Each summer, Bronfman brings a cohort of exceptional Jewish teens through an intensive fellowship built on rigorous text study, a cohort Evan, Bronfman’s Director of Education, describes as “really high achieving” and often more comfortable with words and the sphere of intellect.

That’s part of why, for two years running, Bronfman has brought its fellows to spend time with Rabbi Adina Allen at the JSP studio in Berkeley. A collaboration that began in 2021, when R’ Adina served as Bronfman faculty, has now grown into an opportunity for Bronfman fellows to experience a new kind of Jewish practice: “JSP takes the text off the page,” Evan says, “into something that is more expressive and dynamic.”

Just as importantly, Adina invites students to see themselves as inherently creative, to try practices they might have assumed they weren’t good at, or that had nothing to do with them, and discover new ways of engaging with Jewish tradition. An invitation that encourages Bronfman’s teens to expand the range of Jewish and creative paths they could find themselves on. Which connects to another lesson R’ Adina models: the possibility of creating something that doesn’t yet exist.

“We want our fellows to feel that they have license to do something unprecedented,” Evan says, “and to reach into the tradition to do so.” JSP shows them that even an idea that seems outlandish can be brought to life, and that they, too, have the capacity to imagine new possibilities and act toward making them real.