Shebrew in the City
Shebrew in the City is a podcast exploring all things Jewish. Combining interviews and informational episodes, join Nicole Kelly as she discusses her journey with motherhood, spirituality, and everything from Hanukkah to the Holocaust. Giving a voice to modern Jews and spreading love and joy, whether you're Jewish, Jew-ish, or not anything resembling Jewish at all, there's something here for everyone.
Shebrew in the City
"Paperback Writer": An Interview with Jessica McCormick about PJ Library and the Harold Grinspoon Foundation
What happens when the vibrant tapestry of Jewish childhood experiences meets the evolving dynamics of modern Jewish communities? Jessica McCormick joins me on to share her unique journey from Los Angeles to Tucson, Arizona. Together, we explore how her formative years in Hebrew school and Jewish summer camps paved the way for a career shift from Hollywood to impactful roles in municipal government and Jewish nonprofits. Jessica opens up about how these experiences intertwined with her identity as a parent, and we reflect on the shifting prominence of conservative Judaism amidst changing synagogue memberships and community landscapes.
Through heartfelt discussions, Jessica and I highlight the resilience and adaptability required to nurture Jewish identity in an ever-changing world. Join us for an episode rich with personal stories, reflections, and a deep appreciation for the enduring spirit of Jewish communities.
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Jessica McCormick:I'm well. How are you?
Nicole Kelly:I'm doing good. I'm doing good, so we're going to go ahead and talk a little bit about your personal story, as well as PJ Library and the Grinspoon Foundation today. So I usually start by asking my guests where they're from and what their Jewish upbringing was like, if they had any.
Jessica McCormick:Yeah, so I'm from. I was born in Tucson, arizona, and that is where I'm sitting right now which is kind of funny because most of my adult life I was in Los Angeles.
Jessica McCormick:So I grew up in Tucson, Arizona, as part of a very. We were spent most of our lives in a very vibrant conservative shul. It's like it was that time in conservative Judaism when it was standing room only at the Chagim. It's not like that anymore, but I grew up so I was also in Hebrew school three days a week. My kid now goes two, but I was in it three days a week. I went to Camp Al-Alim and Camp Ramah. My parents sent me to Sleepaway Camp. I was in USY, I was in BBYO and so my life was really centered around Judaism.
Jessica McCormick:And my husband actually makes the joke when we used to visit Tucson, because for 22 years I lived in Los Angeles until he moved here. As far as he was concerned, Tucson was like 100% Jews, because he would come back and visit with me and those are all the people he would encounter, the people he would encounter Towards the end of what you might think of as like COVID quarantine period. We made the decision to leave LA and move back to Tucson to be close to grandparents, my parents, my family, and then, of course, he discovered like the rich diversity of life in Tucson. And then I would say that Los Angeles, my years in Los Angeles as a young adult and then as a parent, also really shaped my Judaism.
Jessica McCormick:That's where I created my own Jewish identity. It's where I made a shift from working in Hollywood, which had been my early career, into municipal government and then Jewish nonprofits. And that shift happened because I stayed home for several years with my oldest children I have two in college and I have a seven-year-old and during those years my life was made better by municipal government, by libraries, by farmers markets, but also by Jewish organizations. And I made a decision when I went back in the workforce I had loved working in Hollywood, loved it, loved it, but I wanted to go back and work in those worlds that had impacted me so much.
Nicole Kelly:It's so funny that you talk about the height of the conservative movement because I grew up in that as well. In the 90s, early 2000s, I went to Hebrew school two times a week, but it was like two hours and then most Sundays. I totally get what you're saying. I like to say that I didn't actually really meet anyone who wasn't Jewish until I was five and went to kindergarten. So I can completely relate to that and I'm originally from Los Angeles. You are, yeah, I am, I'm from the San Fernando Valley. My family, my sister and my parents still live there, so we try to go back a couple times a year and they come here. So I can totally relate to the, like you said, the height of the conservative movement, which is something that's very different today for various reasons. It's kind of crazy how the decline of that and membership within synagogues has so drastically changed in less than 30 years. It's crazy.
Jessica McCormick:It's really different. And I don't think I realized the extent to which it had happened, because when I was living in Los Angeles I did work for a while at a very large conservative synagogue. I worked as the director of communications at the day school and that was that was, you know, probably had had more of a heyday, but Sinai Temple was still extraordinarily full and vibrant. And then for six years, one of the things I did in the in the Jewish community and we can talk more about my various roles before PJ library but I was the director of something called the Jewish Emergent Network, which is really known by its parts more than its sum. It was seven progressive Jewish communities all around the country and they came together in a network to help raise the field, to offer programs.
Jessica McCormick:But I was working with places like Labshul and Romamu and Mishkan and Ikar and the Kitchen and Sixth and I Kavanaugh in Seattle, and these places were all standing room only right At that moment. They were sort of reinventing what it could mean to be in Jewish community and breaking their own paths. And so in those scenarios I was also in, you know, places that were overflowing. And when I moved back to Tucson and I went back to my home, shul, which I have a very fondness in my heart for. I'll spend a lot of time there later this week, I was surprised to see exactly what had happened.
Nicole Kelly:I remember high holidays when I was growing up. They would actually have seats, kind of like on the other side of the glass outside because it was so full. And I don't think the synagogue is that busy anymore, even on high holidays. But we belong to a reformed synagogue that has 2,500 families. It's one of the largest in the country. So I mean there are benefits and downsides to large synagogues. You had mentioned, you know, working in the Jewish sector before, you know, going to PJ Library. Can you talk a little bit about some of those positions and what that entailed?
