PJ Library | Slingshot Fund

Providing high-quality Jewish children’s books that deepen and enrich the Jewish identities of families raising Jewish children, promoting family conversations, and inspiring families to engage in meaningful Jewish social, educational, and communal experiences

PJ Library is the brainchild of a philanthropist who was inspired by Dolly Parton to start a free-books project for Jewish children. (So in a roundabout way, we have a country music star to thank for the distribution of free Jewish children’s literature.) Each month the organization sends families with children ages 6 months to 11 years old high-quality Jewish children’s books that deepen and enrich their identities. Parents can use the books to promote family conversations and share Jewish stories, traditions, and values with their children. PJ Library’s stories connect children to history, education, experiences, and relationships, supporting individual connections to Jewish life, inspiring families to engage in the local community in their own way. Piloted in 2005 with an original distribution of 200 books in western Massachusetts, PJ Library now sends more than 180,000 books each month across North America, including to 7,800 families in Chicago. It has recently added a new medium to its offerings—music. PJ Library Radio, home of Jewish family music, streams online and through a smartphone app.

In Chicago, PJ Library is a partnership with the Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago, allowing PJ Library to reach participants during a critical window, as their journeys as families are just beginning. Its reach is large: PJ books are estimated to be in the homes of 52 percent of all Jewish families in Chicago. PJ Library doesn’t have an agenda and instead provides a do-it-yourself option for parents seeking to add Jewish content and knowledge to their homes. In 2016, it launched a new grant track called PJ Library Get Together, which provides microgrants to parents to host Jewish PJ Library–inspired experiences for their friends and other families who live nearby. This past year, nearly 3,000 families across 33 communities participated in parent-driven engagement experiences that reached more than 9,300 people. PJ Library has created a “novel” way to get families to connect Jewishly and learn more about their culture right at home.