he is irreplaceable.” We are all enriched by every family that becomes a part of the community and are grateful that PJ Library provides that entry point for so many in the Greater Boston area. It is not only what they might have always needed and did not even know it, it is what our community needs to grow and thrive now and in the future.

To be a part of the PJ Library community in Boston visit www.pjfor.me/boston

COMMUNITY

CONNECTION DES MOINES, IOWA Active PJ Subscribers: 137 Launch date: 9/1/2013 Cumulative Books Mailed: 3,138

Harold and Shirley Pidgeon

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mall but mighty, Des Moines, Iowa’s population of less than 3,000 Jews all seem to love PJ Library.

Since the program launched just two years ago, the community has completely embraced PJ. More than 60% of eligible children are enrolled, and it serves as a wonderful rallying point for the broader community.

Recently, Des Moines natives Harold and Shirley Pidgeon endowed the subscription cost of PJ Library.

Their three sons graduated from the same high school that Harold and Shirley attended, and they are happy to support PJ Library’s role in Des Moines’ Jewish resurgence. Gifted in loving memory of their son, Larry, they see supporting the program as a fitting tribute to his Des Moines roots.

Stuart Oxer, Executive Director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines, is grateful and excited about what the Pidgeons’ gift means for the Des Moines community. “Generous gifts like this enable our community to grow and thrive. Knowing that Jewishthemed books will be delivered to Des Moines kids for the next 100+ years, enables us to fulfill our mission of enriching Jewish life for our young families. We hope it connects everyone to their Des Moines roots as deeply as the Pidgeon family.”

SEATTLE Active PJ Subscribers: 1,739 Launch date: 6/1/2009 Cumulative Books Mailed: 100,129

I

n 2012, just four years after launching, both the Tampa and Pinellas County PJ Library communities grew beyond their capacity. To eliminate their waiting lists and grow their respective programs, these two Jewish communities, which already cooperated on a number of levels, decided to work together to fund PJ Library.

Instead of approaching their usual donors, they sought a corporate sponsor.

They approached PNC Bank and shared the PJ Library story. PNC loved their pitch and agreed to fund PJ Library in the Tampa/Pinellas area with a grant of $25,000 a year. In return, each PJ Library book delivered in the Tampa Bay area arrives in an envelope that says that it’s a gift from their local Jewish Federation and PNC Bank. After hearing about all the successful PJ Library programs and the growth of enrollment, PNC came back to fund a second year. The communities have asked PNC to continue their funding, and they are now awaiting a response.

Emilie Socash, the Executive Director of the Jewish Federation of Pinellas and Pasco Counties, says it’s actually “fairly easy to find corporate funding because PJ Library is a great match with the corporate responsibility missions of some companies.” She says you just have to ask and be willing to plan ahead because corporations often work far in advance on their charitable giving.

T

he PJ Library community in Seattle is setting the bar for Jewish family engagement. In response to The Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle’s 2014 Jewish Community Study, Seattle will be doubling the amount of Neighborhood Song and Story programs held throughout Seattle from 250 annually to 500. By the end of their 2017 fiscal year they will reach 750.

Neighborhood Song and Story is a weekly, drop-in story time that happens at the same time in multiple locations, Jewish and secular, around Seattle. The goal of the program is to provide an opportunity to create kehillah (community) with families that live near each other, as well as to create greater connection to their Jewish community.

The study showed an increase in Jewish population from 40,000 to 65,000, with children 17 and younger composing 25 percent of Seattle’s Jewish population. “We are thrilled that those stats inspired a generous increase in funding, so that Seattle could grow this successful program and ensure easy access no matter where people live,” said Keith Dvorchik, the CEO of the Federation of Greater Seattle.

“Our Song and Story programs are incredibly popular and we are excited that we will be able to provide more of them in diverse locations across the Puget Sound region.”

