Schedule a 1:1 with our Recruitment team
Our application consists of three steps:
Step one: Fill out your basic information in the Application Request Form.
Step two: Complete the full application, which will be emailed to you within one business day after filling out the request form. The deadline for full applications for the 2026-2027 program is Tuesday, September 8th. Early applications will be considered first. After that, applications will be considered on a rolling basis so long as spots remain available.
Step three: Attend an in-person group interview with your city’s Fellowship Director.
Step four: Find out your application status!
Group Interview Dates:
• Thursday, September 3
• Tuesday, September 8
• Wednesday, September 16
• Tuesday, September 22
• Wednesday, September 30
• Tuesday, October 6
• Wednesday, October 14
The Justice Fellowship brings together a pluralistic cohort of Jewish adults in their 20s and 30s working on a wide variety of local issues in their city. Our Fellows aim to break out of their personal silos and explore a more holistic approach to making change in their communities. They seek to build power, solidarity, language, resilience, and strategy for a Jewishly-rooted movement committed to doing this work effectively, collaboratively, and sustainably.
In short, they:
Our Justice Fellows are usually in their 20s or 30s, in their early and mid-career stages. We welcome applicants who work professionally in social justice as well as those whose justice work is on a personal/volunteer basis. If you’re unsure whether you should apply for the Fellowship, we bet you’d be a great candidate. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.
Service Corps alumni are eligible for the Justice Fellowship! We recommend that Service Corps alumni wait 2-3 years after the completion of their service year before applying to the Fellowship. However, this is merely a recommendation, and if you would like to discuss participating sooner, you can reach out to our team at apply@avodah.net. Please note that there likely will be some programmatic overlap between the two programs!
Definitely! Our pluralistic community is made up of people of all different backgrounds and identities–that’s what makes it so powerful. Our Justice Fellows are Secular, “Just Jewish”, Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, Modern Orthodox, and everything in between. We also have candidates every year who are still in the middle of the conversion process, are strongly considering conversion, or are just deeply connected to the Jewish community (i.e., have a Jewish partner or Jewish family). We strongly encourage Jews who have been historically marginalized from many mainstream Jewish spaces (i.e., Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews, Jews of Color, queer, trans, and gender non-conforming Jews, disabled Jews, and Jews who come from poor or working-class backgrounds) to apply as well.
In the program itself, prior knowledge of Hebrew or Jewish texts is not required or expected, and the program will be stimulating regardless of one’s textual experience. Food served at programs will be vegetarian and further specified according to the needs of the group, including needs related to allergens, kosher certification, etc.
Since our cohorts are made up of participants from a diverse set of Jewish backgrounds, Fellows should seek to have conversations across difference, learn from diverse perspectives, and grow from productive discomfort.
You’re thinking of our Jewish Service Corps program, where we match participants with non-profit organizations and they live together in a communal home for a year. The Justice Fellowship is different – it’s all about supporting you in your current life. No need to leave your job or pack up your bags!
The Justice Fellowship will run in Chicago and New York City from November 2026 to June 2027.
Wednesday evenings:
November 4, November 11, December 2, December 16, January 6, January 20, February 3, February 17, March 3, March 31, April 7, April 14, May 5, May 19, June 2, June 16
Sunday afternoons:
December 6, January 31, March 14, April 4, May 23
Weekend Retreats & Events:
Dates subject to change
Opening Retreat, November 20-22
Mid-year Retreat, February 26-28
Closing Retreat, June 11-13
Siyyum (Closing celebration), June 16
In-town programs will take place at Kane Street Synagogue:236 Kane St, Brooklyn, NY 11231Subway stops in order of proximity: F/G at Bergen Street; 2/3/4/5 at Borough Hall; N/R/W at Courts Street; A/C at Jay St-Metrotech
Sundays afternoons:
November 8, December 13, January 31, March 14, April 11, May 23
Tuesday evenings:
November 17, December 1, December 15, January 12, January 26, February 9, February 23, March 9, March 23, April 6, April 20, May 4, May 18, June 1
Weekend Retreats & Events:
Dates subject to change
Opening Retreat, November 20-22
Mid-year Retreat, February 26-28
Closing Retreat, June 4-6
Siyyum (Closing celebration), June 15
Our program is designed to fit the needs and schedule of working professionals, students, and participants with other commitments. The Fellowship includes:
Chicago Justice Fellows learn through a lens of environmental stewardship to trace broader sites of justice and injustice, and deepen their relationships in Jewish justice movements.
