Great news! The entire issue of the Journal of Jewish Communal Service devoted to Jewish service-learning is now online! This includes 11 articles in the Digital Supplement and 21 from the Print Edition. (Note – you can still order copies of the print edition!) In so many ways, this is a real milestone for Repair the World and for the JSL field.
A Milestone With Lasting Impact
When staff at Jewish nonprofits talk about Jewish service-learning (JSL), they’re often putting on their jargon-y nerd hats. These terms – JSL, experiential education, the service movement – don’t usually appear in the literature given to service trip participants, let alone in the reporting on our work that appears in the media. On the one hand, we want to expand the circle of practitioners sharpening their saw with the best tools, research and training. On the other, if our discourse is too academic or insider-y, we’re only talking among ourselves.
But along comes this amazing journal issue that breaks down our world into bite-sized chunks appropriate for thousands of other Jewish education and nonprofit professionals. Among the articles in the Journal we have points of entry for teen educators, Israel educators, those working with boomers and retirees, academics from other fields, rabbis and Judaic studies educators, and even philanthropists following the development of the field.
One of the consequences of putting this together was that many leading practitioners took up the challenge of reflecting on their work. That’s a fundamentally different task than explaining or teaching, and we can see the positive impact it has had.
Having all these articles online will continue to making a lasting impact. We know (from looking at our web analytics) that these articles are being read by thousands of people. It’s clear that some of you bounce from article to article because recommendations at the bottom of each page. In this way, we can expect these resources to make a difference for anyone who searches for related materials and wants to learn more.
How Was It For You?
If you’re an author, practitioner or otherwise engaged with the JSL/IJSL field, what’s your take? Tell us about your experience of the #JSLJournal, online and in print, so we can serve this community even better next time. There will be a next time, right?