TAMPA AND PINELLAS, FLORIDA Tampa: Active PJ Subscribers: 473 Launched: 8/1/2008 Cumulative Books Mailed: 30,120 Pinellas: Active PJ Subscribers: 363 Launched: 10/1/2010 Cumulative Books Mailed: 20,726

To learn more about how you can support your local PJ community, contact Will Schneider email: will@hgf.org | phone: 413-276-0716

WHAT IS THE VALUE OF

PARTNERING WITH PJ LIBRARY? UNION FOR REFORM JUDAISM

T

We believe we can effect change through three core audiences: congregational leadership, youth, and seekers–especially families with young children. The PJ LibraryURJ-WRJ Partnership gives the URJ an opportunity to address two of our strategic priorities with two of our three critical audiences.

he Union for Reform Judaism’s 2020 Vision articulates three key priorities for the next five years: strong, networked congregations, a global community committed to tikkun olam, and audacious hospitality. We believe we can effect change through three core audiences: congregational leadership, youth, and seekers–especially families with young children. The PJ Library-URJ-WRJ Partnership gives the URJ an opportunity to address two of our strategic priorities with two of our three critical audiences. We strengthen our congregations by providing congregational leadership with a tool to offer audacious hospitality to families with young children.

The partnership enables each of our organizations to leverage its resources and to extend our reach. We help make PJ Library subscriptions available to families raising Jewish children all across North America, connecting them to congregations from Alaska to Hawaii to the US Virgin Islands. We support and encourage synagogue outreach to and programming for families

raising young children in their area– many of them unaffiliated. Through the partnership, we support parents raising Jewish children by helping them begin or continue their own Jewish journeys, and by providing a community of other parents with whom they can connect. And, in addition, we train synagogue leaders to build relationships with parents that can be an onramp to meaningful connections with other Jews in synagogues and sisterhoods.

No other moment of life is more pregnant with opportunity –or disruptive to family patterns– than the arrival of a first child. The PJ Library-URJ-WRJ Partnership creates an onramp in smaller Jewish communities for families to explore, discover, and experience Judaism in a joyful way through establishing meaningful relationships with our synagogue communities–starting with the gift of books delivered right to the family’s door!

Stephanie Fink Associate Director, Engaging Families with Young Children Union for Reform Judaism

In our relationship with PJ Library, USCJ serves as a conduit, connecting often the most remote and scarcely populated of our member congregations to a world of Jewish-themed literature to which they might otherwise not be exposed. Together, our organizations magnify and multiply the ways small congregations across the continent and beyond receive literature, programmatic materials, holiday-based sample curricula, and the like.

THE UNITED SYNAGOGUE OF CONSERVATIVE JUDAISM

P

artnership is a very big, yet often underappreciated word. At the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (USCJ), we value this concept and those who seek to embark collaboratively on Jewish endeavors.

PJ Library has served as a remarkable partner in every sense of the word.

Along with the significant financial contributions made by the Harold Grinspoon Foundation that offset the cost of this stellar program and have inspired our own donor base to participate, PJ Library provides a range of high-quality resources for us and our member congregations.

In our relationship with PJ Library, USCJ serves as a conduit, connecting often the most remote and scarcely populated of our member congregations to a world of Jewishthemed literature to which they might

otherwise not be exposed. Together, our organizations magnify and multiply the ways small congregations across the continent and beyond receive literature, programmatic materials, holiday-based sample curricula, and the like.

Our unique and cherished partnership has enabled United Synagogue to enhance our ability to equip all communities, from Puerto Rico, to Appleton, Wisconsin, to Lincoln, Nebraska, with accessible and tangible tools necessary to create inviting and dynamic programs that welcome new families with young children into the vibrancy of synagogue life.

