The Yael Foundation on Wednesday launched the International Jewish School Leadership Exchange, a six-month collaboration program that unites Jewish educators from Europe and Latin America with their counterparts in the United States.
The program brings together veteran school leaders from diverse Jewish communities to share expertise, inspire innovation and build enduring professional and educational connections. Structured around twice-monthly virtual sessions and reciprocal in-person school visits, each pairing will delve into critical areas such as leadership structure, curriculum design, informal Jewish education and navigating the diversity of Jewish identity within school populations.
Among the pilot cohort are educators from Italy, Mexico and Spain, including Rabbi Benedetto Carucci Viterbi of Scuole Ebraiche di Roma, Luna Alfron Coriat of Madrid’s Colegio Estrella Toledano and Rabbi Dr. Isaac Sitt of the Or HaChaim School in Mexico City. They are working with senior leaders from prominent American Jewish day schools, including Rabbi Dr. Jeffrey Kobrin of North Shore Hebrew Academy, Rabbi Aaron Frank of the Ramaz School in Manhattan and Rabbi Yaakov Sadigh of Hillel Yeshiva in Deal, New Jersey.
“For too long, Jewish schools around the world have been islands working on their own without significant collaboration and cooperation, especially in different environments,” said Uri Poliavich, founder of the Yael Foundation.
“This program is an expression of our belief that strong, inspired leadership and partnerships are the key to a vibrant Jewish future. By creating meaningful peer-to-peer partnerships between school leaders around the world, we are fostering a strong sense of global Jewish solidarity, especially at a time when the Jewish people need to meet its many challenges as a global community,” he added.
Each participating pair will engage in 10 structured mentorship sessions over Zoom. In addition, the in-person visits are designed to offer immersive insight into the operational, cultural and pedagogical life of each institution. The visits include classroom observations, strategic meetings with educational leadership, student and parent engagement, and participation in prayer and school activities.
“This exchange is more than professional development—it’s a two-way bridge of learning and leadership. The diversity of context between schools in Europe and Latin America and those in the United States is precisely what makes this initiative so vital and powerful,” said Raizi Chechik, the program’s project manager on behalf of the Yael Foundation.
“We are confident that all of our principals will walk away challenged, enriched and inspired, and that, in turn, will strengthen Jewish education worldwide,” she added.