Jessica McCormick:Yeah, sure. So I had been working for the city of Beverly Hills in community services when I got my first opportunity to work in the Jewish nonprofit world, and that was at Sinai Akiva Academy as the director of communications. It was a new position for that day school and it was, you know, an extremely immersive experience to learn about Jewish nonprofits in that way. My next role was at the Jewish Immersion Network, where I came in as sort of a program manager and then became the director of this fledgling brand new program, and that was extremely rare air to be breathing, because I was working all of the time with remarkable rabbis. All seven of the communities that made up the network had just remarkable rabbis at their center, and then we were also working on training early career rabbis. And so not only was I learning at sort of at the feet of these luminaries through this work, but I got to be around clergy all the time, and I actually didn't realize how bereft I would be of that until I made my next move. So I became the executive director of the Hillel at the University of Arizona, my hometown of Tucson, and so we moved back and working with students was remarkable. But it was just a few months in when I realized, oh, it's really a different life when you're not talking to rabbis all day, every day. You know, text and music were so naturally a part of my day-to-day life for six years and I missed that. But then I was also able to bring that a little bit to the students at the Hillel and it was a very tumultuous couple of years.
Jessica McCormick:At that Hillel, unfortunately, there was a terrible tragedy that happened on Yom Kippur Day a few years ago. Right in the building, right across the street from my Hillel, a professor was murdered by a student who was full of hate and who erroneously believed the professor to be Jewish, and so it was an extremely complicated situation. As you can imagine. It was very scary and complicated that day on Yom Kippur as we barricaded in the building and then for months afterwards as the story unfolded and of course we tried to help these students and keep our Hillel a really safe place. So it was a very tumultuous and exhausting couple of years.
Jessica McCormick:So it was a very tumultuous and exhausting couple of years and the Hillel, you know when I was hired, needed a lot of. There had been some, in many ways, strong leadership and in other ways it really needed rebuilding, particularly around engagement. There were a ton of Jews on that campus that weren't being engaged and it was exhausting and extremely fulfilling work. And then, just about a year and two months ago, I came to PJ Library and this has been just it's been just a gift in my life. I'm, you know, I'm a little bit of a writer. On the side I'm a reader. I have three children who all benefited in different ways from PJ Library, and so it's been a delight to make that shift into immerse in this world of Jewish stories.
Nicole Kelly:I'm sorry you had to go through that. That must have been an absolutely terrifying experience. You know, at the height of the high holidays that happening and having to hide not really knowing what was going on.
Jessica McCormick:Yes, it was very scary. Thank you for saying that. It was, I think, much scarier and more traumatic for the students. That's who you know, who I really think about. You know, the sad truth is that in the Jewish world we have to have so much training, so much training around potential terrible events. But it works, and so I was able to respond, and the rest of the incredible staff I worked with. We were able to respond extremely quickly, almost instinctively, which is what they want, by training you again and again and again for active threats, and so we knew what to do. But it was very hard for the students. That was their holy space and their space to be themselves freely, and it was a long road to recapture that feeling for them in the building.
Nicole Kelly:When I was growing up, the GCC under my parents' house, where my sister had, like she'd been in the session of summer camp before this happened, someone walked in with a gun and shot people and that was kind of the onset of the security within the Jewish community. My synagogue did not have gates or security when I was much younger and now you know, there's police officers in front of our synagogue my daughter's school which I'm thankful for, but every time I see them I kind of think it's really unfortunate. This is necessary, but at the same time I'm very thankful for the very organized security team that the organizations I'm involved with have.
Jessica McCormick:So I totally get the training and training resources.
Nicole Kelly:Yeah, there are a lot of resources, thank goodness so let's move on to something a little a little more joyous pj library. Uh, we are a big fan of this in my house. I read my daughter two pj library books last night. One was about kangaroos celebrating rochashana, and I don't remember what the other one was, but but it was a PJ Library book about a holiday, I don't remember which one. Oh, it was about Sukkot. It was about Sukkot, so we learned about some of the holidays that are coming up. So can you tell me a little bit about how you got involved with PJ Library before we jump into the story of the organization in general?
Jessica McCormick:Yeah, I mean, when I think about my involvement with PJ Library, I first think about my own children. You know, way before I worked for the organization, my two oldest children in Los Angeles, weren't didn't have a lot of the time with the PJ story books because of their age and where the program was. But very interesting. Briefly, we're part of a program that we don't run anymore in America called Sifriyat Pajama, which we run in Israel. But my two oldest children, their father is a Sabra, so Israeli, and so Hebrew speaking home for them, and they received for a time storybooks in Hebrew, which was, you know, such an amazing resource that I don't think we really utilized, but I'm sure lots of other families did. We tried to read them, we just there wasn't, there wasn't fluency. And then they became subscribers in this incredible program that for us was so exciting, pj our way, when they were just a little bit older that's for older age range, kiddos and then they could pick every month between fiction, nonfiction and graphic novels. They could select their own books every month, and then they would come in the mail, and so that was amazing. And then and then I had my, you know, now seven year old, and I was signed up from age zero, of course, and I would you know. We started receiving all of these books that we hadn't had when my big kids were little, and there were all sorts of other resources too. There's a ton of digital content Now I'm privileged to work with the digital content team, but first I was just a parent. You know, listening to podcasts and enjoying the music that PJ Library shared and going online for their holiday resources. I thought it was wonderful. So I was sort of an evangelist for PJ Library way before I ever worked for the organization, and so are my parents.
Jessica McCormick:When we moved back to Tucson and you see this a lot grandparents are really involved with grandchildren's Jewish lives many times and they're excited about PJ Library. They like reading books with their own grandchildren. And even though I'm a Jewish professional and I had by then been a longtime PJ subscriber, my mother, I think the day we told her that we were moving to Tucson, changed my address for me with PJ Library. She was so concerned that we wouldn't miss a single book that she took care of that. And then I came into Tucson, which is a smaller community, and in each community PJ operates a little bit differently.
Jessica McCormick:On the ground it's books and resources into homes.
Jessica McCormick:But also we work with implementing partner communities and in Tucson the folks who were running PJ Library programming for the Federation Foundation, gcc, had all of these incredible programs and resources and especially in COVID they would be.
