2023 JWFA Grantee Partners

Signature Grant   

Jewish Family & Career Services (JF&CS) in partnership with Metro Atlanta Community Mikvah (MACoM) – The three-year Signature Grant addressed myriad issues impacting Jewish women and girls in Atlanta, specifically the “Superwoman Complex,” which was identified as the top issue for Atlanta’s women in JWFA’s community-wide needs assessment. The grant also addressed topics related to teen anxiety and mental health, in addition to empowerment and support for caregivers.  

2023 Women’s Leadership Grants

In partnership with The Zalik Foundation for its first year, Women’s Leadership Grants were issued to the following women, all of whom serve in senior-level positions within Atlanta-based Jewish organizations and will use their grants to pursue professional development opportunities that will allow them to elevate themselves as leaders, as well as the organizations in which they serve:  

• Atlanta Jewish Academy Leadership Team: Missy Rivner, Franeen Sarif, Sylvia Miller, Bonnie Drazen, Davida Graber, and Pam Mason  
• Stephanie Gewirtz, JIFLA  
• Rebecca Gordon, Congregation Gesher l’Torah  
• Rabbi Lauren Henderson, Congregation Or Hadash  
• Anna Stern Serviansky, Ramah Darom  
• Jenna Shulman, JELF  
• Rebecca Stapel-Wax, SOJOURN  
• Temima High School Leadership Team: Polina Nagla and Sandrine Simons  
• Rabbi Ariel Wolpe, Ma’alot 

2023 Impact Grants 

• Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel, Enhancing Judicial Process for Sexual Violence Survivors – Pushes for important changes in Israel’s prosecution, police, and courts to create less traumatic experiences for survivors, higher numbers of cases being tried, more equitable outcomes, and reduced legal proceedings.   

• Atlanta Jewish Academy, Young Women in STEM Career Fair and Mentoring Program – This program will increase access to and interest in careers in STEM for Jewish women and includes a one-day career fair with year-round mentoring opportunities for female high school students in Greater Atlanta. It provides access for the students to meet with women who have a variety of careers in STEM fields and to learn about STEM-based college curricula and career opportunities with the additional benefit of mentorship opportunities. 

• BeNetivey Udi, Nitzanim – Women Tech – Ensures more women from Israel’s periphery successfully integrate and complete military service in programming and cyber positions.  

• Israel Hofsheet, Multidisciplinary Gender Action Group – Addresses civil rights and equality in Israel by curbing the exclusion of women and gender segregation in the public sphere.  

• Itach Ma’aki Women Lawyers for Social Justice, Legal Aid Hotline – Provides direct legal services, analyzes social and legal trends, and advocates for policy implementation and reform for women experiencing employment discrimination.   

• MATI Jerusalem, Support for Immigrant Women from Ukraine & Russia – Helps new immigrants to achieve financial independence in Israel.   

• Mavoi Satum, Changing the Status Quo – Increases the presence of women at all levels of the rabbinical court system to bring about equality and a supportive setting for Jewish women denied a divorce.   

• Physicians for Human Rights Israel, Coalition for Reproductive Rights – Ensures that all women in Israel have access to free and safe abortions, eliminates current legal barriers to reproductive rights in Israel, and addresses fair and equal access to contraceptives.   

• Rackman Center for the Advancement of Women, General Operating Support – Promotes the status of women in family law and seeks to end gender discrimination and inequality in Israel.   

• Shavot, Shavot in STEM in Migdal HaEmek – Provides girls ages 11-13 with educational and interpersonal tools and skills to pursue STEM education and high-tech employment.   

• Women’s Rabbinic Network, General Operating Support – Supports and advocates for feminist values while representing 600+ female-identified, nonbinary, and genderfluid rabbis.   

2023 Sustaining Grants 

• Center for Women’s Justice, General Operating Support – Defends women’s rights to equality, dignity, and justice whenever they are compromised in the name of religion.  

• HaMidrasha, Gendered Eyes – Examines gender roles in modern Israeli society with 600 pre-army teens.  

• Jerusalem College of Technology, General Operating Support for LevTech Entrepreneurship Center – Provides Haredi women with exposure to the hi-tech ecosystem and training in innovative thinking and business development.  

• jGirls+ Magazine, Learning Together Project – Supports Jewish girls, young women, and nonbinary folks ages 16-22 in examining power, responsibility, and the issues that most deeply impact their lives through Jewish and gender lenses.  

