As a part of our upcoming Launch Nights, we are excited to feature some of our excellent Fellows from around the world. Check out these inspiring ventures, and don't forget to RSVP for the Launch Night near you!

Meet Rachel Smith, one of our amazing Fellows from NYC! Rachel has returned to New York after two years of working as a Teaching Assistant for New York University Abu Dhabi and volunteering for education reform in Tel Aviv-Jaffa. Passionate about the intersections between Judaism, diversity, and ethnography, she is putting her BA/MA in anthropology to good use documenting the changing landscape of the Jewish community.

Rachel is the founder of And You Shall Tell, an online, interactive, multimedia archive of Jewish diversity in New York. Through interviews and portrait photography, And You Shall Tell provides an in-depth qualitative counterpart to Jewish demographic studies, while focusing on those who are diverse ethnically, racially, and in terms of religious interpretation and practice. These are the voices that are not often heard, and provide alternative narratives of Jewish identity today.

As a part of our upcoming Launch Nights, we are excited to feature some of our excellent Fellows from around the world. Check out these inspiring ventures, and don't forget to RSVP for the Launch Night near you!

This week, meet Ashley Waterman from LA! Ashley holds a Bachelors Degree in Education from Emory and a Masters Degree in Education from Columbia. She works at Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters and is a Board Member of Remember Us. Her professional experience includes providing psychosocial support programs for patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease, leading HIV prevention programs in West Africa and in New York, and participating as a Fulbright Scholar in Spain.

Tell and Retell will train grandchildren of Holocaust survivors how to share their grandparents' stories with teenagers in Los Angeles in the most evocative and powerful way possible. The three pillars of the program are Holocaust remembrance, community building, and leadership development through storytelling. As the survivor population diminishes, Tell and Retell shifts the responsibility of Holocaust remembrance to the descendants of survivors who will ensure that this chapter in human history is never forgotten.

On this Jerusalem Day, like past Jerusalem Days, we will probably hear the usual catchphrases “Jerusalem is a united city”, “Jerusalem will never be divided again”, “Jerusalem is a united city and divided population” and so on.

While it cannot be denied that Jerusalem is a place of many contradictions and conflicts, perhaps from this very place of combustion we can spark the hope for a better, shared future.

For while you may have in your mind the that the secular, ultra-orthodox, East Jerusalem Arabs, and new immigrants live in constant tension, I will let you in on a little secret. The Jerusalemites are just getting on with it. They are on the light rail together, they shop together, and they are starting to work together. They may not be having deep interactions, but they are tolerating and accepting the other.

And it is within this context that the changemakers of Jerusalem, the social entrepreneurs who live and breathe this city, incubate this change.

On this Jerusalem Day, we at PresenTense Israel are looking forward to the final stretch of the 4th cohort of Yazamim – our flagship community-based entrepreneurship program in Jerusalem.

15 ventures, 15 solutions, 15 sources of hope.

These incredible people stemming from the mosaic of Jerusalem’s diverse populations will launch their ventures on the 23rd of June. They are addressing the needs of youth at risk, children with autism, ultra-orthodox looking to combine Torah study and work, immigrant families learning about their Jewish heritage, Arab youth who want access to sport facilities and more.

Inc. magazine is a personal favorite. I like to pick up a copy at the airport so I can read on the plane when electronics are turned off. (I'm not trying to cause any Baldwin-esque scenes...) Inc. is a great way to stay updated with the latest tech companies and glean some pertinent business development insights and inspirations. 

I just rediscovered the October edition of Inc., which focused on the presidential candidates' views on economic stimulation and support for startups and small businesses. As I re-read the articles, I started thinking about the parallels in the Jewish Community Entrepreneurial ecosystem. I am not going to delve into the differences of Mitt Romney and Barack Obama's opinions because that conversation is already dated, but rather focus on the issues of governance and systematic support for Jewish Communal Entrepreneurship. For the sake of this exploration, please assume that Jewish startups and entrepreneurs are important, and many are worthy of the Jewish community's resources. If you disagree, don't worry - stay tuned for another blog piece.

While imperfect, the United States has a robust infrastructure to support startups which not only encourages but also protects entrepreneurs and their emerging businesses. For example, university sponsored research is often translated and developed through tech transfer offices. There are a handful of incubators that provide intensive resources, funding and networks to a select few startup companies, whether aligned with university research or independent like YCombinator and TechStars.