Summary: Volunteering + Values: A REPAIR THE WORLD Report on Young Jewish Adults is the first-ever comprehensive study of contemporary Jewish young adults and their attitudes and behaviors toward community service. Prior to this study, little was known about the full extent of Jewish young adults’ service commitments as national surveys of volunteering either did not include information about the religious identity of respondents or contained too small a sample of Jewish young adults to permit meaningful analysis.

The study reveals that Jewish millennials believe their service can make a difference in the world and in the lives of others. While the majority of these young adults currently do not connect their service with Jewish values and identity, the findings provide a path forward for Jewish leaders who believe that making this connection is important for strengthening the Jewish community.

Authors: Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University and Gerstein | Agne Strategic Communications

Download Press Release: REPAIR THE WORLD Releases Results of Landmark Survey of Jewish Young Adults and Volunteerism

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www.werepair.org

Summary: Repair the World commissioned The Worth of What They Do: The Impact of Short-Term Jewish Service-Learning on Host Communities to examine the positive, long-term effects of short-term service projects—often called alternative breaks—on communities-in-need both in the United States and overseas. To date, a number of studies have been conducted on the impact of service projects on individual participants, such as a sense of accomplishment and first-hand experience of global problems such as poverty and food insecurity. However, relatively little research has been done on the impact of service projects—Jewish or secular—on the communities they serve beyond the concrete gains of the service project itself.

Among its findings, the study notes that  short-term volunteerism jumpstarts local volunteerism, provides host communities the opportunity to develop local leaders and engage in cultural exchanges with the volunteers, contributes to a shift in community self-identity, and offers additional tangible resources they gained from even short-term projects that they would otherwise not have.

Author: BTW: Informing Change (BTW)

Download: The Worth of What They Do: The Impact of Short-Term Jewish Service-Learning on Host Communities

Download: The Worth of What They Do Executive Summary

www.werepair.org