Amy Schwartz Development Writer & PJ Library Coordinator United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism

Stay up to date with our partners at USCJ: www.uscj.org and URJ: www.2020.urj.org

PARTNER SPOTLIGHT

WHY DO YOU GIVE? In 2012, our family partnered with UJA Federation of Greater Toronto to increase participation rates significantly in Jewish education in Toronto. The project we created, known as “WOW!” has partnered with a number of Toronto Jewish organizations and has set the goal of growing participation in supplementary education by at least 5,000 youngsters over five years: a 100 percent increase.

While originally the project targeted school-aged children, we soon realized that engaging young families was the way to go. Today, two years into our PJ partnership, PJ participation has nearly doubled.

In addition to growing the number of families receiving PJ materials, we see this innovation as an onramp to lifelong Jewish experiences. To complement subscriptions, PJ Toronto is developing partnership programs with Jewish camps, synagogue supplementary schools, and day schools to help PJ members find their next Jewish experience. Our family is proud to partner with UJA Federation of Greater Toronto and PJ Library in enriching the Jewish identity of our community’s youth while strengthening it for the future.

Harold and Carole Wolfe & Phyllis and Ab Flatt,Toronto

Learn more about supporting PJ Library initiatives by visiting www.pjlibrary.org

We give because it is our responsibility to do so as humans, as Jews, and as people who understand the importance of taking action and the importance of being builders of the community of which we wish to be a part. As Jews we understand that there is a connection to a community that goes back for dozens of generations, and if it is going to continue for generations to come, those of us with the capacity must contribute in whatever ways possible to create a meaningful, engaging Jewish landscape that is connected to our past and is building a legacy for the future. We are active in our giving– challenging each other’s ideas, approaches and preconceptions, and also pushing our grant recipients to think differently and creatively. In our collaboration with each other and our grantees, we strive to be as strategic as possible and grow as individuals, friends and community members. The PJ Library program and team are amazing partners. They adhere to many of the same tenets as we do in taking calculated risks and being entrepreneurial. Even with the success of their programs, they continue to strive to improve and innovate.

Young Jewish Funders of Arizona, Phoenix

I began donating money to my local PJ Library program a number of years ago. When I first learned about PJ I was intrigued that there were books available for parents to read with their children other than Dr. Seuss. I felt that PJ Library could enrich the lives of all Jewish children, especially those whose parents are intermarried. As I learned more about the program I became aware that the local agency that administers PJ did not have enough resources to fully engage our incredible professional. That is when I stepped in to help.

As I have gotten to know Harold Grinspoon and many other PJ Library professionals, I have realized what an amazing group of people they are. I have volunteered for many organizations in my life, but nothing surpasses the professionalism yet warmth of this team. It is an honor for me to continue to support PJ Library in my community so that our children and parents can benefit from this amazing program and grow Jewishly.

I started a children’s bookstore with my daughter Janis (Fields) in 1983, called B. Dolphin.

We wanted to have a Judaica section and there was very little available in children’s books at the time. The demand in the community later grew and we worked hard to build inventory from the ground up.

When Greensboro was launching PJ Library, Judy Groner, then the head of the day school, contacted me, both because of my book store and the fact that I had studied to become a librarian. She made the shiddach [match].

It had been imbued in me–from the cradle up– to care about the needs of the Jewish community; I followed in the footsteps of my mother who was president of Hadassah. Helping provide PJ Library books to Greensboro children is a perfect match for me.

Sheila Engelstein, Palm Beach, Florida

Mimi Levin, Greensboro, North Carolina

It is all very personal. In late 2007 I first met Diane and Harold—sitting in the back of a bus in Israel.

Harold learned that I lived in Los Angeles, and he told me about PJ Library and how local support was needed to bring the program to Los Angeles. He explained that all of the initial funding in a community is provided by his foundation, but continued support must be partially funded locally.

Initially I was not particularly interested, but Harold was very persuasive. By the end of the trip, he convinced me to make a financial commitment. Only later did I fully understand the importance of this initiative and the impact it is making.

A few years later, over late-night shawarma in Jerusalem, my son-in-law, Jeffrey Abrams, got to know Harold and Diane.

