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Someone just alerted me that this conversation is taking place. This is Allison Josephs. To clarify – our goal at Project Makom is not to make ex-hasidim “Modern Orthodox.” There is a RANGE of communities in between ultra-chasidishe and modern Orthodox. The truth is that really what we are helping people do is go from *unhealthy* Judaism to a healthier one. For a bunch, they stay within the Charedi world. They are not interested in Modern Orthodoxy. We are presenting healthy, halachic drachim and rabbanim and friends and communities and letting people choose what feels right to them. I went to a seminary which presented us a range of drachim and encouraged us baalei teshuva to find the one that resonated with our neshama. We are operating with a similar model here. Not for people who are happy and doing well. We are catching people as they fall out or after they feel out.
To clarify – at Project Makom, we are offering basically all the same services Footsteps offers (referrals to job training, GED, ESL, college), support groups, PLUS all the Jewish stuff – Torah classes, shabbos and yomtov placement, connecting to rabbis. And we are offering a range of hashkafos to explore – everything from heimishe to halachic modern Orthodox.
We have parents who have disowned the kids for moving to a new community even though they retain the levush and minhagim. But, we are seeing the most difficult cases. For the people who make changes and have familial support, they wouldn’t come to us necessarily. I think we are making progress – more parents are being more accepting. But we are not there yet. There are still plenty of Jews who are coming to us to make a real, sincere connection to HKB”K but because they are making any change from how they were raised is enough for the family to cut them off.
Glad to be here 🙂 We have never gotten feedback that our female staff made anyone feel limited. We didn’t davka try to only hire women. Although because our entire staff is part time, I don’t know how easy it would be for us to find a man to work for us. Generally, they are more responsible for the bread winning in the family, whereas women can work p/t and care for their children. be”H as we grow and can offer competitive f/t salaries, we’d be happy to add male staff members too. Our director of social services deals with the OTD crowd a lot. She started off as a volunteer – she approached us. When we had funding to hire someone she had already created a rapport with our members, so we went to her. In terms of our director of programming and networking, these women grew up Chasidic themselves and found happy, healthy places in the frum world.. So they are excellent resources to show people who have gone through pain that there is happiness on the other end. We have plenty of male speakers and rabbanim we connect members with, so there is no shortage of male voices for our members.
If you want to help us, you can be in touch on our contact page on http://ProjectMakom.org
Hi-
This is Allison Josephs – founder of JITC and Project Makom. We are indeed running and we are indeed growing. We had over 700 people join our Facebook group in year one with almost 200 unique individuals come out for in person events. In year two (our current year), we developed an intake process, hired a social worker, opened a database and developed a system for doing case management for our members which now number over 70. We are purposely growing not too fast so we can learn how to serve our current membership most effectively. Once we feel confident in our system, we will make ourselves more known. But as always, we don’t advertise in Charedi media – we advertise on Facebook and social media – as we’ve found that for the people who are already there coming from the most ultra-chasidishe communities, they have one foot out the door. Our services include: support groups, shabbos placement, mentor matching (I worked at Partners in Torah for 5 years and so our model is similar), monthly events (social gatherings, Torah classes, professional classes), shabbatons, referrals to GED and ESL programs. Our calendar has not been updated regularly. It’s our list of things to do. We started this branch of JITC because people who wanted to leave their community of origin but still stay frum approached us for help staying frum. Our members are interested in a range of communities from heimishe to right-wing modern Orthodox. We only show halachic drachim but offer a range of choices as we believe there is more than one right derech and people who were not succeeding where they were might have a better chance in a new community if they visit new ones and get to choose it. If you want to help us grow, please be in touch (Sorry, contact info is not allowed)Â Thanks!