June 25, 2019

Written by Josefin Dolsten

CHICAGO (JTA) — Walking into SketchPad, a visitor at first may think it’s no different than any number of popular co-working spaces that have popped up in recent years in cities across the country.

The walls are bright, the work areas are airy and decorations are simple but trendy. Millennials gather around tables with Apple laptops. One can scribble notes directly onto a wall that doubles as a whiteboard in one of the conference rooms. There are compost bins and gender-neutral bathrooms.

But visitors to WeWork — or any other popular co-working space — are unlikely to find a wellness room called “zay gezunt,” meaning “to health” in Yiddish, or a conference room called “minyan,” the Hebrew term for the quorum of 10 people required to recite certain Jewish prayers. Nor does the average WeWork have a beit midrash, or Jewish study hall, filled with Torah books and other religious texts.

That’s precisely the point, says Irene Lehrer Sandalow, who founded SketchPad at the end of 2017. At that time, nine organizations used the space in the vibrant Ravenswood neighborhood on the city’s North Side. Today that number has doubled to 18, which means that about 45 people regularly work there.

Co-working spaces have exploded over the past decade, with the most notable company in the field being WeWork. It was co-founded by an Israeli-American entrepreneur, Adam Neumann, and now has more than 500 locations around the world. The spaces are popular among freelancers and startups, and these days even host social events in addition to providing regular workspace for a fee.

Lehrer Sandalow wanted to add a Jewish twist to the successful formula.
“We really mark the Jewish calendar,” she told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency at the space in April, “because we think a lot about what does it mean to be an intentionally Jewish workspace community? Why not be at WeWork, why not be somewhere else?”

SketchPad joins a small number of Jewish-themed co-working spaces around the world, including in New York; Encinitas, California; London and Melbourne.

Lehrer Sandalow, 38, came up with the idea in 2015, a year after she had moved to Chicago with her husband and was working from home on a project for the Union for Reform Judaism.

“It was very isolating,” she recalled, “so I would often call my friends and say ‘Let’s meet at a coffee shop or a Starbucks.’”

After brainstorming with local Jewish organizations and getting a number of grants, she opened SketchPad.

All the participating organizations today are Jewish nonprofits except for Measuring Success, a consulting firm that works with many Jewish nonprofits.

“We were looking for Jewish organizations who we consider ‘innovative,’ which I know is an overused word, but organizations who are always thinking about ways to engage the Jewish community in an innovative way,” Lehrer Sandalow said.
Among them are national organizations such as Avodah, American Jewish World Service and Workmen’s Circle, and Chicago-based groups including Svara, Mishkan Chicago and the Jewish Council for Urban Affairs.

SketchPad earns about 65 percent of its $320,000 annual budget through member fees, which range from $135 per month for a desk one day a week to $1,500 per month for a full-time private office. The rest of the budget is made up of donations from Chicago’s Jewish federation, the Crown Family Philanthropies and individual donors.

Some members work full-time for one organization, while others work for several groups.
Shifra Whiteman, 30, works from SketchPad as part of part-time jobs at three Jewish organizations — Orot: Center for New Jewish Learning, American Jewish World Service and Workmen’s Circle.

“It’s given me the opportunity to piece together somewhat of a full-time job without having to go to different locations and use different parts of my brain by working part-time for a bunch of places,” she said.

Lehrer Sandalow is passionate about incorporating Jewish programming on a regular basis, such as by hosting a charoset tasting for Passover, a sukkah-building event for Sukkot and Torah learning for Shavuot.

For some members, the programs play a crucial role in their observance of the holidays.
Leah Greenblum, 31, the Chicago community director for Avodah, did not have plans for the first Passover seder this year but was planning to participate in an event at SketchPad after work.

“I get to take part in a charoset-off tomorrow. I’m genuinely excited to go home and make charoset,” she said.

Jojo Rubnitz, a 23-year-old campus operations and marketing associate for Kahal, has found something else at SketchPad.

“Just being Jewish and working with other Jewish people, there’s a sense of community and already connection,” she said.

At SketchPad, members are directly involved in making decisions about the space and programs. Every member has to serve on a committee — there are some dedicated to membership, Jewish spirituality and upkeep of the physical space (including promoting sustainability).

