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August 31, 2009
Dear Friends,
We hope this letter finds you well. We’ve had quite a busy summer at PANIM and are writing with some very exciting news: Starting September 1, 2009, PANIM will be joining with the B’nai B’rith Youth Organization (BBYO) to establish The PANIM Institute for Jewish Leadership and Values – a Division of BBYO.
The PANIM Institute will continue to offer our high impact PANIM programs, from our signature Panim el Panim seminars, to PanimWorks: Southwest and DC JAM, to JServe – the national day of Jewish youth service. These programs will provide the quality curriculum that our existing network of synagogues, day schools, JCC’s, and Hebrew high schools have come to expect. Simply put, the PANIM Institute’s goal is to empower a generation of Jewish teens to a lifetime of activism, leadership, and service.
Aligning with BBYO and establishing the PANIM Institute will provide the Jewish community with a powerful new resource for engaging and inspiring teens. Over the past several years, BBYO has positioned itself as an outstanding platform to deliver content to the teen audience. Not only will PANIM’s transformative curriculum be shared with the 28,000 teens currently reached by BBYO , but we will be seeking out organizations throughout the Jewish community interested in exploring new strategies for creating meaningful experiences around service, advocacy and philanthropy.
PANIM and BBYO began exploratory discussions to establish the PANIM Institute several months ago. Professional and volunteer leaders from both organizations quickly realized a unique opportunity to bring together two groups whose missions and core competencies aligned so well. Ultimately, this was made possible by the support of many generous philanthropists, including those leaders who raised more than $1 million for the Rabbi Sid Schwarz Scholarship Fund which will ensure that many more Jewish teens will have access to our programs. Thank you to all of our donors for helping make this vision a reality!
Moving forward, the PANIM Institute will begin with established and experienced leadership at the helm. Rabbi Jason Kimelman-Block, PANIM’s long-standing director of education, will serve as director of the Institute; Rachel Meytin will serve as associate director; and PANIM’s founder, Rabbi Sid Schwarz, will serve as a senior consultant. Jerry Herman, Chairman of PANIM’s Board, will head a lay committee tasked with ensuring the success of the Panim Institute.
We welcome your comments and your continued support as we move into our new offices at BBYO. You can reach us at:
The PANIM Institute for Jewish Leadership and Values – a Division of BBYO.
2020 K St NW, 7th Floor ? Washington, DC 20006 ? 202-857-6633
Thank you for your partnership over the years. We will be in contact soon to share new milestones and initiatives affirming the impact of the PANIM Institute.
Sincerely,
| Rabbi Jason Kimelman-Block |
Jerry Herman |
| Interim Director |
Chairman of the Board |
With so much currently at stake in America and across the globe, it is no surprise that the inspiring, values-oriented and hopeful message of PANIM is more popular than ever. Annually more than 1,000 Jewish high school students participate in one of our two flagship programs, Panim el Panim or the Jewish Civics Initiative. In these classes and seminars, students' eyes are opened to the relationship between political activism and civic engagement and Jewish texts and values.
By the time participants visit the offices of their members of congress and senators at the end of each Panim el Panim seminar, they are excited and well equipped to share their newfound passion for the most pressing public policy issues facing our nation and our world. If you were to sit in on one of these meetings, you would see that the Jewish community of tomorrow is in good hands.
Building on what we know best, in the summer of 2003 PANIM launched an advanced seminar for Jewish teens in Jewish leadership and values. Summer JAM (Judaism, Activism and Mitzvah Work) offers motivated and empowered Jewish high school students the opportunity to explore in depth the connection between Judaism, community service, and issue advocacy while spending three weeks in the heart of the nation's capital. In summer 2007, we launched PanimWorks, a twelve-day community service and cultural exchange program in the Four Corners region of the American southwest. On PanimWorks, students live and work in a Navajo community, forming meaningful ties to their hosts and gaining insight into their own Jewish identities.
PANIM seeks to inspire every individual who participates in one of our programs to pursue their own vision of a better world-by working in homeless shelters and food pantries, by lobbying for policies that support Israel in her quest for peace, by advocating for a more compassionate and just society, by raising ecological consciousness. In this way, we believe we are doing our part to ensure that the Jewish youth of today will bring the legacy of the Biblical Prophets into the world that they will soon inherit.
We invite you to explore our website. If you're a Jewish teen, we hope you'll find a program that sparks your interest. As for our adult visitors, we're pretty sure you'll be impressed with the breadth and depth of our work on behalf of the American Jewish community. If you have teenage children, maybe you'll want to encourage them to consider coming on one of our Panim el Panim seminars or participating in one of our summer programs.
Alternatively, perhaps you will be inspired to bring one of our programs or educators to your community. Or perhaps you will choose to become part of our growing family of contributors helping to transform the Jewish community, one neshama (soul) at a time. In any event, welcome to PANIM, and thanks for visiting.
| Rabbi Sid Schwarz |
Jerry Herman |
| Founder/President |
Chairman of the Board |
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A SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT FROM PANIM!