• La’Ofek, Achotenu-Nachshonim: Academic Nursing/OT Program for Ethiopian-Israelis – Empowers young Ethiopian-Israeli women to follow their educational and career aspirations of becoming nurses and occupational therapists and thereafter establishing a stable financial future, while serving as role models for their community.  

• Makkom, Leviot (Lionesses) – Improves the services available to young single mothers through legislative action and social services.   

• WePower, General Operating Support – Proactively promotes women’s leadership and gender parity in the public and political sectors of Israel.  

• Women’s Spirit, General Operating Support – Advocates to change fundamental Israeli policies and laws that undermine, destabilize, and weaken all women, but especially victims of gender-based violence.   

• Yozmot Atid, General Operating Support – Supports economic independence for women from diverse sectors of Israeli society so they can transform their lives and break the cycle of poverty by establishing micro-businesses.   

Prior Year Grantees

• Securing the Rights of Single Mothers, Association for Civil Rights in Israel – ACRI will work to advance the rights of mothers in the welfare system by anchoring guidelines for custody hearings in legislation, institutionalizing a fair due process, regulating the powers of authorities in such hearings, and raising awareness about the issues mothers face when confronting the welfare system. 

• Atid BaMidbar, Mevashlot: Culinary Queens – This project brings livelihood and dignity to low-income women aged 50-75 from diverse ethnic groups, most of whom have never worked outside the home, empowering them economically and personally while contributing to local sustainable economic development in the Negev. As they host visiting groups from Israel and abroad for meals and share their inspiring stories, the women exemplify grassroots leadership and are well paid for their skills, heritage, and hospitality. 

• ATZUM, Task Force on Human Trafficking and Prostitution –TFHT confronts the social-political issues that perpetuate human trafficking and exploitation through prostitution and seeks protection for its victims. After celebrating the recent success of the “Prohibition of Consumption of Prostitution Services Bill” becoming law, TFHT will now work to secure options for medical and psychosocial treatment, housing, and occupational training for prostituted persons and public education to support integration of these women into Israeli society. 

• Blue Dove, Women and Girls’ Summit – This pilot program will create a unique in-person experience for young girls (8-11) and a female figure in their lives for an afternoon of hands-on personal and emotional experiential learning, understanding, and de-stressing. The goal is to create a space where girls can begin to understand the idea of stress from a young age and learn how to cope with it through open communication with friends and the main female adult in their lives. 

• Career Up, Career Up Now Atlanta – Women of Wisdom Program in Atlanta will empower Jewish emerging professional women (ages 18-26) to advance in their careers while incorporating Jewish values into their lives through intergenerational gatherings and follow-up programs with Jewish women industry and community leaders. 

• Tikkun Olam: Repairing Our Relationship with Food, Body and Ourselves, Eating Disorders Information Network – EDIN will address the problem of eating disorders in the Jewish community by creating and implementing a specialized curriculum that empowers women and girls to develop their sense of worth and value apart from their body shape and size. 

• Ehete Center: Resource Incubator for Economic Initiatives by Ethiopian Women, a partnership of Achoti and the New Israel Fund – The Ehete Center is a cooperative for low-income Ethiopian-Israeli Jewish women to sell traditional crafts and improve their financial literacy with a goal of fostering economic independence. 

• Hebrew University, Economic Development of Women Clinic – The Economic Development of Women Clinic of the Clinical Legal Education Center at Hebrew University’s Faculty of Law advocates and protects the socioeconomic rights of women, focusing on women at the margins of society, who often face multiple levels of discrimination. The Clinic’s goals are to effect broad change in the policies and common attitudes adversely impacting these women; to empower women and provide individual legal advice and representation; and to educate law students in gender-sensitive legal thought and discourse, giving them the opportunity to practice law for social causes and developing in them an understanding of the unique problems women face. 

• Securing Israel’s Future Through Employment, ITWorks – IT Works increases the employability of low-income and unemployed Ethiopian-Israeli Jewish women by imparting finance training, soft skills workshops, and job search support. 

• jGirls Magazine, General Operating Support – jGirls is an online magazine written by and for self-identifying Jewish teenage girls. Content is created by teens and curated by a teen editorial board. jGirls users are empowered with leadership skills, self-esteem, sense of identity, and engagement and status within the Jewish community, while building a pipeline to a future cohort of bold, committed Jewish female leaders. 

• JumpSpark, Strong Women Fellowship – This program provides female-identifying Jewish teens in Atlanta access to strong female leaders, connection with peers, and empowering learning. By grappling with the myriad issues facing women today, this fellowship prepares teens to be strong leaders and advocates while incorporating a peer training model. 