“As opposed to having that customer-owner relationship, it’s more kibbutzy,” Lehrer Sandalow said. “We’re all in it together and let’s make it happen.”

Story by Marcy Oster

(JTA) — The oldest Jewish cemetery in Cuba is undergoing rehabilitation.

The Havana burial ground is being restored as part of an initiative by the city historian’s office ahead of the 500th anniversary of the Cuban capital’s founding, which will be marked in November, The Associated Press reported.

In addition to the cemetery, located in the Guanabacoa neighborhood on Havana’s east side, the city is repaving streets, cleaning monuments and restoring historic sites.

The cemetery has deteriorated over many years, as the Jewish community was unable to raise the $200,000 needed to refurbish the entire ground. Jews in the United States have contributed to the upkeep of some burial plots, according to the report, citing David Prinstein, vice president of the Hebrew Board of Cuba.

There are about 1,100 grave sites in the cemetery, according to the report. Fifty have been repaired and 150 more are scheduled for repairs before the end of the year. The room used for tahara, the ritual washing of the body according to Jewish burial rites, also has been refurbished.

The historian’s office did not tell AP the total amount that will be spent on the restoration.

Written by: Ron Kampeas

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Turning Point USA, a conservative student group that is most notable for its vocal advocacy for President Donald Trump, is hosting a conference here for young Jewish leaders that includes an address by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son Yair.

Netanyahu, 27, is one of the more youthful speakers at the three-day Young Jewish Leadership Summit taking place through Wednesday. He’s known as a strident defender of his father, who is mired in corruption scandals. The son’s political embrace of views well to the right of his father have occasionally gotten him into trouble.

Other speakers on the younger side of 30 include Elizabeth Pipko, the spokeswoman for Jexodus, a group that seeks to draw Jewish millennials away from the Democratic Party, and Hunter Pollack, whose sister Meadow was among those murdered by a gunman at a Parkland, Florida, high school in 2018.

Many of the older speakers have been involved in politically conservative Jewish advocacy for decades, including Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who gained fame for writing books about sex in marriage as well as his connection to celebrities; Dennis Prager, the author of books on Judaism; and Rabbi Daniel Lapin, known for his associations with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and Mel Gibson, the Hollywood actor who famously unleashed an anti-Semitic rant at a police officer.

It’s not clear how many participants are expected. There were dozens of name tags awaiting Tuesday at the reception desk.

A few speakers, including Sebastian Gorka, the former Trump White House staffer who has associations with Hungary’s political right, are not Jewish. Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk is closing out the conference.

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency was denied entry into the conference taking place at the Museum of the Bible. A staffer told JTA the conference was closed to the media.

Russian security chief Nikolai Patrushev affirms Russia’s commitment to Israel’s safety • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reveals Russian President Vladimir Putin will attend an event in Israel this year.

(JNS) As a historic tripartite summit between top Israeli, American and Russian security officials got underway in Jerusalem on Tuesday, U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton assured Iran that U.S. President Donald Trump is ready to enter negotiations.

Despite a spike in tensions between the United States and Iran in recent days, Bolton said “all that Iran needs to do is walk through that open door” to find a willing negotiation partner.

He made the statements at a high-profile security summit attended by attended by his Israeli and Russian counterparts Meir Ben-Shabbat and Nikolai Patrushev, along with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Bolton lamented that Iran’s silence in the wake of rising tensions has been “deafening.”

Prior to the event, Netanyahu greeted and thanked Patrushev, and revealed that Russian President Vladimir Putin would attend an event in Israel later this year “to lay the cornerstone of the monument commemorating the siege of Leningrad and also to begin the events commemorating the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.”

Netanyahu added that “Israel will not allow Iran, which calls for our destruction, to entrench itself on our border—we will do all we can to prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapons.”

“Self-defense is a very important lesson of 20th-century history—certainly for the Jewish people and its state,” he said.

“We pay special attention to ensuring Israel’s security,” Patrushev said on Monday, adding that it is “a special interest of ours because here in Israel live a little less than about 2 million of our countrymen. Israel supports us in several channels, including at the U.N. The prime minister [Netanyahu] has already said that we share the same views on the issue of the struggle against falsifying the history of World War II.”

While Russia has opposed U.S. action against Iran, including America’s withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal, it has given tacit consent to numerous Israeli military actions against Iranian targets near the border between Syria and Israel.