Katz Innovation Summit

Since the inaugural Summit in 2016, KIS has continuously inspired Jewish professionals through dynamic in-person learning sessions and engaging webinars. Penn Hillel and Hillel International are proud to co-organize and facilitate the annual Katz Innovation Summit. Since 2022, the summit has taken place during the annual HIGA (Hillel International Global Assembly) conference.

Hundreds of Hillel professionals from across the movement – both in terms of geography and role – gather to learn innovation, relational engagement strategies, and user experience models to help create transformative programming, communities, and relationships at their respective Hillels. Topics have included, “Shaping the Next 100 years of Hillel”, “Cultivating Spiritual Chutzpah”, and “Facing Hard Truths and Cultivating Courageous Action”.

With any further questions about the Katz Innovation Summit, please reach out to Gabriel Greenberg.

This award recognizes Hillel(s) that demonstrate excellence through an initiative or methodology that refreshes, reinvents, or revolutionizes the way that Hillel creates the relationships, communities, and experiences that help students to engage in a process of Jewish self-authorship, and/or that help staff improve the impact of their work by encouraging reasonable and calculated risk-taking, exploration, and curiosity. The Eleanor Meyerhoff Katz Innovation Award places its emphasis not only on innovative products but equally on the innovative process put in place to realize such initiatives or methodologies.

• 2018: Leah Kahn, Senior Jewish Educator, Berkeley Hillel
• 2019: Hunter Hillel
• 2020: Hillel Moscow
• 2021: Hillel Ontario
• 2022: University of Florida Hillel
• 2023: Tulane Hillel
• 2024: NYU Hillel
• 2025: Hillel CASE