Background & Rationale
Background
Since our founding, the essence of JIMENA’s mission has always been to educate students and the larger Jewish public on Sephardic and Mizrahi heritage and history. Through the years, we’ve provided and led hundreds of diverse educational programs for Jewish day schools, campus organizations, and young adult programs throughout the United States. Given that North American–based Mizrahi and Sephardic educational organizations are few and far between, JIMENA has always worked hard to meet short-term educational requests and needs as efficiently as we can. We find ourselves moving through requests for content, for information, and for Sephardic facilitation and leadership quickly. With the support of the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco and the Koret Foundation, we were able to take a step back to research, strategize, implement an educational pilot program, and build a sustainable curriculum.
When we tasked ourselves with formalizing our educational work by building the Journey to the Mizrah curriculum, we dug in deep to find out what the needs of students and educators are that weren’t being met and required the support of Sephardic and Mizrahi thought-leaders, educators, rabbis, scholars, and activists. The list was, and is, very long and we see Journey to the Mizrah as a contributing step on a long path towards a Jewish educational paradigm shift that truly embraces and reflects the heritage and needs of ALL students. The irony is that this shift forward is in many ways, a step back towards an age-old Sephardic educational paradigm that is inclusive, participatory, progressive, and open to students of diverse backgrounds and experiences.
Rationale
Diversity and Inclusion
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Sephardic Studies – A Missing Piece
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Answering Contemporary Questions
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Empowerment for ALL Students
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Educating the Educators
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