Avodah Justice Fellowship in NYC & Chicago

Expand your network of local changemakers passionate about exploring justice, Jewish life, and the powerful intersections between the two. Fellows create a pluralistic, diverse community built on mutual trust and respect through 8 months of in-person evening and weekend sessions, retreats, mentorship, project-based work, and community events. Fellows will:

Co-create a Jewish learning community. Find your people and take part in cultivating a powerful, creative, diverse Jewish community oriented in social justice. You’ll build a network grounded in mutual trust and respect where your Judaism flourishes and integrates with your understanding of collective liberation.
Deepen your justice analysis. Develop a systemic analysis of the root causes and effects of economic, social, racial, environmental, and other injustices. Through a year-end leadership project, you’ll build a tangible articulation of how you’ve advanced your analysis and work for justice.
Advance your Jewish framework for justice. Engage in deep learning of Jewish texts, history, rituals, and culture. You’ll develop throughlines between your Jewishness and your justice commitments, and locate yourself in an unbroken history of progressive Jews resisting oppression. In Chicago, learn through a lens of environmental stewardship to unify your understanding of sites of social injustice, and Jewish justice movements.
Join our active alumni network for life. Our community of over 1,700 Jewish social justice professionals and activists across the country are there to help with apartment hunts, job references, Shabbat dinner invites, mentorship, and everything in between. Alumni have exclusive access to educational benefits at partner institutions.

WHO: The Justice Fellowship brings together a pluralistic cohort of Jewish adults in their 20s and 30s working on a wide variety of local issues in their city. Our Fellows aim to break out of their personal silos and explore a more holistic learning approach to making change in their communities. They seek to build power, solidarity, language, resilience, and strategy for a Jewishly-rooted movement committed to doing this work effectively, collaboratively, and sustainably.

In short, they:

Have some experience in their professional, volunteer or personal life working on domestic social, racial, environmental, and/or economic justice issues;
Have an active interest in exploring the intersections of Jewish life and social justice, and developing the power of a local, justice-oriented Jewish network during and after the Fellowship;
Have an ability and desire to listen, grow from productive discomfort, and stay in relationship with others in a diverse community that reflects a multitude of ways of living and thinking Jewishly.

The Fellowship seeks to build a cohort reflecting many Jewish practices. We encourage people of all Jewish backgrounds to apply. Prior knowledge of Hebrew or Jewish texts is not required or expected and the program will be stimulating regardless of one’s textual experience.

WHEN: The program will run from November 2026 – June 2027. The application deadline is September 8th, 2026. We’ll accept late applications for a November start so long as space allows.