Chicago:
Aryeh has been the Director of the Avodah Justice Fellowship in Chicago since it launched in 2016. Aryeh is a veteran Jewish educator in settings including the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, the Center for Jewish Food Ethics, and many more. Aryeh studied at the Jewish Theological Seminary, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, Yeshiva University, and Yeshivat Ma’ale Gilboa, and was ordained by Rabbi Daniel Landes’s Yashrut Institute. Aryeh is a Senior Editor of Jewschool.com and a member of the Tzedek Lab.
New York City:
Sonia has led cohort-based programs at the intersection of social justice and Jewishness for many years in many contexts, including at Jews for Racial & Economic Justice, Mosaic of Westchester (now part of Keshet), the Center for Social Responsibility at the JCC, jGirls+ Magazine, and a Jewish day school. Sonia has been a member-organizer with JFREJ since 2008, wrote a social work graduate thesis on healing Jewish collective trauma, has been developing & leading trainings about antisemitism from an intersectional lens since 2014, and is a member of Tzedek Lab. In the Avodah Justice Fellowship and beyond, Sonia is excited to explore the myriad of tools and resources our tradition offers us for spiritual sustenance, fuel for the long-term work of resistance, and building liberatory social-change movements. Some other things Sonia loves are: building gardens, pranks, her nephews, beaches & canvassing.
Yes! Food served at programs will be vegetarian and further specified with respect to the needs of the group, including needs related to allergens, kosher certification, etc.
Throughout the Justice Fellowship, participants envision projects at the intersection of social justice and Jewishness, either building off of existing work or starting a new initiative, that are an opportunity to try new forms of leadership or skills. Past projects have included everything from counting the Omer to live a zero-waste lifestyle, to a family book club, to leading a panel of Chicago Jewish organizers, to facilitating a group dialogue about how we can better align our money with our values. These projects have been featured in the New York Times, The Rachel Ray Show, The Forward, and more.
Broadly! We believe that there are roles for everyone in the social change ecosystem, and that our movement is made stronger by this diversity. We know that sometimes leadership looks like the person speaking at the front of the room, and sometimes it looks like the person behind the scenes whom the speaker is relying on. Whatever your role is, we’re excited to help you strengthen your work for the long haul.
So many! When you become an alum, you join a 1,700+ network of Jewish social justice advocates all over the country. Alumni have access to virtual programs, working groups, and coaching programs, and can also apply for a subsidy to host their own local gathering. You’ll have access to listservs and databases that are constantly circulating jobs, housing opportunities, actions, professional development opportunities, Shabbat dinner invites, informational interviews, and more.
Exclusive access to top-tier education: Alumni also get access to incredible benefits at partner institutions, with access to merit scholarships of $5,000 for eligible programs and waived application fees at Hebrew Union College, and tuition reductions of 15% for online graduate programs at the Hornstein Program at Brandeis University.
While The Justice Fellowship may only last six to eight months, by participating, you’ll stay connected to Jewish social justice community and opportunities for life. Learn more about the power and benefits of our alumni network.
Generous funders subsidize the full cost of Fellows’ participation in the program.
As an economic justice organization, we are also committed to offering a sliding scale model, with a scale that is based either on your employer’s budget or on your own income.
Since the Avodah Justice Fellowship is both a professional and personal development program, we encourage employers to cover all or at least part of the tuition. We can provide additional documentation to help secure professional development time or funding from your organization if needed.
We do our best to ensure that no accepted candidates are prevented from attending due to financial reasons, including those who engage with social and/or economic justice work on a personal rather than professional level.
We recommend sharing that this is a professional development opportunity that will include skill-building, knowledge sharing from content area experts, networking opportunities with many leaders in your city’s justice movements, and tools for sustenance and burnout prevention.
