Mission Possible

An interview with Devora (Debby) Yellin Fish ’84

love and support. To that end, Devora founded Up in the Chair and Each & Every, a movement that she hopes will spread as people pledge to lift someone’s spirits with an act of kindness or recognition. Thirteen million is an imposing goal that Devora realizes she might not achieve in her own lifetime. Even so, Up in the Chair is “pay it forward” at its best as she deploys a real and quintessential moment in Jewish life as a metaphor for boosting another person.

devora’s orbit is populated by rich, colorful relationships and experiential learning from her earliest memories of Schechter to her professional work today in creative arts education. “I remember the first day walking into school,” she says. “From the start, Judaism was fun and accessible. My teachers were amazing and some of them are still my mentors as a Jewish professional.

My friends’ parents were influential in my upbringing. Schechter continues to play a critical role for me because it has meant getting to travel through life with people who really know you.”

Devora describes her trajectory from Schechter to Newton South High School to New College in New York as deceptively linear. “Schechter taught me to think critically and ask questions. At South, I had teachers who gave me a lot of freedom to forge my own educational pathway. I have always preferred integrating different ways of thinking and creative learning.” In graduate for a time. I learned from friends who were Seventh Day Adventists or the Times Square Church minister or my non-Jewish advisor. They helped me appreciate Judaism almost as a convert would. Each person told me that Judaism already had what I was looking for, so I got to choose and appreciate Judaism all over again.” devora graduated from college in 1992 and was offered a job teaching Judaic Studies and Hebrew in Arizona at The Tucson Hebrew Academy. In a manner both lighthearted and completely serious, Devora says, “I turn everything into a song or paint about it.” True to her nature, she accepted on the condition that she could direct a musical. “To some degree, I was able to express myself there and bring Jewish joy,” Devora recalls, “but I wanted to take the kids out into the desert to learn about Passover or go on a hike and make matzah on a rock.” She soon realized, however, that the structure of classroom teaching was not the right fit for her. “I kept hearing that my style was a departure from the norm. ‘Right,’ I would say, ‘but that's the lesson they're going to remember.’” experiential educator focused on engaging students on the periphery of Jewish life. “I'm a Judaism-without-walls kind of person,” says Devora. “I created programs in which anybody would be allowed to contribute and participate in the arts such as ‘Behind the Mask: A Purim Extravaganza’ involving artists, dancers and musicians performing interpretative pieces. What does it mean to be hidden and what am I hiding? What are the masks that I wear out in the world? Where can I fully be myself? We did a lot of the social justice trips like volunteering at a farm if the students were passionate about organic farming or partnering with programs around literacy or doing programs about ethics at the law school. You have to go out for coffee, listen, find out what people care about.” school at Lesley University in the 90s, Devora even designed her own path in experiential, creative arts and comparative religions. “I chose a secular program intentionally. Jewish communal service and education are in my DNA. I was interested in bringing the pedagogy and methodologies of inclusive education that support multiple intelligences, mixed-age learning, and intergenerational teaching back into Jewish life because I wasn't seeing it. I was introduced to incredible religious leaders from different walks of life, all of whom moved me in some way.”

Schechter continues to play a critical role for me because it has meant getting to travel through life with people who really know you. Schechter taught me to think critically and ask questions.

Devora explains further. “Growing up, as the daughter of a conservative rabbi, I was handed Judaism on a silver platter. I was the rabbi’s rebel daughter because my pathway to Judaism ended up being to step away

Devora’s stint in Arizona was a powerful turning point for her. “When I moved there, I was one of the only Jews and it was a whole other world from the Jewish spaces where I had usually existed. It meant thinking about things I never had to question before. I would go to the pueblos and be the first Jew someone had ever met, so I started a group called 2 Jewish Cowgirls which was intended for Jews living in random places. My cofounder and I represented Jewish artists who were using materials from the Southwest.” Devora laughs when she recalls the quirky, unexpected juxtapositions of the group members’ lives. “There were women who were farmers in Texas. They would be one of four Jews in their town, driving their kids two and a half hours each way to Hebrew school in red pick-up trucks. We created community out of this weird diaspora. We were like the outposts for these women.”

After seven years, Devora moved on to run a pilot program at the University of Texas at Austin for Hillel International as an now, decades later , Devora describes herself as a “womb to tomb” educator who still prefers learning that “rattles her brain a bit” and teaching that is free-thinking and sensory. “I'm a fan of the unknown and the entrepreneurial journey. Experiencing people in places that are unfamiliar, and in ways that are new to me, is how I keep learning and growing.” Indeed, Devora thrives as an itinerant traveler on multiple journeys whether Jewish or non-Jewish, educational or professional, spiritual or emotional, always existing as both student and teacher simultaneously.

