Our mission is to create vibrant, effective, and engaging Jewish learning and to make it affordable and accessible throughout the Bay Area.
We build capacity for learning among professional educators and lay leaders, enabling them to create and maintain a system of excellent Jewish education in synagogues, day schools, early childhood programs, and informal educational settings.
Picture this: the year is 1854 and the Gold Rush is at its peak. The Jews are migrating West - digging for gold and founding the jeans business, all the while worrying about who will teach their children Judaism. And so the Jewish Education Society (JES) is born. Only 40 years later, the JES is teaching hundreds of kids and incorporating itself into the California State school system.
In 1958, the name Jewish Education Society goes of out style and the community leaders come up with the ever more creative Bureau of Jewish Education (BJE). The BJE is re-designed to serve as the central agency to help educating institutions create vibrant and engaging Jewish learning. And it still does!