Jessica McCormick:We would go pick up gifts that they had made that we would bring into our home and across the spectrum of the holidays and we were already celebrating all the holidays right, family that built a sukkah, that had Shavuot and it was still so additive to our lives. So that's like my first piece of my story with PJ Library is loving the program and loving the books. And then when there was an opportunity open for the director of engagement, which was my initial position at PJ Library, it just seemed like such a perfect fit and I felt extremely privileged to be considered for the position and it felt like a match made in heaven as we were having conversations and I started a little over a year ago in that position and then my position has evolved a little bit. I'm the director of family experience, which we could talk more about what it is I do, but colloquially within PJ Library we sort of talk about it as like books and not books, and a lot of what I do is not books, although of course books permeate everything.
Nicole Kelly:We were actually two weeks ago at an event at the JCC in Harlem where they had a jazz ensemble and it was co-sponsored with PJ Library, so we take advantage of the events that are not books in our area as well, which my daughter really liked because she loves music. I love to hear stories like that All sorts of connections, the Jewish, you know, we're all connected in some way. So how did this organization get started?
Jessica McCormick:This is a great story.
Jessica McCormick:So, first of all, we've been talking about PJ Library, but my actual employer, who I work for, is the Harold Grinspoon Foundation which is a foundation, you know, started by a Jewish luminary that I had long admired because I was a PJ Library subscriber, because he's also an artist and he has a sculpture in my hometown that I can go and visit.
Jessica McCormick:But this was his brainchild and he had other aspects of his foundation. He was already an extraordinary philanthropist and in 2005, harold Greenspoon heard about Dolly Parton's Imagination Library. He heard her talking about it I think he heard her on the radio and she wanted kids to have their own library of books in their homes to grow their love of reading, and he was so inspired by this and he had already been thinking about ways to share joys of Jewish life with children. That was on his mind as he was building out his own foundation. He wanted to build Jewish literacy, connection to values, stories, tradition that are at the center of the Jewish experience, and so, as he was listening to Dolly Parton lay out the structure of her program, the idea for PJ Library started to take shape and he used Imagination Library as his blueprint, and they are great friends now, harold and Dolly.
Nicole Kelly:Oh my goodness, and he called.
Jessica McCormick:I know it's so it's so cute. In fact, like quick side note, my seven-year-old idolizes Harold, of course. I work for PJ Library and saw on a cover of one of our own PJ Library magazines Harold and Dolly Parton together and I explained who she was. And later we were at a record store and he brought me a Dolly Parton record and said look, mama, it's Harold's friend.
Nicole Kelly:We have a Dolly Parton record and said look, mama, it's Harold's friend. We have a Dolly Parton little golden book that I read to my daughter sometimes. We are huge fans of Dolly in this house. I feel like Dolly Parton should run for president because she would do amazing things for this country.
Jessica McCormick:Amazing. So then I realized that I had a deficiency and my child needed an education in actually who Dolly Parton was. So, anyway, harold hears the story. He calls his daughter-in-law Winnie Sandler Greenspoon, who is now the president of the Harold Greenspoon Foundation, and said we should create a Jewish version of this and they based actually the model of sourcing and distributing books With the help of local partnerships. We work through local implementing organizations. That's still the foundation of how we operate today. All inspired by this moment when he heard Dolly Parton talking and it was just like a perfect marriage of what he had already been dreaming about for Jewish children.
Nicole Kelly:So can we kind of break down? For those that are that have, you know, got a little bit from what we've already said but don't necessarily know what PGA Library does, what exactly do they do as far as books?
Jessica McCormick:Right, right, that's a great question. So at our heart we are a books program. We create joyful Jewish experiences. We hope that's our goal by sending Jewish storybooks and activities to families every single month. And the books have these amazing additional resources, in many cases not the board books, but as you get older, the storybooks have flaps where we have there's incredible resources on these flaps about ways to talk about the story activities you can do in the home based on the story. You know, content related to holidays or values or themes in the books. So those are going in into homes and but they're augmented by a number of other pretty robust initiatives. So engagement, like you experienced with that concert, through implementing partner communities. We also spend a lot of time offering professional development to people in fields, at GCCs, at federations, at other implementing partners who are working on PJ Library, where that's their portfolio. They're not our employees but that's their portfolio. We offer them professional development and we host a big annual conference for them every year to help them build connections, build their own community, expand their skill set.
Jessica McCormick:We do holiday guides and gifts, so we send really comprehensive. We're actually building out our suite of holiday guides right now and we're very excited because we're about to send one into the home that covers what in the northern hemisphere are winter holidays it's called A Time to Hope. We have one for what in the northern hemisphere are fall holidays, a Time to Grow. We're working on A Time to Gather, which will be sort of spring, what we might think of as spring holidays. We're working on a two-part Shabbat set and we have a beautiful Haggadah.
Jessica McCormick:So these are all resources that we put into families' homes. We also send, you know, gifts. It might be a Hanukkah puzzle that goes with a storybook or an apron for grandparents and children in different sizes so that they can cook together. We send tzedakah boxes into homes. So there are a number of gifts and resources that we put in homes. We have a tremendous amount of digital content, like I was telling you, a couple of podcasts that are extremely well listened to, but also depth of additional content online where parents and families can go and just discover ideas and resources and articles. We have a program called Get Together, where we try to incentivize Jewish families and give them the tools they need to host and get together with other Jewish families, which is a very special program, I think very dear to my heart, which is a very special program, I think, very dear to my heart.
Nicole Kelly:And I'm trying to think.
Jessica McCormick:I know I'm missing stuff. That's a lot. All of it is designed yeah, no, it's an extremely big program and it's all designed to inspire families, you know, on their own Jewish journeys for them, to help them explore holidays and rituals, sort of on their own terms.
Nicole Kelly:So who pays for the books specifically and the physical gifts that are sent? Is it just the Grinspoon Foundation? Are there other organizations involved? Things like that, private donations, yeah.
