Worshiping at the Alter of Innovation

I write this with love for Jewish innovation and ROI.

This is actually an account of what my mind has been coming up with while the ROI summit has been taking place in Israel this past week. For the uninitiated, the ROI Summit is the brainchild of Lynn Schusterman, the Center for Leadership Initiatives and Taglit-Birthright Israel, and is officially described as The ROI Community for Young Jewish Innovators. Its vision is to create and harness the energy of a “global community of outstanding creative individuals who have a personal vision about how to make the Jewish world a better place.” The organization helps fund initiatives that could transform how we live Jewishly today and tomorrow. I’ve been following it religiously on twitter at #roicom as well as on the ROI website.

At the beginning of the week, as attendees began arriving, the tenor of the tweets was joyous: Acquaintances being renewed and newly formed; folks retelling their stories of who they met on the flight. One participant even tweeted: “guy next to me on the plane was reading a dossier on “the obama agenda” from misrad habitachon. creepy.” Sounds great.

During the course of the summit tweets described how everyone was being inspired by the goings-on. I was trying to find content: what were the sessions about, and what did the facilitators have to say. I lurked the ROI website trying to glean what was being taught. I was annoyed (let’s be honest here) that prominently placed on the right side of the page is a member login. Now, I don’t know about you, but I happen to find member logins supremely uninviting. I’m a Jewish educator. I thrive on creating innovating environments for my students – be they kids, parents or other adults. So to be denied access to resources because I’m not a “young Jewish innovator” is frankly, and pardon my French, fucking annoying. There were a couple of videos that gave a taste, but that is not a meal.

At one point I (@redmenace56) did tweet my hope that we will learn from ROI so we who did not have the privilege to attend could apply these lessons. Others (@Jewishtweets) reiterated that call. And references to progress kept being tweeted. But no specifics have been revealed.

On Wednesday ROI had its first “community [global] brainstorm”. One tweeter commented on the “focus on concrete and implementable ideas”. What does this mean? How can I use it? Another tweet went like this: “Actually excited about a great idea @chicagoleah and I cooked up with Ben at #roicom” And the idea is? There were a few tweets commenting on the role of Orthodoxy in the “Jewish Peoplehood category”. @jchickrock tweeted: “325 challenges posted.127 solutions. 42 action posters created. let’s get it on” Huh? Can we in the Diaspora get a hint as to what is being alluded? @JewishTweets posted the following: “Will the results of the community brainstorm this morning be shared?” The response from the “official tweeter” (insofar as there is a concept of officialdom in this Brave New World), @ROICommunity, responded: “don’t worry – we’ll reveal all soon. well, not “all,” but at least “some.” :)” I was disappointed by that comment and what it implied. The Jerusalem Post published a description of the goings on. Not enough. We Jewish educators in the Diaspora need to get to work. We need ideas now, even if we are not in the demographic that are invited to attend ROI summits.

I know I sound like I’m whining. Maybe I am, but it’s because I feel shut out. I know it’s not intentional. At one point I got frustrated and googled “ROI grants 2010.” It took me here. The mother-lode. Stuff I can use as a Jewish educator. Why isn’t this ROI’s homepage? Why is it buried? It needs to be accessible. I’m pretty computer savvy for a 53 year old, but it should be easy. Those of us in Jew-biz yearn to learn from the fresh creative minds that attended ROI. If you investigate the ROI website, you can find the newsletter and other nuggets. Buried. It needs to be out there – accessible for us Digital Immigrants. As our students join our ranks as Jewish educators and engagers, we all need to be in the same loop. This ain’t highschool with its cliques and passwords. It isn’t Members Only. It’s more important than that. As weird as it sounds, the future is our teacher. We need to learn from it. Please…share.

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Peter Eckstein

Peter Eckstein began his career a Jewish educator in 1982 on Kibbutz Ketura, working with children of all ages and serving as the kibbutz Education Coordinator. In 1993 upon returning to the U.S. he became the Director of Education and Programming at Temple Israel in West Palm Beach. Currently he is the Director of Congregational Learning at Temple Beth David in Palm Beach Gardens. In addition, serves as the Technology Integration Educator for the Friedman Commission for Jewish Education.He was very active with the Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education as programming co-chair, Shabbat chair and conference chair for several conferences. He has taught professional development for educators, Judaic adult education classes, and the Palm Beach County’s “Introduction to Judaism” course for those seeking to become part of the community. He is specializing in teaching educators how to integrate Education Technology into the Jewish classroom. He has also served on the faculty at URJ Camp Coleman as an informal Jewish educator.Peter is fascinated by how technology and experiential education will aid in the transmission of Jewish awareness to the next generations

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