Thanks in part to the generous support of the the Crown Family and the Dorot Foundation, we are expanding our AVODAH Fellowship program to Chicago. AVODAH has been working in Chicago since 2006 and we are excited to add the Fellowship to our portfolio of Jewish leadership development programs, which include the Jewish Service Corps,  the AVODAH alumni network, and our community engagement initiatives.  

The Fellowship provides leadership development, Jewish learning, and community-building to early career Jewish professionals and lay leaders working to address pressing social and economic issues. Previous Fellows have come from a wide range of fields, including: education, food justice, fair housing, labor rights, health care, social work, criminal justice reform, city government, and financial empowerment.

Our expansion to Chicago follows two successful Fellowship cohorts in New York. Fellows have reported to us that not only that they felt stronger as leaders and professionals, but that AVODAH helped them to unify their Jewish and social justice identities while providing them with a sense of Jewish community that they had not found elsewhere. In the words of one  Fellow, “I have been searching for a Jewish community and found exactly what I was looking for at AVODAH.”

“Chicago is the perfect place for our Fellowship program,” said Benetta Mansfield, the president of AVODAH’s Board of Directors. “There are so many emerging professionals doing antipoverty and social justice work here who stand to benefit from this powerful opportunity for ongoing learning and community building through the Fellowship. I am delighted to expand AVODAH’s programming and impact in Chicago.”

Our pilot cohort will officially launch in January 2016, but we already need your help. Here are two ways to get involved: 

1. Who do you know? We need talented candidates for this first class of Chicago Fellows. Please click here to refer potential applicants from your networks.
2. Maybe you live in Chicago and the AVODAH Fellowship is a good fit for you. If so, sign up here to be notified when applications are open.

We’ll have lots of news about the Chicago Fellowship and much more coming up in the next few weeks. Follow AVODAH on Facebook and Twitter for more updates about this expansion and the rest of our work.