Jessica McCormick:Yeah, that's a great question. So all of that, and PJ is, of course, totally free for families.
Jessica McCormick:It's a no-strings-attached program, so right. So Harold Grinspoon's generosity is immense, but we were able to do this actually thanks in large part to the PJ Library Alliance, which is a collective of generous philanthropists who are dedicated to supporting families in creating this sort of vibrant Jewish future, and, of course, also private donations. We're fueled by private donations as well, so we couldn't do the work that we do without a global community of individual donors and organizational donors at all levels of support, and that also includes parents and grandparents.
Nicole Kelly:So it literally takes a village to make PJ.
Jessica McCormick:Library run. It literally takes a village.
Nicole Kelly:Just like everything else in parenting, kind of just jumping back to the gridspoon foundation for a second, because I did not know who he was until I did a little bit of a google search and he's very impressive, um, so I definitely you know would suggest googling him.
Nicole Kelly:And how like he dropped out of college to work for you know. He drove ice cream trucks and managed that, and he's now this hugely successful real estate developer. He signed the Giving Pledge, the one that Bill Gates had a bunch of very, very wealthy people sign. So if you don't know who he is, I would check that out and as well. Like you said, he's an artist and a sculptor, so you can look that up online too. He's a poet as well. Oh my goodness, and he's still going. He's in his 80s, right, and he's, he's still. He's still going. He's in his 90s oh he's his 90s.
Nicole Kelly:We should all be so.
Jessica McCormick:I work remotely. I we should all be so lucky, and we're so lucky to have Harold with us. Um, I work remotely, but I go to the office several times a year and he's in the office when I visit there every day. It's remarkable. He's extremely inspiring.
Nicole Kelly:That's crazy. So what other organizations does his foundation support?
Jessica McCormick:Right. So there are actually many projects of the Harold Greenspan Foundation. They're all aimed at strengthening Jewish communities worldwide and connecting people to Jewish values, tradition, culture. So PJ Library is a really big one. J Camp 180 is launched in 2004, and it helps build capacity of nonprofit Jewish camps through mentorship, professional development opportunities and challenge grants. So camps are really close to Harold's heart. We have Life and Legacy. That started in 2010. And through partnerships with federations and foundations, life and Legacy helps Jewish day schools and synagogues and social service organizations all sorts of Jewish organizations build endowments to create financial stability, and so that's what that project does. And, by the way, it's really exciting for us in the PGA Library world because our colleagues at JCamp 180 and Life and Legacy work in many of the same implementing partner communities, and so we can see the ways that the work unfolds in these communities along a number of fronts, like all dreamed up by Harold.
Jessica McCormick:And then Voices and Visions, which is dear to my heart because I benefited from it as a Hillel director. It's a poster program that uses the power of art to interpret words of great Jewish thinkers, and these posters are just offered as gifts to beautify Jewish spaces, and they go all over North America into Jewish spaces and so every year at Hillel, when I worked there, it was like my great privilege to get this package in the mail and decide where these pieces of art would go. So those are the core projects of the foundation, and HGF collaborates with Jewish and philanthropic organizations to expand investments in all of those projects. And I should also say that Harold Greenspoon is also a visionary local philanthropist and his local philanthropy in Massachusetts, where he lives, is sort of a different aspect of the work, but I would hate to not say that because he also makes such a big difference right in his own backyard.
Nicole Kelly:So there's a lot of ways to benefit. So if somebody listening is interested in something that's other than PJ Library, where would they go to look for these resources?
Jessica McCormick:The Harold Greenspoon Foundation website is is pretty robust and can point people in the right direction.
Nicole Kelly:Perfect, perfect, uh. So jumping back to PJ Library. Who can sign up for PJ Library? Are there restrictions as to far like? You have to be this type of Jewish. You have to be that who's allowed to sign up for this.
Jessica McCormick:Great. So this is actually, I think, part of Harold's genius and his vision. We welcome all Jewish families and and this is actually, I think, part of Harold's genius and his vision we welcome all Jewish families and this is super important to him. So PJ Library welcomes like an incredible diversity of Jewish experience, serving families whether they have a lot of previous Jewish knowledge or very little, religiously observant or not Any part of the Jewish spectrum. All families that have any connection to being a Jewish family at all are welcome to subscribe, and we hope they subscribe. And we know that these books go into homes that really are across the Jewish spectrum, from extremely observant homes to people to families for whom PJ Library Books and Resources might be their only Jewish touchpoint. I love that.
Nicole Kelly:I love that it's so you only Jewish touchpoint. I love that. I love that it's so, you know, inclusionary. I think that's an actual word for everybody. What about educators? So let's say you're a Jewish educator, you run a young children's program in a synagogue or a GTC, but you're not, you know, bringing into your physical home but into a school situation. Are they allowed to sign up as well?
Jessica McCormick:That's a good question. So we used to have a program several years ago and this is sort of the nature. We're not a baby organization anymore but in many ways we still function like a startup. Right, it was a new idea and we're always testing new ideas. So several years ago we had a program called PJ Goes to School. They came with books and materials on how to use them in a classroom. We sunset that program to focus on the family experience at home.
Jessica McCormick:We do have organizational subscriptions where organizations can sign up and receive a book each month and use them. You know however they would like, but anecdotally we know that in addition to the organizational subscriptions, tons of our books are in classrooms and particularly, but not only, in Jewish spaces. We send books to each child in a family. Families end up with an incredible library of PJ library books and some of those you know remain sort of family heirlooms and people hang on to them and now we're starting to see the first generation of PJ kids having their own kids, which is remarkable because they still have their PJ library books. They're getting these new books. But we also know that families, particularly with multiple kids, end up with a ton of books and some of those make their way into beautiful donations, into Jewish organizations and into public school libraries and circulation, and so we know those books are really well loved and used in all sorts of different settings by all sorts of different educators.