• Alma Community Center for Young Women’s Leadership, Jewish Agency for Israel – This brand new Jerusalem center will provide tools and support to at-risk teenage girls to enable them to find their own voice, set their own goals, and build a future of commitment, action, investment, and perseverance. 

• Change the Culture: Sexual Assault & Dating Abuse Prevention and Education at Emory University, Jewish Women International – Change the Culture is an innovative, multi-faceted, co-ed program that promotes the safety of students through an exploration of campus culture, sexual assault, and dating abuse. By partnering with Hillel, ZBT, and SDT, the program seeks to change attitudes, support survivors, and engage men as allies. 

• Interest-Free Loans for Secondary Education, Jewish Educational Loan Fund – Provides Jewish women in Atlanta with last-dollar loans to attain the degree they need to be successful in life. 

• Shalom Bayit Teen Domestic Violence Prevention Initiative, Jewish Family & Career Services – Increases awareness of teen dating violence in the Jewish community and empowers young women and girls in Atlanta to make healthy relationship choices. 

• Women in Crisis Fund, Jewish Interest Free Loan of Atlanta – Prevents Atlanta’s Jewish single women in temporary financial crisis from losing their independence and gives them the capacity to fulfill their potential by providing loans and budgeting skills. 

• Jewish Women’s Funding Network, Women and Mothers at Work: Gender Transformative Employment Policies – This collaborative grant with 14 other Jewish women’s funds from around the U.S. supports collaborative and effective efforts for women’s rights and gender equality in Israel, with a focus on labor rights for contract employees. 

• Jscreen, PEACH BRCA Study – In partnership with the Emory Winship Cancer Institute, this pilot program will provide free BRCA testing and genetic counseling for up to 500 Jewish women and men who do not have a personal or close family history of cancer but are at increased risk for carrying a BRCA mutation because of their Ashkenazi background. The ultimate goal of the pilot study is to expand the program nationally and make convenient, affordable BRCA screening and counseling available to Ashkenazi Jews across the country. 

• Cracking the Glass Ceiling, Kol Israel Haverim – Through participation in this five-year program, low-income junior high and high school girls receive the tools they need to expand their opportunities in STEM fields. The program utilizes role modeling, empowerment workshops, and training in partnership with high-tech and bio-tech companies throughout Israel. 

• Lilith Publications, Emerging Feminist Writers Program – Lilith will expand the number of new Jewish feminist voices they publish by identifying and developing working relationships with 20 new writers of diverse backgrounds, all of whom will apply a Jewish feminist lens to their subjects. 

• Resetting Jewish Women’s Body & Self-Images, Limmud Atlanta + Southeast – Explores historical, cultural, and psychological challenges facing modern Jewish women and girls as they develop a healthy and realistic body image, through a series of facilitated, intergenerational, cross-denominational, and mixed-gender discussions. 

• Financial Empowerment Program for Haredi Girls and Young Women, Mesila International, Inc. – Mesila integrates specially-developed curricula in junior high schools, high schools, and religious women’s colleges, educating students with knowledge and skills to take responsibility for their financial future. 

• Mother’s Creative, Jewish Mothers’ Workshops – The Mothers Creative aims to prepare women mentally, emotionally, and physically for the journey of motherhood. Our workshops aim to foster Jewish community during mothers’ early years of parenting to promote maternal confidence. Our goal is to reclaim mothers’ narratives by confronting the “Supermom” narrative on social media and within the workshop groups. By delivering workshops and processing mothers’ stories through art, and then sharing art online, participants will perpetuate new narratives into the world that offer new mothers validation in their journeys. 

• Agunah Prevention Initiative in Atlanta, The Organization for the Resolution of Agunot, Inc. – ORA informs students, community members, and rabbis about the plight of agunot, reframes get-refusal as a form of domestic abuse, and seeks to establish the signing of the Jewish prenuptial agreement for the prevention of get-refusal as a community-wide standard. 

• Public Knowledge Workshop, FemBuy – FemBuy will collect and share data across numerous platforms that will quantify the actual number of government contracts currently held by female-owned/operated businesses with the ultimate goal of increasing the proportion of contracts granted to female-owned businesses, in accordance with current Israeli law. 

• Project Talya, The Society for Advancement of Education – Project Talya is an intensive 5-year course of study that operates in partnership with the Jerusalem College of Technology. Participants are highly capable intellectually and academically and earn both a high school diploma and a B.S. in Computer Science by age 19. 

