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Fall Imagination Sessions

The New Futures Project is a community-powered initiative that aims to build a future that reflects the values and dreams of the CBE community, in partnership with others. Over the last few years, we have come together to actively envision a future that we would be genuinely proud to hand down to our children’s children’s children. Together, we are learning how to marry hope and reality through the power of imagination. 

 

This fall, we’re continuing that work with a new series of Imagination Sessions, exploring specific aspects of the world we want to live in and beginning to identify what might need to change to make those futures possible.

 

What’s Happening this Fall

This fall’s Imagination Sessions will invite us to think expansively about nine topics that shape our lives and society, from education and healthcare to our relationships with the planet.

 

You are welcome to participate in as many topic areas as you like. You do not need to be an expert! Any level of lived experience or expertise is welcome. 

 

Together we will explore each topic through an introductory session followed by an analysis deep dive. Please note: you must attend the intro session to attend the deep dive. Each “Deep Dive” session encompasses the previous three topics explored.

 

Fall 2026 Sessions

  • Thursday, Oct 1,  7 p.m. | Relationship to Planet
  • Tuesday, Oct 6, 9 a.m. | Education
  • Wednesday, Oct 14, 7 p.m. | Transportation 
  • Sunday, October 18, time TBD | Imagination and Analysis Deep Dive #1
  • Thursday, October 22, 7 p.m. | Work and Rest
  • Thursday, October 29, 7 p.m. | Elders and Aging
  • Wednesday, November 4, 7 p.m. | Criminal Justice
  • Sunday, November 8, time TBD | Imagination and Analysis Deep Dive #2
  • Tuesday, November 10, 7 p.m. | Economy and Affordability
  • Wednesday, November 18, 7 p.m. | Healthcare
  • Thursday, November 19, 9 a.m. | Childcare/Parenthood 
  • Sunday, Nov 22, time TBD | Imagination and Analysis Deep Dive #3

 

 

REGISTER HERE

 

Together, these sessions will move us from bold creative dreaming toward identifying the narratives, systems, and structures that might need to change to create a different and more just future. And this analysis will bring us closer to taking actions that will make our desired future a reality.

 

How do the sessions work?

Each topic will span two sessions. The first session will include the guided visualizations, scenario use, and imagination building featured in our Spring trial sessions. 

The second session will include systems-level analysis as we identify the underlying shared narratives that need to be changed so that new systems, policies, and experiences can emerge. In these second sessions, participants will come together with peers from two other topic groups to learn a helpful futures analysis framework and will then split up into topic areas to articulate changes that could lead to a different reality. You may attend the first session and not the follow up Deep Dive session, but to attend the Deep Dive session, you need to attend the first session. 

 

What is the goal of these sessions?

Over the course of the fall sessions, we will work together to identify narratives that reinforce our current reality and come up with new ideas about how the structures that make up our world can exist. As we move forward toward action, we want to make sure our community’s next steps are both expansive and considered. The output of these sessions will be specific visions of particular aspects of society which we can aim toward and that will inform our next steps—-a campaign, a community program, a housing co-op. Who knows? We will figure it out together!

 

What do I need to know before attending?

Nothing! In the introductory session, we will discuss how the topic has affected us, individually and as a society. Facilitators will guide you through imagination exercises to think of the world in new ways. In the analysis session, facilitators will briefly teach an analysis framework that will help structure the conversation. 

 

Any level of expertise or lived experience is welcome. All you need to bring is an open mind. 

 

How did we get here?

Guided by a member-led New Futures Leadership Team, our Lead Organizer, Erin “Maz” Mazursky, and Rabbi Stephanie Kolin, CBE began developing Imagination Sessions as opportunities for community members to share our thoughts and build our collective imaginations.

In fall 2025, the team facilitated 14 Imagination Sessions with 125 congregants, including longtime and relatively new members, ECC parents, and teens. Participants told stories about their experiences at CBE, identified the values evident in those experiences, and considered how those values might guide us into the future. From those conversations, eight shared values emerged:

Dialogue across differences • Care for the other • Connection • Joy • Abundance • Learning and curiosity • Belonging • Care for the earth

In Winter 2025-2026, the team, now joined by Lead Organizer, Rocky Altman, grounded our learning in Jewish history and future with “The Text of Imagination,” and in artistically driven tools to build our imagination muscles, in the fantastical “Art of Imagination.”

In spring 2026, the sessions became more specific. Participants began imagining desired futures around particular topics, including childcare, eldercare, and housing. Through guided visualizations and “protopian” scenarios, participants explored both what a thriving future might look like and the different forms that future could take. What we learned from those sessions helped shape the approach we are bringing into this fall.

 

What are people saying?

From participants of past Imagination Sessions:

 

“This confirmed my sense that we, as a community, are already fundamentally values aligned … {And] it gave me permission to think more expansively about what might be possible.”

 

“Just the act of discussing a joint future together with other members of the CBE, whom I did not know, enhanced my feeling of community.”

 

“I thought more about the ways that CBE can be the center of a vibrant, accessible Jewish community in Brooklyn and beyond, and the role I/we can play in shaping it.”

 

“I feel like the group as a whole had the tools to imagine quite a beautiful community. We were diverse in terms of ages which I felt helped in thinking through the needs of the community.”

 

“One of the most valuable pieces was hearing the diversity of perspectives in the room in response to the intro prompt.”

 

“[My vision of the future is that] in 2076, we have done away with age segregation in housing. Thriving multigenerational communities provide residents of all ages with organic systems of mutual care and a strong sense of belonging.”