Association of Jewish Outreach Programs

The Association for Jewish Outreach Programs also known by its abbreviation AJOP (originally officially called the Association for Jewish Outreach Professionals (and commonly referred to as the Association of Jewish Outreach Professionals) is an Orthodox Jewish network which was established to unite and enhance the Jewish educational work of rabbis, rebbetzens, lay people, and volunteers who work in a variety of settings and seek to improve and promote Jewish Orthodox outreach work with ba'alei teshuvah guiding Jews to live according to Orthodox Jewish values. AJOP was the first major Jewish Orthodox organization of its kind that was not affiliated with the Chabad Hasidic movement.

Rabbis, rebbetzens, and activists in the field of "Jewish outreach" working in the various areas of Orthodox Jewish education are often referred to as "kiruv professionals" or "kiruv workers" as well as "kiruv volunteers" in the Orthodox community.

The growth of the Baal teshuva movement ("returnees" [to Orthodox Judaism]) that gained strides in the 1960s, went hand in hand with, and was often the result of, "kiruv" efforts ("kiruv" means "bringing close [to Judaism]") by rabbis and Orthodox Jews all over the world.

The worldwide efforts of the Chabad Hasidic movement were guided by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson the leader of Chabad who encouraged many of his followers to leave the confines of Brooklyn and to set up synagogues and communities in non-Orthodox settings and to "mekarev" ("bring closer" [secular Jews to Judaism]) and to the Chabad-Lubavitch brand of Hasidism in particular. These Shluchim or Shlichim did the work of "outreach" that was meant to attract Baal teshuvas to Judaism.

With the passage of time there came the recognition that not only Chabad was doing this work but that many other rabbis and volunteers from all branches of the Orthodox, Haredi, and Hasidic world were involved in the same kind of "outreach" kiruv work. During the mid-1980s Sanford C. Bernstein the founder and director of the investment house Sanford C. Bernstein and Company had become a devoted follower of Rabbi Shlomo Riskin and decided to establish the AVI CHAI Foundation to research and help all manner of Jewish education and particularly Jewish outreach ("kiruv") if it met the criteria of his foundation (no opposition to Zionism and to accept the value of secular knowledge.)

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