Nicole Kelly:I love that you're that there's like a generational thing going now, because you know when something's been around for so long, you know the, you know Lador Vador, literally to from generation to generation. That's so great that you guys have been around long enough, uh, to make that happen Just on the cusp, like just on the cusp.
Jessica McCormick:It's really exciting.
Nicole Kelly:Very young, very young, very young parents, uh, I guess who, uh, who, um, were, were some of the first PJ library kids. Is PJ library is affiliated with a specific Jewish movement? You mentioned JCC. Um, I, you, you know it seems like it's like a non-specific, like conservative reform, that it's not affiliated with any of those. I don't know how to let me rephrase this question Is PG Library affiliated with a specific Jewish movement? You had mentioned the JCC.
Jessica McCormick:Yeah, no, we're not. So we work. We do work with implementing partners in North America. The way we work, we work with over 183 implementing partners in various communities to help, you know, grow our subscription, get books into more Jewish homes and also grow their family engagement locally. We want people connected to their own local community and so many of the organizations we work with are JCCs and federations, but not always JCCs and federations, and we're totally non-denominational in terms of how we're affiliated, just like how anybody can subscribe for the book, and the books themselves reflect a spectrum of Jewish practices as well.
Jessica McCormick:You can see a lot of different types of Jewish practice in our books and we're always trying to diversify our stories and our characters and our settings. We talk about, on the book side of PJ Library, windows and mirrors. We want to give children and families windows into other types of Jewish life and values and rituals that may not be their own or may not yet be their own. But we also want mirrors, right, we want kids to see their own Jewish experience reflected in the stories we want them to see themselves. It's so important, and so we're always trying to diversify our stories because we know that we're not affiliated with a specific part of the Jewish world and we really want our stories to speak to everybody.
Nicole Kelly:I love that. I love that it's exposing people to maybe people who are more religious, but just holidays in general and, like I said, animals. There were kangaroos celebrating Rosh Hashanah last night, which is a very unique Jewish experience. We've read that book a couple times this week Alligator Seder by Crush.
Jessica McCormick:Yes, we have. Yes, okay.
Nicole Kelly:Yes, we have Alligator Seder too. I was picking a second book and I was like, do we go Sukkot, do we go Passover? I was like we'll do Sukkot because it's coming up soon, but Alligator Seder is definitely with my daughter's books. Why is it important to send books to children in this specific age group? Because you could do just one to three, one to four, because you know four tends to be the cutoff for like young children program. Why did the foundation and PJ library decide to extend past four or five?
Jessica McCormick:Right, right, we go from birth to 12. So, look, I think that you're talking about really early childhood and there's sort of a conventional wisdom that that might be the time when families are making decisions on how to raise their children or how their Jewish home or life is going to look. But I actually think it extends much further than that and we want Jewish parents and Jewish children, jewish grandparents, non-jewish caregivers helping to raise Jewish children. We want all of them to be empowered and we want to continue helping to build for people on their own terms Jewish identity, jewish joy, jewish resilience, a set of Jewish understanding around. You know holidays and values, and so it's really important for us that we're not just a baby book program and the stories get so much more sophisticated as a child grows. But it's also amazing reinforcement.
Jessica McCormick:Right, you might have alligator seder in your home, but by the time a child is 12, they will have a library of Passover stories. They'll have a number of different ways to think about the Passover experience, from the storybooks, from the holiday guides we put into the homes, and then for several years they'll get to pick their own stories and what matters to them. So I think that the entire age spectrum we're sending to. These are all people like. The journey doesn't stop at a certain age, and so it's important to us to reach kids from birth through age 12. And listen our educators and our experts. They curate Jewish books to match each developmental stage of a child's journey, from infancy to independent reader. We have a whole team that spends quite a lot of time thinking about what goes into the home at each age and stage.
Nicole Kelly:You talked a little bit about how the program shifts from middle school age children. Was this something that was? I assume this is something that was added a little bit later. Why did you choose, to you know, expand the program, and how does it change when the kids get a little bit older?
Jessica McCormick:Yeah, so much later. 2014 is when PJ Arway launched, so I feel like my oldest kids must have been right towards towards the beginning of it, benefiting from it and independent readers tweens, I mean. I think it's.
Nicole Kelly:I think it's common wisdom that they don't want to be told what to do or told what to consume, and so we wanted to give them, or, if you're my daughter, it's already the case. It's already the case, right Threenagers, people say sometimes, yes, she's pretty great, but she definitely is opinionated.
Jessica McCormick:Yeah. So then children get to pick. These tweens get to pick, which is a very powerful experience. So our older readers are ages 9 through 12. And you know some kids one of my kids, my middle kid, only read graphic novels by choice, you know, unless they had to read something for school for a period of something like six years, and I'm very happy to report that he's a great reader as a young adult now, and I love graphic novels. I think it gives a lot of people a different path in to literacy, and so our middle graders can pick each month between fiction, nonfiction, graphic novels along a number of different themes, so they're not just getting one piece of content, and that's, I think, really exciting. And they also through PJR way. There are some opportunities for them to interact with their peers through local leadership councils In some cases there's been some specific programming and also they can go online and leave reviews for the books so that in other months their own peers can use their feedback to decide which books to bring into their home.
Nicole Kelly:How do they choose the books? Is that done online through like a portal? How does that work?
Jessica McCormick:Exactly, it's online through a portal Great.
Nicole Kelly:How many households does PJ Library serve? I don't know if you have exact numbers, but nationally, internationally.
Jessica McCormick:So internationally we send 600 and I think it's 650,000 books a month. Oh, my goodness, that's it's incredible and in 2022, we sent our 50 millionth book.
Nicole Kelly:That's a lot of books, especially considering how small the Jewish population is worldwide.