None of the sessions should interfere with working hours, other than 1-2 Friday early departures for a retreat. At the end of the Fellowship, you’ll develop a Jewish Learning Opportunity project, where you’ll bring your learnings to life to make a tangible difference in the community of your choosing, which can include the workplace.
The Justice Fellowship will be in-person for the 2026-2027 program year. All Fellows must be up to date on COVID-19 vaccines. Program participants will come to community decisions about their group’s specific COVID needs and requirements during their first program. If you have additional questions or concerns, please reach out to our team at apply@avodah.net.
The true cost of the Avodah Justice Fellowship is about $9,000 per participant. Those costs include travel and room and board for retreat weekends, supplies and occasional meals at programs, speaker honoraria, and Fellowship staff time, among other items. Thanks to the generosity of several funders, the tuition needed for Fellows to participate in the program is highly subsidized at a rate of $250–$1,600 per participant.
We are committed to offering a sliding-scale model for the program tuition. Since the Avodah Justice Fellowship is both a professional and personal development program, we encourage organizations to cover all or at least part of the tuition. We can provide additional documentation to help secure professional development time or funding from one’s organization if needed. We will do our best to ensure that no accepted candidates are prevented from participating due to financial reasons.
If your employer is covering the cost, then the cost range is as follows:
| Organization’s Annual Budget | Justice Fellowship Tuition |
| $0–$499,999 | $250 |
| $500,000–$999,999 | $600 |
| $1,000,000–$4,999,999 | $950 |
| $5,000,000–$9,999,999 | $1,300 |
| $10,000,000+ | $1,650 |
If you are covering the cost yourself, we ask you to consider the following as you determine the appropriate rate:
• We know that income is only one marker of what someone is able to afford (with other important factors including debt, family support needs and childcare, support you may be receiving from family, other assets, etc.).
• We ask you to think honestly and carefully about your personal calculation. Please bear in mind that sliding-scale systems of this sort only work if people who can afford to contribute at the higher end of the scale actually do so. If you fall into that category, we appreciate that your ability to contribute a higher amount helps to make it possible for us to offer the Fellowship at rates that actually work for a wider range of people.
• Please also consider whether you have people in your life who would be excited to contribute towards your participation in this program, or if you personally have significant savings or other assets that you’re able to draw on for your participation.
• We know this kind of calculation can be challenging. We acknowledge the inherent subjectivity and discomfort of it, but it is in line with our values at Avodah to not let that kind of challenge keep us from creating systems rooted in principles of economic justice. Please let us know if we can be helpful to you in your determination.
Payment options if you are covering the cost:
• Pay in full discount: Pay your full fee in one installment for a 10% discount
• Pay in installments: Split your payment into three even installments over three months.
| Your annual income | Justice Fellowship Tuition |
| <$25,000 | Please let us know what you can manage. |
| $25,001–$34,999 | $250 |
| $35,000–$44,999 | $380 |
| $45,009–$54,999 | $475 |
| $55,000–$64,999 | $550 |
| $65,000–$74,999 | $675 |
| $75,000–$84,999 | $750 |
| $85,000–$99,999 | $900 |
| $100,000–$150,000 | $1,250 |
| $150,001+ | $1,500 |
What do I do if I’m splitting the cost with my employer?
Please do your best to use the above charts to scale accordingly so that your percentage of the fee is proportional to your personal tuition bracket and your employer’s portion of the fee is proportional to theirs. Rather than creating a third type of bracket, we want to make sure your costs still match the original scales as they are intended.
Here’s an example:
• Your organization’s annual budget is $2,000,000, which would have put your tuition in the $950 bracket if your employer were paying it fully.
• Your personal yearly income is $50,000, which would have put your tuition in the $475 bracket if you were paying it fully.
• Your employer is covering half of the cost, and you’re covering the other half.
• Your employer should pay 50% of what their total cost would have been (in this case, 50% would be $475), and you should pay 50% of what your total cost would have been (in this case, 50% would be $237.50). Your total tuition would then be counted as $712.50.
Our Recruitment team is here to help you through the application process and will be available every step of the way, from start to finish. We know that everyone’s background and needs are different, and we’re here to answer any questions you may have.
