To start, it is well over a thousand Jewish educators of all stripes - younger and older, beginners and veterans, first-timers and others with over twenty conferences under their belts. There are PhDs and volunteer teachers with no letters after their names at all. They come from all over North America, some from Israel, Europe and South America. There are teachers and rabbis and cantors and early childhood educators and principals and actors and musicians and artists and storytellers and dancers and lay leaders.

A mixed multitude you might say - all wanting to be the best teacher, rabbi, cantor, principal they can be – all striving for excellence for themselves and their students. As a community of learning educators - all striving to realize the nimble, creative, dynamic education programs the future demands.

And then the Conference is three hundred sessions designed to meet the varied needs, styles and backgrounds of the gathered throng (see above). Powerful learning. Important lessons. New ideas that will change the way you do what you do.

And then the Conference is music and theater and dance and comedy to inform your learning, bring you inspiration and joy, and a long list of performers you will want to invite to do the same for the folks at home.

And then each CAJE conference has a special focus…

Engaging 21st Century Jewish Learners
Do you know what a blog is? Not “have you heard the word” – that’s too easy. Have you ever read a blog? Done any blogging yourself? (It can be a verb, too?) Used blogging with those you teach? Do you even know where to look for a blog? If you answered “behind the sofa,” you have a lot of catching up to do.

How about IMs? Wikis?
Are you a member of a virtual community? Do you even believe in them, trust them, value them, or understand how you might create one to expand your classroom into the homes and hearts of those you teach?

We have ourselves a spanking new 21st Century cultural divide on our hands and unless you jump across it you and your students may not quite understand each other, and you will be missing a host of new ways to communicate, disseminate and educate.

Midrash tells us that at Sinai, God spoke to each soul in a voice it could understand. As educators, that must be our goal as well.

So who are these 21st Century learners? Where do they live? How do they define themselves?
Millions of Baby Boomers will soon be retiring. Many will want to pick up on the Jewish education they left behind. Are you ready to provide it?

Thousands of our youngest learners are in Jewish early childhood programs. We know they represent a perfect opportunity for family engagement. Are you prepared to be the Jewish role models these young families may yet be unaware they are looking for?

How can you use technology, community and the search for meaning as tools of engagement?
And how can we harvest the impulses toward leadership that Jewish education needs to fulfill its mission? This is not a role for the few.

So this is our focus and our effort – to help each other run as fast as we can to keep up with accelerating 21st Century change in our efforts to bring our precious ancient inheritance with us into whatever brave new world we might face.

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