Role Overview

Do you love engaging others with Jewish texts, learning about Jewish history and culture, and pondering Jewish questions? Do you want to bring Judaism to life for others? Become an Ezra Jewish Education specialist at Stony Brook Hillel - as part of the Springboard Fellowship at Hillel International! 

The Springboard Fellowship is a paid, two-year fellowship that brings recent college grads with raw talent, passion, and skills needed to reimagine and redesign Jewish student life to college campuses across North America. 

Armed with Jewish knowledge and high-level Jewish educational training, you will be charged with incorporating Jewish thought into daily conversations with students, whether in formal programs or over a casual coffee date. 

To be successful in this position you must be team-oriented, entrepreneurial, and motivated by results. We’re looking for people who embrace challenges, take risks, fail, and learn from the past, while maintaining their passion and sense of humor. We’re looking for people with Jewish living and learning experiences, such as a Jewish Studies major or minor, Jewish camp alum, day school grad, or immersive Israel experience participant (and that’s just a few examples!). 

Ezra Jewish Education fellows follow in the footsteps of the biblical Ezra, who re-engaged and reinvigorated the Jewish community by reading the Torah aloud in the town square on Shabbat and market day, and translated it so that people could understand. Ezra’s commitment to teaching, engagement, and innovation is a model for our Fellows to bring Judaism off the page and into life on campus. 

Who you are: 

• You love learning and are continually building your own stock of Jewish knowledge.
• You feel comfortable engaging with students of all denominational backgrounds including those who are very observant and those who are secular. 
• You believe that education can be infused into experiences that captivate the imagination. 
• You’re a relationship builder and can’t get off an airplane without meeting someone new and learning a lot about their interests and passions. 
• You thrive when you are facilitating conversations, creating spaces for students to learn and develop their own ideas about issues that matter to them. 
• You are a collaborator and love working with a team to solve problems and try new things. 
• You are a recent college grad with experience as a participant and maybe even as a teacher in a Jewish educational setting. 
• You’re passionate and excited about Jewish life and college students and want to help bring Judaism to life for every student on campus.

What you’ll get out of it: 

• High-level professional development, including $3,200 in professional development funds, to help develop core skills in experiential education, including learning from some of the most innovative organizations in Jewish education today. 
• Intensive Jewish summer and year-long learning experiences that will provide you with the knowledge, passion, and critical tool kit to fuel your work building our Jewish communities. 
• Mentoring and career coaching to help you during and after your Fellowship.
• A network of terrific colleagues from across the Hillel movement. 
• Travel opportunities, both domestically and internationally, multiple times per year (if permitted following COVID-19 safety guidelines). 
• A comprehensive benefits package, including health insurance, Tax Deferred Retirement Plan, Life, AD&D and Long Term Disability insurances, Flexible Spending Plan, generous vacation/sick time, and parental leave. 
• A minimum base salary of $44,000 in year 1 and $46,500 in year 2* 

As an Ezra Fellow, a typical day may include: 

• Reimagining Shabbat experiences on campus. A huge part of this will be leading a cohort of Shabbat interns. 
• Planning unique opportunities for students to engage with ritual or text.
• Chatting with students over coffee about their big Jewish questions. 
• Working with student leaders to infuse Jewish content into all Hillel and affiliated group programming. 
• Brainstorming engaging ways to bring Jewish holidays to life on campus.
• Leading a group of students in a discussion about how their Jewish identity is changing as a faculty for the Jewish Learning Fellowship 
• Connecting with your chevruta and participating in a Jewish learning webinar to increase your stock of back-pocket Jewish knowledge to use on campus.