Jo Kay

Jo Kay was born into an Italian-Catholic family in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in a well-integrated community of Italians and Jews. Jo’s many Jewish friends welcomed her into their homes and taught her their customs and rituals. Her father, Mario, of blessed memory, began his high school education after the age of forty and within ten years had been awarded a bachelor’s degree and a law degree. He died tragically at age fifty-one; leaving behind a legacy centered on the importance of attaining an education, which helped to shape Jo’s own persona as student and teacher. Jo’s mother, Agnes, of blessed memory, kept the threads of the family woven into a tapestry of love and benevolence. She taught Jo the vital role the family unit plays in creating strong identity and positive values which helped Jo to imagine a vision of Jewish family education.

At Brooklyn College, Jo majored in elementary education. There she met Alan Kay, her future husband, who was born and raised in an observant Jewish family. Their courtship enabled them to gain respect for each other’s traditions. Jo’s thoughts about conversion to Judaism, planted much earlier in her life, began to take root. After taking courses in Bible and Jewish literature, reading books on Jewish history, life-cycle rituals, and Shabbat, she decided to study formally for conversion. Jo believes she has been traveling on a “sacred path,” and her journey into Jewish life and learning is constantly evolving.

Jo began her teaching career in P.S. 316 in Brooklyn, New York. Her first attempt at Jewish teaching was at Temple Beth Ohr, also in Brooklyn. She continued her avocational teaching at Temple Emanu-El of East Meadow, New York. There, Jo created the award-winning PACE (Parents and Child Education) Family Education Program. Not long after, Jo began teaching Judaic Studies at the Rodeph Sholom Day School in Manhattan. Within five years she was appointed Director of Judaic Studies, and, later, she assumed the position of Education Director of the religious school at Rodeph Sholom. Foremost among her responsibilities were writing curricula, developing family and adult study options, and mentoring teachers, most of whom were students at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) and the Jewish Theological Seminary. While at Rodeph Sholom, Jo earned a master’s degree in Jewish education at New York University.

In 1985 Jo was the recipient of a Gruss Award for excellence in Jewish teaching, enabling her family to participate in the Jewish National Fund’s Family Living Experience in Israel. It was a summer that changed their lives. Two years later Jo returned to Israel with her family to study for a year in the Senior Educators Program for Jewish Education in the Diaspora at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

In 1999 Jo was appointed part-time director of the School of Education at HUC-JIR in New York, and one year later she assumed the position full-time. In her new assignment, Jo has been immersed in the re-visioning of the School of Education, which is seeking to address the critical shortage of professional Jewish educators. Her years as a consultant and faculty member in the University of Judaism’s Whizin Institute have taught her how to nourish the field of Jewish family education and be nourished by it. For Jo, it is her work with the Jewish family, in its many forms, and her desire to enable adults and children to find their place in the Jewish community as positive and productive members, that informs her work and sustains her study.

In 2004, Jo co-authored the book Make Your Own Passover Seder with her husband, Rabbi Alan Abraham Kay, z”l. 

2018 Update:

Jo Kay retired from her role at HUC-JIR in June 2012 after 14 years of service. Since then, she has worked as an educational consultant in several different capacities across the Jewish educational landscape, including with the Jewish Education Project, where she has facilitated educator networks for the past three years.

In January 2018, Jo began serving on Congregation Rodeph Sholom’s Early Engagement Advisory Group; the youngest age group the congregation targets. Sholom Sprouts is open to children from 6 weeks through 2 years old and their parents. 

Jo also facilitates two Peer Network groups: (Manhattan Senior Educator Innovators and Titchadesh [educators who are newer to the field]) and serves as a mentor for the Jewish Education Project’s Qushiyot program, which seeks to empower educators to have in depth and balanced discussions about Israel and the current political situation.

In addition, Jo serves as a lay leader in her home synagogue, Temple Chaverim, in Plainview, New York. In 2018, Jo served on the Rabbinic search committee. As part of her role on the Religious School Committee at Chaverim of Plainview, she has worked with educators to develop a new mission statement, a new set of goals for a reform congregational school, a curriculum map, and a grade by grade curriculum overview.