Jessica McCormick:That's an immense footprint on that and it's an immense footprint and we're very proud and that's I mean, that's Harold's vision. You know he's he's. He's a great guy because it's an immense footprint and we're very proud and that's I mean, that's Harold's vision. You know he's a great guy because he's an ideas man and he's an execution man. You know, sometimes you have somebody who's an ideas person and somebody else who's a doer, and Harold is everything. Um, but it's, it's an immense part of market share, particularly in North America. We're also in over 40 countries and we know there are so many more Jewish homes that we would like to offer these, these, these books too. So we are always looking to grow and get these books in as many homes as possible.
Nicole Kelly:Yeah, I definitely. I don't remember how I initially found out about PGA Library. I don't remember, but I signed up pretty much right after my daughter was born and events that aren't are co-hosts of PGA Library through our synagogue, through things like the JCC. You guys are always around and have someone to talk to people and examples of books and give out like magnets and stickers. So you know, I, if I hadn't heard about it initially, I absolutely would have heard about it, you know, through some sort of event and you guys so you guys do a really great job of of outreach in regards to that.
Jessica McCormick:I, I mean, I love to hear that. That's actually a lot. So we have a core staff at the Harold Greenspoon Foundation, but we have these amazing partners in the field. You know those, those folks who are at events that you go to. So in New York it's actually our staff and our people.
Jessica McCormick:It's such a big market for us that we run New York and work with, of course, many partners in the field, but in every other community those are employees of a GCC or a federation or another Jewish organization and we offer some really lovely professional development. But they're just an amazing team. They're out there using the tools that we provide to make their family engagement the best it can be, and that's what we want to see. We just want to see people being plugged into community. We love it.
Nicole Kelly:You had mentioned other countries. So, according to the website, pj Library now sends books to over 40 countries in seven languages. Why did the organization think it was important to expand beyond the US and how successful has that aspect of the organization been?
Jessica McCormick:So I think it's been pretty successful and what's amazing? So I'll start with what I think is amazing and then I can give you like a more official answer. What I think is amazing and then I can give you like a more official answer. What I think is amazing is that Jewish children all around the world are having a common experience because of PJ Library, and I really mean all around the world. We work differently in different countries, but it's remarkable that a child in Ukraine and obviously a child in Israel and a child in Australia and a child in Israel and a child in Australia and a child in South America and a child even I took a trip to Japan this summer and our international director said oh, do you want me to connect you with the PJ parents in Tokyo? That all over the world there are Jewish families having a common experience. Now, the books are not always the same. It's actually an enormous operation, because books that might resonate in New York might not resonate at all in Mexico right.
Jessica McCormick:And a book that resonates in Mexico may or may not resonate in Argentina, and so it's an enormous undertaking, but the idea there was really the same. We want to empower Jewish families around the world, from the unaffiliated to the deeply involved, from Russia to Uruguay. We want families all around the world, from the unaffiliated to the deeply involved, from Russia to Uruguay. We want families all around the world to be able to create their own treasured Jewish moments and memories through the simple act of reading stories together, and we want to honor people's like local traditions and also give them these windows into Jewish practice around the world. So it's it's like very exciting, exciting, and it's an enormous, an enormous endeavor.
Nicole Kelly:Yeah, it sounds like it, especially trying to figure out what would resonate in different countries, because Judaism varies greatly within the United States. So I can't imagine trying to kind of gauge other countries, especially countries that don't have a large traditional Jewish population, like Uruguay or Japan. But we, you know, we're a small, mighty population and we're, we are everywhere and that's so exciting that the organization is able to share that with people in other countries. You know, I love that. I love that so much. Pj Library also self-publishes. I noticed this pretty early on that the books have your logo and, like you said, those little flaps. My daughter's starting to get books that have information with flaps and things like that. So does this make the operation easier, more difficult, when did this start? You know how does that work?
Jessica McCormick:Yeah, so not all of our books are self-published.
Jessica McCormick:In fact, an enormous amount of our books go through external traditional publishers, and because we operate in such quantity, we're able to put covers and book flaps on books even when we're working with publishers. But we also do have a publishing arm. Pj Publishing started in 2014. And the idea was to provide more opportunities for authors and illustrators to publish a wider array of Jewish stories for our families. So oftentimes we would notice that there was a promising manuscript that another publisher didn't pick up for whatever reason, and so PGA Publishing would make an offer and publish it, and now, if the book looks like it has potential for us, we'll make an offer right away the PJ Publishing arm and that's a huge change in how our own publishing arm has worked, but we still love working with publishers. We just wanted to be able to have the capacity to move the Jewish stories that we wanted to see going to parents and to the world, and so it gives us a little bit more flexibility and it's changed the way. You know, we're able to work with authors and illustrators.
Nicole Kelly:As far as you know, choosing the books every month and everything like. Let's say, you know I have my daughter. We get books once a month. If I signed up a second child, would I get the same books? Would you say, okay, she's already. Great question, you know she already has books. How does that work?
Jessica McCormick:Yeah, such, such a good question and I couldn't. I couldn't even begin. I'll, I'll. I'll tell you the sliver of it that I understand, because the logistics of it boggle my mind. Our operations team is, I mean, the cream of the crop, seconds.
Jessica McCormick:And then the idea is that you would not get repeat books, or at least not many. We don't use books, I believe it's every four years, and so that's not perfect timing, right for all families, but for the majority of our families, even if they have many children, they won't receive a lot of repeat books. Now, at the same time that we don't recycle books more than every four years, we're also constantly adding new titles, and so the likelihood then that you get a book over and over and over again. Now we do send a welcome book to families. Joseph had a little overcoat, and so some families wind up with multiple copies of that. I think, or maybe just I did, because I already had such a large Jewish library before my kids started PJ. But they work really hard and it's a very complicated operation to try to get fresh books to each child and each family.
Nicole Kelly:I love that because we have a book selection committee Sorry go ahead. I love that, you know, obviously depending on, like, the difference between children, but you know the most part a child gets, I think part of the excitement is getting a book in the mail so that the younger sibling still has that experience. You know they're not just like okay, here's the leftover books from your older sibling, so they get their own books just like their older sibling would.
