In order to help strengthen the community toward modern Orthodoxy, Edah focuses its efforts on Education, Leadership Training, Advocacy, and Communications.
Education
Edah seeks to enhance the level and effectiveness of adult education by providing individuals and communities with explicitly modern Orthodox scholars, teachers, curricula materials and publications. Upcoming plans include:
- Stage two of Edah's web site featuring an extension of the current bibliography, an expansion into other medias, a greater level of interactivity, and more timely and original material on a wide range of topics relating to modern Orthodoxy.
- An expanded Edah Speakers Referral Service, with a greater emphasis on placement of the over 50 available speakers in communities around North America.
- Edah weekend Mini-Conferences in targeted communities around the United States and Canada.
- Continuation of a series of monographs based on proceedings from our February 1999 Conference, focused on the modern Orthodox approach to Jewish education, secular studies, and areas of public policy.
Leadership Training
Edah strives to develop committed lay and professional leaders who are focused on the conscious application and transmission of modern Orthodox hashkafah, by training individuals such as school and synagogue board members, educators, and rabbis. Edah plans to:
- Establish a "Jewish Teachers Corps" program to recruit and train young college graduates for two-year day school teaching assignments, on the model of Teach for America.
- Develop follow up programs for our recent one-day conference "Modern Orthodoxy begins in the Classroom", focused on the joint responsibility of parents, teachers, and administration for ensuring the transmission of modern Orthodoxy in our schools.
- Develop training program for board members of targeted day schools to help them understand the elements of an ideal modern Orthodox school.
Advocacy
Edah promotes modern Orthodox halakhic and hashkafic positions valuing religious Zionism, secular education, advancement of women within halakhah, communal responsibility toward agunot, and respectful interaction with the non-Orthodox world. Edah plans to:
- Implement an "Agunah-free Zones" project in several targeted communities. While we struggle to find a halakhic solution, communities with determined congregations and rabbis could adopt specific measures to eliminate this blight from their midst.
- Publish position statements and ads on current issues.
- Model our attitude toward women's advancement in every one of our activities.
Communications
Edah's objective is to bind the community through communication by providing services such as newsletters, on-line discussion groups, specialized internet list-serves, and news on modern Orthodox developments in communities throughout North America and Israel. Edah plans to:
- Conduct a membership drive to further the awareness of Edah and give individuals a banner under which to unite.
- Develop our web site as a communication hub for the community, creating special list-serves for targeted segments (e.g. Orthodox college students, rabbis, board members)
- Formalize our existing communications and cooperation with Israeli modern Orthodox organizations, such as K'Lavi Yakum, ATID, Kibbutz HaDati, etc.
- Publish a newsletter to keep individuals and communities informed of trends, developments, model programs, ways to get involved, and opportunities to strategize together.
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