Two Bay Area innovators land major fellowship

Thursday, April 29, 2010 | by stacey palevsky

Two Bay Area entrepreneurs have been chosen from 130 applicants for a prestigious fellowship that will facilitate the growth of their fledgling Jewish organizations.

Sarah Lefton, founder of G-dcast.com, and Zelig Golden, co-founder of Wilderness Torah, are among eight Jewish innovators nationwide to be awarded a $100,000, two-year fellowship by the N.Y.-based Joshua Venture Group.

“A lot of important Jewish ideas hatch on the West Coast and then migrate eastward,” Lefton said. “That two fellows are from the Bay Area is almost predictable because there’s so much innovation going on here.”

Joshua Venture itself started in San Francisco in 1998. It suspended operations in 2005 citing lack of funds, but not before helping to launch a number of successful initiatives, including Heeb Magazine, JDub Records and San Francisco’s own New Jewish Filmmaking Project.

In its first year of funding projects since reorganizing, Joshua Venture is awarding the fellows $40,000 in unrestricted funds for each of the two years and additional stipends for health insurance and professional development.

Golden and Lefton were selected because “they both embody the type of leader we’re looking for,” someone with a strong vision who is action-oriented and entrepreneurial, said Lisa Lepson, director of Joshua Venture.

As part of the award, the fellows will attend two five-day retreats each year; the first is in June in Baltimore. They also will stay in regular contact with Joshua Venture staff members, who will connect the fellows with resources and mentors to provide coaching and guidance.

“I can’t imagine the fellowship not being totally invaluable,” Golden said.

The money and support are a major boost for both G-dcast and Wilderness Torah.

“I need to create a more stable, functional, professional organization where I have some regular staff whereby it will be easier to launch new programs in the future,” Lefton said.

The funding also will help Lefton to start her next big project: animating the Book of Joshua. Last year,

G-dcast created five-minute animated short films for each of the weekly Torah portions.

Lefton also hopes to hire an educator to write more in-depth curriculum guides that supplement G-dcast cartoons. Eventually, she wants to animate portions of the Talmud.

“I want to put a G-dcast spin on dafyomi — the practice of studying one page of Talmud each day for a period of seven years — and crack open Talmud study for regular people,” she said.

Golden said he plans to share the Joshua Venture funding with his co-director, Julie Wolk.

The financial support will allow the Wilderness Torah co-directors to start a nature-based b’nai

mitzvah mentorship program. They also plan to offer environmental workshops on topics such as plant medicine, fermentation, food preservation, composting and organic gardening.

Wilderness Torah has already made a name for itself with its pilgrimage festivals: Shavuot on the Mountain, Sukkot on the Farm, Tu B’Shevat in the Redwoods and Pesach in the Desert.

Those holiday celebrations will continue as the organization grows. Eventually, Golden hopes to build a center for environmental education and Jewish spirituality in Northern California.

“Our vision of Wilderness Torah is to have a rural

center, a piece of land, where we integrate all of our community programs with Jewish spirituality and education,” Golden said.

For information, visit Joshua Venture Group at http://www.joshuaventuregroup.org;  G-dcast at http://www.g-dcast.com; and Wilderness Torah at http://www.wildernesstorah.org.