After seeing first-hand the impact on his youngest son from receiving his monthly PJ Library book, Jeffrey became an active supporter of expanding PJ Library’s programming and institutional relationships in the Los Angeles Jewish community. We happily continue to support PJ Library in Los Angeles. And an added benefit is our friendship with Diane and Harold.

Ben Breslauer on behalf of the Breslauer Family, Los Angeles

We support PJ Library because this program will help create a generation who will remember and learn from these books and community events.

If you want to impact the future generation, PJ Library is the first step in doing that.

It is a wonderful and engaging program that connects parents and children to Judaism through reading in an unobtrusive way.

Through these books we are able to pique children’s interests and start to develop their moral and ethical compasses and many other aspects of Jewish life. We loved reading to our children and know how that investment has paid off! We are committed to leaving a legacy. We are fortunate enough to be able to provide a free gift to so many families, which is truly priceless.

Alan and Helene Blumenfeld, Southern New Jersey

When I first heard about PJ Library, I immediately knew this would be a great program for the Sam Berman Charitable Foundation to support. I loved the unique opportunity that PJ Library provides for children of interfaith marriages, engaging them with Jewish life through stories and music. So many families have told me how important PJ Library is to their children, who are taking their first steps in a lifelong Jewish journey. While the books provide them with the foundation of Judaic values, varying community outreach events are also welcoming families together. I am proud to have launched PJ Library in Broward County through our Foundation as well as to be part of such a great organization.

Sheryl Greenwald, Broward County, Florida President, Sam Berman Charitable Foundation, Inc.

ASPEN IN AUGUST A HAROLD GRINSPOON FOUNDATION TRADITION

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uring the first two weeks of August, the Harold Grinspoon Foundation hosts its annual Aspen in August gathering in breathtaking Aspen, Colorado. Originally imagined as an intimate gathering of the top philanthropic supporters of PJ Library, the event has grown to include a special session exclusively for the executive leadership of the Jewish communal organizations that are so important to PJ Library’s success.

Something extraordinary happens when you bring together smart, passionate people in a spectacular natural setting for hiking, biking, conversation, and learning. This past summer was no exception. Together, along with special guest speakers, we all saw what is possible when we come together as one community.

Charles Cohen, the Executive Director of the Lorraine & Jack N. Friedman Commission for Jewish Education in West Palm Beach, Florida, shared this reflection on the experience: On the last night Daniel Gordis gave a talk that cohered all of our discussions and debates into a complete picture.

Gordis said one of the ways to describe what has happened to American Judaism over the past several decades is as a separation from the Jewish “story” of which we’re all a part, extending back to the exodus from Egypt. What made PJ Library an “act of genius” was how it returned Jewish families to that story, and empowered them to pass that story on to their children through the PJ Library books,

Although the parent-child reading experience remains the heart of PJ Library, the program encompasses much more than just the distribution and reading of books. PJ has become the lynchpin for efforts in many organizations and communities to involve families with young Jewish children in a wide range of activities that will lead to ongoing Jewish engagement as these families mature.

and the ritual of bedtime storytelling.

We learned this and so much more over the past few days, but it was this insight that put everything else into stark relief. The metaphor of a story–something that’s passed from generation to generation, and is changed and owned by everyone who tells it–is the perfect framework to consider PJ and its long-term impact.

We don’t know what the future of Jewish life and community will look like.

The decline of collective responsibility and of unrestricted giving creates intense uncertainty for existing institutions. What we know now, thanks to Harold Grinspoon and PJ Library, is that the future will again be filled with Jewish stories, shaped and

owned and polished and cherished as they are shared from parent to child, midor l’dor.These stories will spread and flow into the Jewish story of our families, our communities, and our people, and will carry us forward into a vibrant Jewish future.

We look forward to gathering in Aspen again next year to learn from one another, build new friendships, celebrate, and continue sharing stories.

Winnie Sandler Grinspoon President

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