• Ta’amod, Atlanta-Based Programming – Ta’amod is the go-to address in response to #metoo and the clear need in the Jewish community for support, resources, and tools toward creating safe workplaces and communal spaces in Atlanta that are rich with psychological safety and individual well-being for all those who engage. 

• Girls Lead:A Theater-Making Workshop, The William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum – Provides Jewish girls in the metro Atlanta area with tools to become authentic, assertive, and self-aware leaders. 

• Supporting and Empowering Adolescent Girls at Risk, Orr Shalom – Provides adolescent girls who have suffered extreme abuse, violence, and neglect with a safe and loving home in order to help them recover from their traumas and fulfill their personal potential. 

• SOJOURN, Early Development of Gender Equity – This pilot program works with kindergarten and first grade students, teachers, and parents throughout Atlanta’s Jewish community to break down gender stereotypes and allow children to reach their highest potential while eliminating gender inequity. 

• FOCUS (Finding Occupations, Careers, Universities, Success) Program, Temima, The Richard and Jean Katz High School for Girls – Temima FOCUS provides Jewish high school girls with guidance in choosing post-secondary options suited to their individualized interests, skills, values, and abilities through workshops, speakers, testing, and college counseling. 

• TrueChild, JET: Jewish Girls Empowered Together – Through a partnership with JF&CS, JET will teach middle school girls to think critically about rigid gender norms, particularly in having more constructive ideas around female leadership, strength, and self-efficacy. 

• Respect My Red/iClub, The Felicia Penzell Weber Jewish Community High School – This pilot program will prevent sexual assault, harassment, and abuse among students by helping adolescents understand healthy relationships and address disrespectful behaviors within their peer groups. 

• Sharsheret, The Society for Advancement of Education – Sharsheret works with both younger and older high school girls in Israel, vis-à-vis a mentoring framework, to strengthen their sense of self, advance their emotional well-being, and build their leadership skills. 

• Moving Traditions, Culture Shift –This project prepares senior camp leaders to train their staff to prevent sexual harassment and assault and to promote safety, equity, and respect at Jewish summer camps in the Atlanta area and around the country. 

• SOJOURN, Sex Ed Queeries: Queer Teens with Queer Concerns – This project will provide unbiased, comprehensive sex education that is targeted specifically for LGBTQ and Jewish teens and their allies, with the goal of empowering participants to make informed and responsible decisions about sexual health and behavior. 

• Van Leer Jerusalem Institute: Center for Advancement of Women in the Public Sphere, The Gender Index – The Gender Index is an innovative monitoring and tracking tool that tracks the trajectory of gender inequality over time in a wide range of domains. It targets decision-makers and policy-shapers and is designed to provide detailed, extensive data on the state of women in Israeli society to inform policy decisions. 

• Women’s Courtyard promotes social justice, equal opportunity, and the right of every woman and girl to achieve self-fulfillment in accordance with her will. 

• Yeshivat Maharat, Leadership Development Curriculum –Yeshivat Maharat, the first yeshiva to ordain women as Orthodox clergy, uses a two-pronged approach to leadership development, first grounding students in the theory of leadership and then giving them opportunities to apply leadership skills to the types of challenges they will encounter as future community leaders. 

• Yeshivat Maharat, Advanced Kollel: Executive Ordination Track – This program trains and ordains Orthodox women who are already educators and leaders in the Jewish community but who never had the opportunity to receive rabbinic ordination because Yeshivat Maharat did not exist when they began their careers. Through a part-time, three-year intensive course of learning leading to ordination, the Executive Ordination Track brings greater equity to the field of Jewish education and leadership. 

• Jewish Family & Career Services, Inc., Emergency Assistance for Jewish Women and Girls – This project addresses the urgent pandemic-related needs of Jewish women and children, including efforts to maintain housing, address food insecurity, and provide abbreviated or ongoing case management. 

• Jewish Kids Groups, JKG Full Day Tuition Assistance for Mothers – This grant will fund scholarships for JKG’s full day virtual learning oversight program so that working mothers will not have to sacrifice their careers in order to stay home while school is not in session. 

• Jewish Women’s Collective Response Fund, Addressing Domestic Violence in Israel – In partnership with other Jewish Women’s Funds from across the U.S. and Israel, this project addresses the increase in domestic violence in Israel as it relates to the pandemic. 

• Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta, Inc., Scholarships for Working Mothers – Financial assistance will be awarded to single mothers and two-parent working families with financial challenges who require preschool services and/or daytime support while our local elementary schools conduct virtual learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic.