1.2 Million Dollar Grant Announced at JLI Conference and Purchase of 5-story Building for JLI

A major announcement by JLI Chairman Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky at the annual JLI conference at Queens College earlier this week was a grant of 1.2 Million dollars to expand JLI’s educational reach, gifted jointly the George Rohr and David Magerman. Rabbi Kotlarsky also announced the purchase of a 5-story building on Eastern Parkway to house the organization’s growing staff of 39 and 12 divisions, and serve as an expanded resource and conference center for affiliate shluchim. Addressing the conference, Mr. David Magerman, President of the Kohelet Foundation spoke movingly about his realization that amassing a fortune for the sake of the next generation’s Judaism would not result in Jewish commitment, and how he resolved to support JLI’s mission to encourage Jewish study across the globe.

Close to 350 JLI instructors from all over the world came together to learn new skills for taking their JLI chapters to the next level. Workshops and main session presentations imparted essential cutting-edge tools and resources for pedagogical excellence, effective marketing and recruiting, and successful fundraising.

The creators of each of the new courses for the upcoming academic year introduced the concept and themes of each course: Fall course The Kabbalah of You, presented by Rabbi Naftali Silberberg; Winter course Living With Integrity, presented by Rabbi Shlomo Yaffe and Rabbi Mordechai Dinerman; and the Spring course, Curious Tales of the Talmud, presented by Rabbi Shmuel Braun and Rabbi Naftali Silberberg.

One of the most innovative and forward-looking developments at JLI is collaboration and partnership with a growing number of mainstream organizations. These partnering relationships, through which JLI is becoming the foremost adult Jewish curriculum provider in the world, enables Chabad centers to reach entirely new target audiences through JLI’s vast course offerings.

Photos by Bentzi Sasson