In 2018, Devora was tapped to be the Director of Education for the Tennessee Holocaust Commission, so she relocated to Nashville with her children. The task was monumental and essential: developing new content for students across Tennessee about the factual history of the Holocaust and its lessons with regard to antisemitism, prejudice, genocide and hate. Devora was impressed by the steadfast commitment of the teachers she encountered, and charged by the idea that the state was mandating Holocaust education.

Suddenly, though, Devora was hitting surprising roadblocks as her lesson content was altered or disallowed altogether by state officials. She railed against the limitations of her first government job. Not to be than uplifting somebody who would never have expected it. That’s what Up in the Chair is fighting.” She self-piloted her concept for 100 days, doing something for someone else each day so that she could give and experience happiness and stay connected to the Jewish community.

Devora is determined. “It is my intention to uplift 13,000,000 people for their individual contribution to humanity. The more people who pledge to uplift someone, the greater the ripple effect.” Devora uses the professional example of training synagogue preschool teachers to design authentically welcoming and inclusive spaces in their classrooms. “They all created chairs for the classroom based on their values, to show how they want to pay it forward for themselves, their colleagues and their students.” uniqueness? What does it look like to be an uplifter? We build our community because we don't let people fall if somebody gets tired. There are many people holding the chair and there is always someone else circling right nearby.” stymied, she simply “[got] into good trouble. I went around the back way. I taught the teachers in creative groups. I found the real educators who were unwilling to do things like change survivor testimony, which is what the state officials had suggested. I started doing clubs with teachers in the art or music departments so that we could incorporate lessons of the Holocaust in an inclusive, nonmandated classroom. Some people didn't like that, but there was no way I was going to be silenced. Ultimately I could not remain in that job with integrity.”

While in their teen years, both of Devora’s children had begun to explore their gender identity. “I wanted to be there for other Jewish parents whose world is different from what they expected, and who are balancing a lot of things and trying to feel welcome in the Jewish community. It was challenging to think about wanting your child to go to Israel for the first time, and wanting them just to ‘get to be’ Jewish, but having them not know what side of the Kotel to stand on.” Devora actively provides resources and support to other Jewish parents of non-gender conforming children.

The entire curriculum was pulled at the onset of COVID-19, but Devora had already reached the end of her road in Tennessee. The pandemic had shuttered normal life and accelerated the pervasive problem of loneliness and isolation in modern American life. Devora’s response to the confinement and instability of that period, and the sharply painful distance from family, was to look inward and then, of course, get busy.

As a venerable, adroit Jewish educator and a nothing-will-stop-her doer, it is then that Devora decided to launch Up In The Chair. “I woke up and said, ‘I’m going to do something for someone today.’ There's nothing better

Alongside being the CEO for Up in the Chair and Each & Every, Devora is an active participant and educator for Congregation Rodef Shalom and for Judaism Your Way, which is based in Denver where she has lived since March 2022. She also developed another (!) program for emerging professionals and college-age students in which she uses her methodology of mentorship. “The program is called EMA, Emerging Professional/Mentorship Alliance. I’m the mothership. I’ve worked with about 200 students who are underrepresented and lack privileges because of differing abilities or because they are non-gender conforming or first generation, people who don't really have an Ema or mother. I’ve helped them with recommendations, practicing for interviews, professional development and being matched with mentors from mission-driven companies. Now they have an ecosystem I describe as the Hora.”

Devora conjures up a wedding ceremony: “ A couple is uplifted because they're coming together in partnership. We have no idea what this partnership will create for the world. Uplifters need their own strength, which is what I teach in public schools, day schools, camps and organizations. It takes practice. You have to train as if it were something physical. What are the words of inclusion? How do we uplift everybody’s

Devora is careful and reflective when she considers the typical day school student. “We know what it means to be uplifted. We don't ever have to ask, it's just right there, but if you don't have that, what do you do? Our day school students can be the greatest ambassadors and community builders of uplifting. If I had a request of the Schechter community, it would be to go off into the world to lead as uplifters.” devora’s life and career do not follow the straight line of an axis, but instead an extraordinary 360º panorama of possibilities. She steps into each setting with her personal vision, organically “doing Jewish” by unleashing her intellectual vigor, artistry and compassion to mine for the precise thing that is missing or to enhance what is already good. She blends the expected and the unexpected, turning to the reserves of Jewish thought and practice to move a person or community forward, sometimes methodically and sometimes spontaneously, but always free of constraints.

One day, 13,000,000 people will know the feeling Devora purveys so originally and openly. “I’ve got you.” That’s the feeling to learn more about how you can support Devora’s mission or to become involved, please go to www.upinthechair.com.