Chana’s Champions

Chana’s Champions is a new project which Yesh Tikva has launched in partnership with the UJA Federation of New York. Chana’s Champions are women and men trained to understand the issues surrounding infertility. Through public education, they will ensure that all members of our community feel welcome within our synagogues and communal spaces and connect those in need to resources.

Chana, one of the biblical paradigms of the fertility struggle, publicly suffered in the ritual space as no one around her understood her need for support and comfort. To ensure that no one else is made to struggle alone in ritual and communal spaces, these Champions advocate for inclusion and awareness.

Chana is remembered as a matriarch who publicly struggled with infertility. Her story highlights the struggle within ritual and communal space. In noting this source of pain we train Chana’s Champions to ensure that no 1 in 8’s struggle alone within ritual and communal spaces.

Chana’s Champions will consist primarily of women and men who though themselves may not have experienced infertility have been touched by it through the experiences of family and/or friends. By educating and empowering them, they will help foster sensitivity and inclusion on behalf of the 1 in 8 within their synagogues, communal spaces and larger community.

This training includes:

• Gaining knowledge about the infertility umbrella: the issues related to medical diagnosis and treatment, access to care, the painful reality of the social and communal experience, as well as access to funding and resources available.
• Each cohort will learn how to educate lay and professional leaders about areas of vulnerability in Jewish communal spaces, areas where we can increase sensitivity and awareness, to increase empathy and inclusion, widening the tent of Jewish communal experience.
• Tools to advocate about these issues on both the micro and macro level.
• If you and members of your community would like to learn more and create a local Chana’s Champions cohort, please fill in the form below.