What the program offers and entails

Each fellow will receive a $1,000 stipend to support creative work and the opportunity to propose supported/paid events, workshops, or classes (virtual or in-person). The cohort of fellows will develop their projects and build meaningful creative relationships through supportive and productive work-sharing, learning, and time spent in discussion. Fellows also get personalized connections to our network of exceptional alumni and mentors, who are leading editors, curators, publishers, critics, theatre professionals, artists, etc. NJCF alumni can also apply for additional project funding. NJCF has existing (and is developing new) partnerships with major cultural institutions, and we’re excited to make connections that are appropriate for you and your work.

This is an artist-driven fellowship! Your participation is crucial. Fellows will be invited to bring their own pressing questions, lead sessions, facilitate discussion, and participate actively in shaping the course of our work together. 

The monthly chevruta meeting is especially fellow-directed. It’s a chance to build a closer relationship with one other artist in the group to get feedback, study text, co-work, or whatever is most useful for you to do together. Some generative exercises and a format will be offered to start, but each pair will choose how they want to make that time most productive. At least one pair who didn’t know each other before NJCF still consider each other “art spouses” and collaborators almost four years after their cohort ended, and another still meet on Zoom weekly for a creative co-work session. (No guarantees, but it can be a meaningful relationship!)

Time commitment

Meetings for the 2026-2027 cohort will be held online an average of 3x/month from September through June. Prior to the late September start, fellows will meet 1-1 on Zoom with the fellowship director. From September-June, meetings will be divided into two meetings a month with the whole cohort and fellowship director; one meeting a month with a chevruta/partner; and one meeting a month in rabbinical sessions and/or text study. Fellows will also meet 1-1 with fellowship director about halfway through the fellowship, and will have options to meet 1-1 with the rabbinical educator as well.

2026-2027 fellowship meetings will be held online Wednesdays from 5-7pm EST on the following dates. Attendance is mandatory. Please do not apply to the fellowship if these dates and times do not work for you.

2026: October 7, October 14, October 21, October 28, November 4, November 11, November 18, December 2, December 9, December 16
2027: January 6, January 13, January 20, January 27, February 10, February 24, March 3, March 10, March 17, March 31, April 7, April 14, May 5, May 12, May 19, June 2

Eligibility

We tend toward the formally experimental and are looking for fresh perspectives. The best way to get a sense of the aesthetics we’re excited about is to look at the work of past fellows.

NJCF supports early-stage (“emerging” to “early-mid-career”) working artists. We want to help you get to your next "big thing"—a major grant or residency, solo performance/bigger venue, book publication, etc. Each year we select artists who will benefit most from sustained engagement with their projects and from a cohort experience. There is no specific age range or degree requirement, but fellows have mostly been between ages 25 and 45, and often have MFAs or equivalent professional experience. Fellows who identify as later mid-career to established-career are not likely to be considered. Though fellowship priorities have shifted somewhat since we first began, the fellowship’s current priority is to support earlier-stage artists. We are a very small organization, and while we understand that artists need support at all stages of their careers, we are limited to this mission.

NJCF especially encourages artists whose identities or practices are underrepresented in mainstream Jewish life to apply: trans, BIPOC, post-Soviet, queer, Mizrahi, Sephardi, disabled, OTD, and others. Fellows must be over 21 and live in the United States. Artists currently enrolled in a degree-granting program are not eligible to apply. Because we want to increase access to Jewish institutional support for a broader swath of culture-makers, artists who will be in another Jewish arts/culture fellowship during the year of the coming NJCF year are not eligible to apply for that year. We tend to prioritize applicants who are in some way traditionally marginalized from existing Jewish communities, and for whom NJCF might provide a unique Jewish home. (Email us at info@newjewishculture.org with questions if you’re not certain about your eligibility.) 

Whatever your relationship to Jewishness—“it’s complicated”; “half-”; frum; anti-Zionist; patrilineal; “Jew-ish”; Diasporist; Jubu; cultural; secular; etc.—if you’re interested in pursuing and investigating your work in a Jewish context (and you meet the requirements), you’re eligible. Similarly, your work could focus on esoteric Jewish rituals, your grandmother, little-known Mizrahi music, or forestation in the Zionist project—or it might not engage directly with Jewish themes at all. We believe in an expansive idea of Jewish life and culture. We are interested in work that broadens our collective understanding of what “Jewish art” means.

Close friends and former students of the current fellowship director are discouraged from applying.

Given how few fellows we are able to take each year, it is unlikely and rare that we can accept multiple members of a collaborative art-making team. Much as we celebrate and support collaboration, we recommend that applicants apply as individuals, as we cannot ensure multiple members of a collaboration team will be considered. If you choose to apply proposing a project involving other collaborators, we recommend you include in your application a note about how you individually would negotiate receiving feedback on a collaborative project.

Application process

Applicants are strongly encouraged to submit prior to the deadline to avoid any confusions or glitches with the application. Due to very limited staff capacity, we cannot guarantee that questions sent over email in the six hours before the deadline will be answered. We are unable to consider applications submitted after the application deadline.

Applications are reviewed by a committee that includes NJCF program staff and alumni. Finalists will be invited to a Zoom interview. All applicants will be notified of their status by mid-September 2026.

What recent fellows have said about their experience:

“Apply if you want the most dedicated, honest, and genuine crit group of your life.”

“I knew that every week someone thoughtful would be sharing intimate work, mid-process. It was a discovery every meeting.”

“NJCF was supportive from top down, bottom up, and in all directions. What makes this fellowship different is that we were treated as co-facilitators; as people who were here because we had something to contribute. To learn: yes. But also: to contribute. This fellowship was the opposite of paternalistic and it made me feel like I could grow and take risks and I didn’t have to prove that I deserved to be here—that kind of support was baked in from the start.”

“I would want future applicants to know that you don't have to pass a Jewish litmus test to join this fellowship. Judaism is diasporic by its nature, and we all have different experiences with it. Don't count yourself out because you haven't been to Hebrew school.”

“The mix of people you assembled really felt hand-picked to be diverse in all ways (including medium) but also people who are invested [in the process] and going to be good people to each other.”

“NJCF is a program run by incredibly thoughtful, intelligent, and politically progressive Jews who are devoted to creating space for Jewish artists to come together and actively take part in creating narratives of Jewish identity based in humanizing and nuanced politics."

"NJCF is a singular fellowship that fills the seemingly impossible-to-fill void for 'Jewish artists' (however construed) looking for a place to develop their work without romantic allegiance its Jewishness (I.e. against the cultural capital ascribed to Jewish histories of suffering, symbolic post-war liberal inclusion, and contemporary concerns of antisemitism) and certainly beyond the pressures of a compulsory Zionism. Fellows are sharp, thoughtful, irreverent, and engaged. It's a great time :)!"

Application Fee

There will be an $18 application fee when you apply. These fees directly support the application review process. If this fee presents a financial burden that will prevent you from applying, please write to leora@newjewishculture.org to request an application without a fee requirement.