Parents are key to the transmission of family values and religious/ethnic identity. Sulamot, the Family Education Initiative of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation, stimulates families to learn about their Jewishness. It does this by helping Jewish institutions provide impactful educational programming for families through funding for Jewish family educators in western Massachusetts.

A family educator is comparable to a personal Jewish trainer who attends to the learning needs of both adults and children, while providing them with quality Jewish time together. The educator provides the family with the tools (Jewish values) and the supportive scaffolding (“sulamot” in Hebrew) that will allow parents to construct their family’s Jewish identity.

For most adults, learning alongside their children is a non-intimidating way to both grow Jewishly and to model the importance of lifelong Jewish learning. Equally important, the programs are fun for everyone.

Family programs also help to connect families, reinforcing the sense of belonging to a Jewish community and to the Jewish people.

How Sulamot serves the Jewish community

Sulamot subsidizes quality, inter-generational programs at Jewish institutions in Western Massachusetts. It provides training and consultation to local Jewish family educators. The Sulamot office maintains a resource library and has over one thousand user-friendly program summaries for the use of educators. The best Sulamot-funded programs are posted on the website to spark program ideas for educators in other areas of the country.

Sulamot Funding

Sulamot provides one year grants of up to $25,000 for Jewish family education programming. Recipients provide a 30% match on the total cost of programming, which includes the salary of the family educator and other program expenses.

The Goals of Sulamot

·	To facilitate quality Jewish family education programming in Western Massachusetts, including outreach programming
·	To train local Jewish family educators
·	To provide family education resources for the region including a library and program bank
·	To provide consultation to Jewish institutions on the expansion of family programming

 Highlights in the History of Sulamot

Since 1996, Sulamot has co-funded over 1100 family programs with 15 synagogues, four day schools, the Springfield Jewish Community Center, the Chabad House of Amherst and the Jewish Family Service of Western Massachusetts. Sulamot educators are teachers, principals and rabbis who represent all Jewish denominations.

Programs have included such varied activities as mitzvah and tzedakah fairs, family workshops on the siddur and prayer, Jewish cooking demonstrations, workshops on Jewish approaches to the environment and on ethical decision-making, genealogical study culminating in a trip to the Lower East Side and Ellis Island, holiday events, and programs on the Jewish calendar using a portable planetarium.

Beginning in 2006, Sulamot funded the "Mothers Circle," a free, eight month course for non-Jewish mothers raising Jewish children. The course was developed by the Jewish Outreach Institute and Sulamot added family workshops. The Jewish Family Service of Western Massachusetts co-sponsored the Circles in Northampton and in Springfield, MA. An alumnae group, “More Mothers Circle,” was launched in Northampton in 2007 with an original curriculum for monthly meetings.


In October 2005 and 2006, Sulamot educators collaborated with the National Yiddish Book Center, the Jewish Federation of Greater Springfield, and the Jewish Arts & Culture Initiative of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation to run an all day, high holiday festival at the campus of the National Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA. The day showcased storytellers, entertainers, family learning sessions, kosher food, and shofar blowing. This community festival evolved from the first community-wide program sponsored by Sulamot in 2003, "The Jewish Home Discovery Zone," at the Holyoke Children's Museum. This day long program included short family learning sessions, storytelling, concerts and a singalong, Israeli dancing, kosher food, family craft sessions, adult text study and a sale of Judaica for the home.

Each year in addition to its group training meetings, Sulamot funds a local workshop with a nationally known Jewish family educator. In 2004, Sulamot ran a regional, family education training conference featuring Dr. Ron Wolfson and Ms. Vicky Kelman, consultants from the Whizin Institute for Jewish Family Life of the University of Judaism (Los Angeles).