Urban Adamah MHWOW End of 2017 Summary
Q4 (October — December) Programmatic Impact
- Active Hosts: 12
- Total Programs: 23
- Total Attendance: 246
- Unique participants: 162
- Average Attendance per Program: 11
- Largest Program: 15 attendees (Molly Nadav’s “Kabbalat Shabbat and Dinner”)
- 74% of programs were Jewish Culture & Holiday programs (Shabbat dinners, Havdallah, and holiday celebrations), while the remaining programs were social (music jams, camping, and fall celebrations)
Full Year 2017 Programmatic Impact
- Active Hosts: 19
- Total Programs: 69
- Total Attendance: 724
- Unique Participants: 443
- Average Attendance per Program: 10
- Largest Program: 17 attendees (Dan Edleson Stein’s “Seder 2017”)
- 6 Urban Adamah MHWOW hosts hosted 4 or more programs in 2017, making them eligible for Moishe House scholarship support and increased travel subsidies for Moishe House Learning & Leadership Retreats
End of 2017 Program Highlights
Urban Adamah MHWOW hosts are using MHWOW support to build community between current Urban Adamah fellows and alumni, in addition to new communities after the fellowship.
Rebecca Spiro — Urban Adamah Alum-Fellow Shabbat Dinner (Oakland, CA)
“Shabbat dinner for Urban Adamah alumni and fellows to meet and spend Shabbat together!”
Hannah Miller — Shabbat in Detroit (Detroit, MI)
“Gathering for Shabbat during this time as a way to bridge members of the Metro Detroit Jewish community who have moved away, with individuals who currently live in the area. This will serve as a place to reflect on the Jewish community here in Detroit and how it has shifted over time. We will have a Shabbat service with song and then share a meal together.”
Ellie Gertler — Urban Adamah Fall 2014 NYE Annual Reunion (Berkeley, CA)
“For the past three years, friends of the Urban Adamah Fall 2014 cohort have gathered together on NYE to celebrate and reminisce about their time spent together as urban farmers. This will be the third new years celebrated with good friends who now live all across the country. Good food will be cooked, good wine will be had, and many laughs and smiles will be shared.”
Amy Shoemaker — Hanukkah Party (San Diego, CA)
“I’ll be hosting a Hanukkah party in San Diego! Most of my friends there are in grad school, so we have to have the party the weekend before Hanukkah, because Hanukkah week is finals week. I’m excited to have everyone together to celebrate with latkes, sufganiot, candles (to be lit symbolically, since it won’t technically be the first night yet), and dreidel playing!”
Moishe House + Urban Adamah Collaboration
- In 2017, Moishe House awarded Hadar Cohen scholarship support for $300 to attend a Jewish meditation retreat. From our 662 active hosts in 2017, Hadar is the 31st most active host, placing her in the top 5% of host participation!
- Aliza Minkina, Moishe House’s Northwest Regional Manager, visited the Fall 2017 cohort to brainstorm different ways MHWOW can help them stay connected to Urban Adamah after the fellowship ended. Of the 9 fellows who gave their contact information, 5 have applied and been onboarded. Four of them hosted events by the end of 2017.
Looking ahead to 2018
In 2018, we will be focusing on the following priorities:
- Strategic Recruitment — Recruiting new Urban Adamah alumni hosts has been challenging and the majority of the Fall 2017 cohort is not active. MHWOW staff is looking to strategize with Urban Adamah staff about how to engage the cohorts differently to get new MHWOW hosts.
- Consistent Programming & Engagement — From the Urban Adamah hosts already in our community, how can we encourage all of them to consistently host programs?
- Sharing of Resources — Which Urban Adamah educators and paper resources should be shared with the general MHWOW community to help hosts enhance their programs?
MHWOW + Urban Adamah Impact
At the end of 2017, we sent out a survey to active Urban Adamah MHWOW hosts to determine how MHWOW is impacting Urban Adamah alumni. Below are some poignant responses:
Why did you want to become an MHWOW host after attending Urban Adamah?
- “Urban Adamah helped me connect culturally to my Judaism, an aspect of my identity I had put on the back burner for the previous 6 years. Now I understand, and am excited about, different ways I can connect to Judaism and others who feel similarly.”
What did you learn on your experience with Urban Adamah that has helped you as an MHWOW host?
- “Before Urban Adamah I had no interest in being an active participant in the Jewish community. The fact that it was a Jewish program was at the end of the list of reasons why I did the program. It turned out to be the most impactful part and gave me both the interest in building Jewish community and gave me skills to feel confident holding Jewish ritual space.”
- “I learned that Jewish practice and Jewish community is far from boring. It is worth celebrating, cultivating, and rejuvenating. It is relevant to so many other aspects of my life that I find rich and rewarding. It is fertile ground (excuse all the farming metaphors…they just come so naturally) for finding connection and community.”
How has MHWOW affected your connection to Urban Adamah?
- “It is a constant reminder of the potential influence I have. This is what I learned at Urban Adamah and MHWOW enables me to explore this power.”
- “I think that being a MHWOW host has allowed me to strengthen my relationships with other UA alums in Detroit. It has given me an opportunity to use the skills I learned at UA in my current city.”
- “Very strongly. Being able to host MHWOW events is something that has kept some of my friendships from Urban Adamah alive. We all get excited to host events together and attend each others. It brings us together for holidays and Shabbats that we may otherwise ignore or forget about. It is always a reminder of how grateful I am for the Urban Adamah community and for the Jewish community as a whole.”
It is also amazing that 100% of respondents reported that other Urban Adamah alumni attend their MHWOW programs.
