By Todd J. Sukol
I had the privilege of attending the Jewish Grandparents Network planning retreat at the Pearlstone Retreat Center in Maryland this week. The event, co-hosted by JGN and the Mayberg Center for Jewish Education & Leadership at George Washington University, was unusual in one way above all.
To their extreme credit, JGN founders Lee Hendler and David Raphael have taken great pains to learn, to invite and to dream before going into program development mode. When I first learned of their efforts to harness the power of grandparents to convey Jewish wisdom, values and identity to young Jews, I wanted to know what they planned to DO. David and Lee told me it wasn’t time for that yet. They had identified that grandparents have great power and potential in the lives of their grandchildren, but they didn’t want to hurriedly invent a program and then promote it to the funder community. They did a little piloting, certainly, but they concentrated their efforts on running a survey (more than 8,000 respondents — wow!) and inviting various constituents to the table for a series of deep explorations about what JGN might endeavor to be and do. I respect that approach greatly. It is a breath of fresh air in a world where possessors of an interesting idea tend to be a bit too certain theirs is just right. JGN is casting a wide net, and taking a thorough, patient approach.
I’ll wait to see the outcome of the retreat, of course, but I have a feeling the convening, which attracted a very impressive group of hearts and minds, may have helped JGN clarify objectives and point the way toward some particular program areas worth exploring. The Jewish Grandparents Network is humbly and strategically building a strong base of supporters, fans and co-designers. I admire the way they’re approaching the effort and I suspect we’ll see some impressive programming from this group in the near future.