Jessica McCormick:With their name on it. It comes with their name on it on the envelope. It's very exciting. You know my seven-year-old so he's been getting pj library books his whole life and it doesn't become less exciting when he comes home from school and there's a pj envelope for him. He loses his mind. And now, by the way, we have to work really hard because, um, I work at pj now and I get all of the books each month and they kept Akiva's subscription my son is Akiva so that he could still get his own and that's really special for him. And so now it's very important for him to figure out, when all of the envelopes come, which one actually is his.
Nicole Kelly:I love that. I love this organization so much. I love it. We talked about donating directly to PJ Library. What about if you wanted to host an event? How would you do? How would you facilitate? You know how would you go about making donations, hosting events. Is there a way to sign up on the website?
Jessica McCormick:Well, I would love to talk about pjlibraryorg slash donate, Please. Anybody can go there anytime and help make this work possible. It's really important work, and when I say no Strings Attached, I really mean that All these resources just go to families for free. So I love that. In terms of hosting events, I don't know, I can't think of a way that somebody would host an event, but I never want to close a door to something.
Jessica McCormick:I think the best thing for parents to do is to get involved with their local PJ library, you know, with the implementing partner organization, to understand what events they're doing. Anybody can host a get together, which is incredible. That's not meant to be. That's not fundraising for PJ. That's just meant to get you together with your friends, In fact. In fact, we will be happy to reimburse you for some of your expenses to the tune of a hundred dollars, so that you can gather in whatever way is meaningful for you with other Jewish families and help create community on your terms. So I think there are different ways to gather with other PJ families and I would hate to speak on behalf of our advancement team. They might love to have somebody you know help us raise money in creative ways but pjlibraryorg slash donate is where I'd love people to check out.
Nicole Kelly:Yes, remember that website. Send them money.
Jessica McCormick:Thank you, they're doing great work. Thank you for asking, by the way.
Nicole Kelly:Yeah, I mean charity and philanthropy is such a part of Judaism and what my personal beliefs in general. You know my mother, you know from a young age, instilled in us that you don't throw things away, you donate them there's. You know you don't throw things away, you donate them there's. You know you're giving away clothes. There's an organization that gives clothes to women who need outfits for job interviews or girls for prom, and she was very active in organizations. So it's very important to me to always find ways to get back to the community and that's such a huge cornerstone of my daughter's school's, you know, mo is that from a very early age they encourage them to get involved with the community and help others. So I'm always looking for ways to do that and encourage other people. Maybe I'll look into hosting an event. I'm involved with a couple of young parents like not parents who are young, but parents of young children, and we're always looking for things to do. So maybe I'll reach out to a PG library representative and figure that out.
Jessica McCormick:Yeah, we would love it and you don't even have to do that. You can sign up for as subscribers can sign up to host a get-together online. It's pretty easy and there are lots of tools and ideas and that's also no strings attached. Listen, I'm so glad you asked about donations, but also just pjlibraryorg. I mean, become a subscriber, you know that's, that's the. That's the main thing we want. We want to be getting stories into people's homes to help them build their own Jewish life.
Nicole Kelly:Not to mention all the online resources which I really have not utilized. I will admit I feel like that's something I need to look a little more into and play music and look at the the online content that you guys have.
Jessica McCormick:There's, it's, it's. It's extremely deep. Our digital content team is remarkable and it's extremely deep. Our digital content team is remarkable. You can find so many resources for every holiday, every value, every tradition. There are so many details on the books and how you can use the books in your own life. And then our podcast. I just can't say enough. We have a couple of different podcasts and they're so wonderful to listen to it. Really, I suppose some kids might listen to podcasts on their own my seven-year-old is just starting to do that but mostly it facilitates family time for us. We'll listen to a podcast together in a car or when we're traveling and then we talk about it, and the podcasts are just this remarkable additive product that we have. So definitely check those out if you haven't.
Nicole Kelly:I'm obviously a big believer in podcasts, though my husband and I really only kind of jumped on the podcast train maybe like a year ago because we don't have cars and I like to read on the train, so he's much more podcast heavy than I am. But the idea of listening to a podcast my daughter while we're like playing or doing something, I think I like that. I like that as opposed to like a TV being on or something like that.
Jessica McCormick:It's quite lovely and, you know, one of the things we know that parents tell us is, yes, the PJ Library products help them with their Jewish life, but they also just help them with family time. Right, just quality family time sitting on the couch or having a kid in your lap. It's called PJ library. It stands for, you know, pajama library. It's. It's the idea that you know you're cozy and spending this family time together and and that's a benefit completely in addition to or separate from the Jewish benefit we're just facilitating quality family time, and the podcast can also do that.
Nicole Kelly:So talking about, you know, working with authors and new books. I feel like my husband and I have a million ideas for children's books, not necessarily Jewish. But let's say there's somebody who is a new or unknown author. How would they go about submitting? Do they pitch an idea? Do they have to have a story written? Do they have to have an artist? How would they go about doing that? Where would they submit? What would you guys request? So if you could let me know how to do that, Sure, Maybe I'll get you a book.
Jessica McCormick:So first of all, you should write all those children's books. Look, we work with all types of different authors and anyone can submit a manuscript by going to the how we Choose Books section of our website. So any author Now that submit a manuscript by going to the how we choose books section of our website. So any author Now that is a manuscript that's complete. It does not need to have illustrations, but that's like a complete manuscript, not an idea. Of course, we also buy from publishers, right, and so there are many authors who might sell books based on pitches, but those are typically authors that are agented, you know, and and are and already working in that professional capacity. But, yeah, we encourage, if you have a manuscript, go to go on our website, click on how we choose books and submit it to us. We love reading new work. I actually that's not really my department, so I would say my colleagues love reading new work and I just benefit just benefit from it when it comes down the pipe a little further.
