Senior Jewish Educator at UC Berkeley Hillel

At Berkeley Hillel, we’re looking for an innovative, creative, dynamic team player who thrives in informal educational environments. Someone who has deep rootedness in Jewish tradition, while at the same time is creative in offering compelling and creative ways for Jewish students to engage in tradition. The Senior Jewish Educator at Berkeley Hillel will need to work within a pluralistic framework that supports both traditional and innovative practices of Judaism.

They will provide a nurturing environment for students to grow religiously, socially, and ethically, in community with other Jews, with respect for other faiths, and with a broad understanding of what it means to be Jewish.

• Sharing your deep well of Jewish knowledge in relevant and meaningful ways with many different types of students.
• Inspiring college students to engage and learn deeply, and help create opportunities to express their Jewish identity.
• Working with students to find ways to celebrate Shabbat and the totality of the Jewish calendar.
• Community organizing to create a variety of ways for students to gather and engage with Jewish tradition.
• Building one‑on‑one relationships with people and then helping them connect with what they’re passionate about.

The right Senior Jewish Educator will possess the following key attributes:

• Knowledgeable - The Senior Jewish Educator will be highly educated in areas of traditional Jewish content. These could range from traditional Jewish texts and tradition, prayer and the Jewish calendar, Zionism, contemporary Jewish culture, and Jewish social and political activism, thus providing the educator with a reservoir of knowledge to share with students.
• A Strategic Community Organizer - The Senior Jewish Educator will think strategically about how to reach and impact students not involved in the traditional networks, and will utilize methodologies of community organizing in order to manage and strategize for success.
• An Informal Educator - The Senior Jewish Educator will be experienced with the theory and practice of informal education and will use that knowledge to model and teach others, particularly the Hillel professionals on our campus, how to create the most effective opportunities for meaningful Jewish experiences.
• A Relationship Builder - The Senior Jewish Educator will be capable of building rapport and developing meaningful relationships with a diverse, broad base of students.
• A Pastoral Counselor - Talking one‑on‑one with students about the challenges in their lives, and giving them ways to understand those challenges in a Jewish framework.

As the Senior Jewish Educator, a typical day may include:

• Coffee meetings with a few students you met at Shabbat
• Working with a few fraternity brothers or residents of a co‑op on a unique and creative approach to Shabbat to be held in their houses
• Teaching one of several Jewish learning fellowships
• Meeting with a few students for one‑on‑one chavruta learning about the weekly parsha or other text
• Meeting with students to help organize a learning circle with their peers
• Brainstorming with staff and students on how to create a pluralistic Shabbat experience on Friday nights

What you’ll own and how you’ll grow:

• Student Fellowships - The Senior Jewish Educator will work along with other staff members in teaching and managing different student fellowships of students with diverse backgrounds who utilize their own social networks to build relationships with their peers and connect them to Jewish life. Together, these fellowships have the potential to engage hundreds of Jewish students each year and over time
• Jewish Holiday Celebrations - The Senior Jewish Educator will work closely with the staff and student leaders in creating and developing innovative ways to celebrate Jewish holidays throughout the calendar year
• Programmatic Involvement - The Senior Jewish Educator will supervise several students as well as work to add Jewish depth and content to already existing networks and groups in the UC Berkeley Jewish community
• Individual Student Connections - The Senior Jewish Educator will be responsible for building relationships with 20‑40 Jewish students who are uninvolved…