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PJ Library Strengthens Jewish Identity

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By David Morris - FJN Editor

Communities launching program by June 30 will receive additional funding


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Approximately 10,000 young Jewish children will soon benefit from one of the nation’s most innovative and successful Jewish cultural programs, thanks to a $2.5 million dollar challenge grant from the Harold Grinspoon Foundation, a national leader in Jewish identity-building. The grant is being made in order to dramatically increase the number of children and families served across the country. The Foundation will match-fund up to $100,000 to each Jewish community that has launched The PJ Library Jewish book and music gifting program by June 30, 2007.

A premiere initiative of the Grinspoon Foundation, The PJ Library mails a year’s worth of free-of-charge, brand new, age-appropriate Jewish children’s books and music CDs, one each month, to more than 5,300 children ages six months to six years. The rapidly expanding PJ Library currently operates in over 35 cities and towns nationwide including Sarasota and is anticipated to come to South Florida in the near future.

Designed as an outreach program to build Jewish identity in young, intermarried and unaffiliated Jewish families, The PJ Library is also available to Jewishly-engaged families, exposing them to Jewish culture, and enhancing creative Jewish parenting. The Grinspoon Foundation became motivated to make the matching grant upon receiving numerous testimonials and learning the results of a recent survey of parent-participants in The PJ Library, which pointed to its extreme effectiveness after only 16 months of operation.

The survey revealed that most of the families owned virtually no Jewish books before joining the program, and now 75% of them read The PJ Library books to their children once a week or more. Ninety-five percent requested The PJ Library be extended through age eight. Most gave the program top rankings, stating that the books and music spark Jewish conversations among family members.

In a majority of The PJ Library homes, only one parent is Jewish, or one is a Jew by choice, lacking Jewish childhood memories to pass on. In many cases, both parents grew up with little Jewish culture.

The PJ Library is the brainchild of Harold Grinspoon, a highly innovative philanthropist from Springfield, Massachusetts, who found his inspiration in country singer Dolly Parton.

"About four years ago I brought Dolly’s Imagination Library, which distributes books to inner-city children, to Western Massachusetts," Grinspoon explained. "Then it occurred to me—this is the ideal project to adapt to the Jewish community. We need to get Yiddishkeit into the homes of unengaged Jewish families in a positive way."

With the philosophy that reading stories and listening to music are among the most powerful childhood Jewish learning experiences, Grinspoon launched The PJ Library. "PJ" stands for "pajamas" to convey the notion that books and music add to the magic of bedtime.

The Grinspoon Foundation subsidizes the bulk of The PJ Library program costs, enabling a local "philanthropic partner" in each city to donate just $60 per child-participant per year, so that families receive and keep the library’s Jewish books and music, as free-of-charge gifts. The foundation is actively seeking additional philanthropic partners.



For information on bringing the PJ Library to your community, contact Marcie Greenfield Simons at 413-736-2552 or Marcie@hgf.org. or visit http://www.hgf.org

Posted by David Morris - FJN Editor on 05/18 at 04:01 PM • Hits: 330



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