Nicole Kelly:I think we all benefit from it. So if you've got an idea, head over to PJ Library and shoot your shot, I guess. One thing I noticed on the website that is very unique is you have something called the First Time Camp Awards. Can you talk to me a little bit about what that is and how that got started?
Jessica McCormick:Sure, well, as you know, because we've been already talking about it, jewish camp is very sacred and important to Harold, and you know he has the J Camp 180 program. So PJ Library wants to help our subscribers attend Jewish Overnight Camp for the first time, and so we offer awards to qualifying families. We administer camp awards through the One Happy Camper platform, so there are a number of different organizations that offer similar incentives, and so do we, and so to be eligible to receive an award from PJ Library, a camper has to be all of a following you have to be a current or former PJ Library subscriber or the sibling of one in a PJ Library subscription family. You have to be looking to attend a nonprofit Jewish overnight camp in the United States or Canada, and we have the list of qualifying camps. You can find it on the One Happy Camper website. You have to be attending overnight camp for the first time.
Jessica McCormick:We're just thinking about this in my family because my big kids went to camp for a long time, but my seven-year-old is going next year for the first time. It's very exciting. You have to start talking about it way early in the year, right so that they're ready to go. So first-time campers children who've never attended a Jewish overnight camp for 12 or more consecutive days. Right, there are some specifics here, but I would love to share them with your listeners. Campers who attended like a one week taste of camp kind of program in the previous year are actually still eligible to apply because we want them to go for a longer experience. So you have to be going for 12 or more consecutive days and you have to be a resident of US or Canada. So there are a few more things that families could look at, a few more rules, but that's pjlibraryorg slash camp and we. It's really a feel-good program to offer incentives to our subscribers so that they can have this other Jewish experience.
Nicole Kelly:I think that's so special. I went to camp an overnight camp when I was 14. I didn't have the opportunity to do so when I was younger, but it was a really great experience and something I'm hoping to do for my daughter, and I think it's really beautiful that the organization and Harold, you know, through his foundation facilitates that. So, before we jump into our short form questions, is there anything else you want to talk about? You know, your personal story, or PJ Library in general, or Harold, or anything like that or PJ Library in general, or Herald or anything like that.
Jessica McCormick:You asked a lot of really good questions. This was a deep interview. I think I just want people to know about it and sometimes in the circles I run in because I work for PJ Library, it feels like everybody knows about it.
Jessica McCormick:But of course that's not true and I want so many people to know that these resources are available to them, that it really is a free resource, that it's just a gift of the Harold Greenspoon Foundation and our incredible alliance donors and you know individual donors that it's a gift and that it's books and it's so much more. It's these holiday guides and these gifts and these resources's books, and it's so much more. It's these holiday guides and these gifts and these resources and the podcast and all of the content online and the get together program where we help you, you know, create your own hyperlocal community on your terms. I just want people to know about it.
Nicole Kelly:I hopefully this, this podcast, will reach reach a few new subscribers. That's my hope and one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you guys, because I really do love the organization. I am an avid reader. I'm trying to instill that with my daughter. It's working so far because she'll carry books around with her, even though she can't read yet. She takes books to school with her. She was running around the park with a Dr Seuss book two weeks ago. I'm such a fan of encouraging literacy and that's really what this organization is, along with the Jewish aspect, so it's like the perfect thing for my family. I love it so much.
Jessica McCormick:I love that story about your daughter because she's already. She's not even decoding, yet she's already doing that thing that I think many readers do, which is I take a book everywhere and 80% of the time I never crack it, but I don't go to a doctor's appointment.
Nicole Kelly:I don't go to a baseball game.
Jessica McCormick:I don't go anywhere without it and like is my shoulder probably a little wonky from carrying books around my whole life Totally. But it's worth it and I love that your little child is already a book toter.
Nicole Kelly:She takes after her mom. I used to get in trouble for reading at the dinner table, Like we go to a restaurant and I'd read a book. I just yeah, it's what I do. It's what I do. So this next section is short form questions in the style of the actor studio. They don't need to be long explanations if you don't want to. What is your favorite Yiddish word?
Jessica McCormick:For sure, shtickle. It means like a little bit. It was a word I already loved and then one, but it has a really funny moment in one of my big kids' favorite songs. I have a little challah from when they were little, and so for sure shtickle.
Nicole Kelly:What is your favorite Jewish holiday?
Jessica McCormick:Pesach for sure Passover. And when I moved to LA, even as a college student, I told my family I want you to come visit me, for Pesach, that's what I would like to host. And so, even in this tiny, these tiny apartments in my early years in LA, my family would come from all over and there were some years when I was like this is crazy making, why have I done this? But I love Pesach. It's a home-based holiday and everything about it, and particularly the smells and the storytelling Just love it.
Nicole Kelly:If you were to have a bat mitzvah today, what would the theme of your party be?
Jessica McCormick:So I do not mean to sound snooty here, but I'm going to say that my two oldest kids they had their b'nai mitzvah together. They're very close in age and sometimes people will say to me what was their theme, and I'll say Torah. And that was sort of the theme of mine too. I was bat mitzvahed at a conservative synagogue in Israel and the theme was sort of Torah. And so that's not to sneeze at these amazing parties which I've enjoyed my whole life, but when I think of becoming a child of the commandments, I actually just think of Torah.
Nicole Kelly:What profession other than your own would you want to attempt?
Jessica McCormick:Okay, I don't know that I would actually want to attempt this because I lack grace and all musical ability. But a Broadway star, obviously that's the dream, that's what I want to be. I was in New York last week and I was able to see two shows and I think I just like disassociate sometimes and I think I'm up there on stage, you know, kicking well, that was what I moved to New York for, and I ended up doing a lot of other stuff, so I definitely can relate to that all right.
Nicole Kelly:Well, thank you so much for joining me, jessica. So if you're interested in signing up for PJ Library and any of their programs, head to their website and you can get some free books in the mail and some great resources. This is Ben Sheber in the City and some great resources. This has been Sheber in the City and I am Nicole Kelly Bye.
