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The Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education (CAJE), founded as the Coalition for Alternatives in Jewish Education, was a non-profit organization based in New York City. Its activities included an annual conference that draws more Jewish educators than any other similar event, advocacy for Jewish educators, various education-related publications, and more. Its founding was the brainchild of Jerry Benjamin and Cherie Koller-Fox.
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In 2009 CAJE closed its doors. In 2010 a new organization called NewCAJE arose, led by founder Cherie Koller-Fox.
Purpose
According to its bylaws, the purpose of CAJE was to "bring together Jews of all ideologies for work, study, and sharing in discussion of issues in the field of Jewish education."
Conference
Also according to the bylaws, "[t]he conduct of educational conferences shall be a primary activity of [CAJE]."
CAJE's yearly CAJE conference drew between 1,000 and 2,000 Jewish educators from around the world.
Unlike other conferences of its size, the CAJE conference typically offered several hundred workshops over the course of only a few days. The daily workshops were supplemented by evening keynote addresses and musical and theatrical entertainment. In recent years, sub-conferences such as the "Consortium for the Future of the Jewish Family" ran concurrently with the CAJE conference.
The first CAJE conference was held in August 1976 at Brown University. Around 350 people attended.
Due to its size and nature, the CAJE conference was generally held on a university campus.
The CAJE conference inspired similar conferences around the world, including the very popular Limmud conference in the United Kingdom.