The CANVAS Compendium: Dispatches from the New Jewish Renaissance
We are delighted to announce more than $900,000 in grants this season, including $450,000 for the inaugural CANVAS Amplify Grants program! This new grant area is designed to showcase contemporary Jewish creativity to broad and diverse audiences across North America.
Our latest round brings CANVAS’s total commitments to the sector to $1.33 million for the past year.
Over the past twelve months, the CANVAS Collaborative Fund engaged in a process to create the Amplify Grants program as an extension of CANVAS’s commitment to supporting a thriving Jewish arts and culture sector in North America, while building meaningful bridges and conversations across cultures.
Congratulations to the inaugural CANVAS Amplify grantees:
- American Composers Orchestra
- Arlekin Players Theatre
- BAMAH
- Chocolate Church Arts Center
- Inheritance Theater Project
- Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
- Musée du Montréal juif / Museum of Jewish Montreal
- New Ear, Inc.
- The Nightingale of Iran
- Ragtag Film Society
The CANVAS team, along with an esteemed Review Committee of artists, curators, philanthropic leaders, and cultural practitioners, reviewed 185 proposals. Among the dozens of sensational applications, the ten awardees represent a multiplicity of Jewish identities, experiences, and perspectives presented through contemporary Jewish artistry; and will be showcased in metropolitan and regional secular arts spaces throughout 2026.
The 10 Amplify grantees join a cohort of 21 CANVAS grantees supporting artist networks, media coverage, and distribution channels across the Jewish arts and culture ecosystem. The full list of Amplify grantees and their supported projects can be found on our website. We encourage you to read about each organization’s inspiring work, and we are thrilled to welcome them to the CANVAS community.
PRESS RELEASE
Jewish Philanthropies Double Down on The Power of Art
CANVAS Funder Collaborative deepens investment in Jewish arts and cross-cultural initiatives
January 8, 2026 — CANVAS, the collaborative fund dedicated to strengthening and celebrating a 21st century Jewish cultural renaissance, today announced more than $900,000 in grants, including $450,000 for its inaugural Amplify Grants program. This new grant area is designed to showcase contemporary Jewish creativity to broad and diverse audiences across North America. The latest round brings CANVAS’s total commitments to the sector to $1.33 million for the past year, and marks the beginning of its pledge to double its annual giving to the field to $2 million by 2030.
Amplifying Contemporary Jewish Creativity to Rebuild Bridges
Over the past twelve months, the CANVAS Collaborative Fund engaged in a process to create the Amplify Grants program as an extension of CANVAS’s commitment to supporting a thriving Jewish arts and culture sector in North America while building meaningful bridges and conversations across cultures.
Amplify recipients will bring large-scale public installations and live performances by Mizrahi and Sephardi artists to HBCUs in Atlanta and New Orleans through BAMAH; three projects highlighting Jewish culture to rural Maine hosted by The Chocolate Church of Bath in partnership with Portland Ballet and Classical Uprising; the American premiere of Alex Weiser’s Tfiles (Prayers) for clarinet and orchestra with Polish soloist Andrzej Ciepliński to Carnegie Hall with The American Composers Orchestra’s presentation of Hello, America: We Gather Here; The Book of Esther in the Age of Rembrandt with a new site-specific commission by Israeli artist Michal Rovner to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum of Boston; and a Ragtag Film Society tour of Sandi DuBowski’s feature documentary Sabbath Queen to 20 southern and midwestern cities. Each Amplify project brings contemporary Jewish artistry and artists into broader secular arts spaces, and represents a multiplicity of Jewish identities, experiences, and perspectives. The full list of Amplify grantees can be found at bycanvas.org/current-grantees.
A New Model: One Year of Collaborative Design
The need for expanding support for work that fosters cross-cultural dialogue felt urgent, following a 2025 survey by CANVAS and the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto that found 62% of Jewish artists experiencing negative pushback against their artwork, online harassment, and/or cancellation or alteration of their work post–October 7. CANVAS refined its grant priorities to offer dedicated support for:
- Building relationships both within and outside the Jewish community to promote cross-cultural dialogue
- Amplifying art and culture to show the richness and diversity of Jewish experience;
- Focusing on collaboration, relevance, vitality, equity, and creativity.
Requests for proposals were announced in April 2025, CANVAS’s first open call. A stellar Review Committee of artists, curators, philanthropic leaders, and cultural practitioners was assembled, with members coming from Jewish and secular spaces. CANVAS received 185 proposals from 26 states and 3 Canadian provinces. Proposals varied in artistic disciplines, ranging from theater, music, film, dance, and museum exhibitions to culinary arts, podcasts, public installations, video games, live storytelling, and community-based artworks. The scores of visionary proposals represent an exciting commitment by arts organizations across North America to foster cross-cultural dialogue through Jewish creativity.
The enthusiasm for Amplify grants from arts organizations and funders alike has inspired CANVAS to offer another open call for these grants in the coming year. A new Amplify Fund will open in 2026, welcoming donors interested in supporting contemporary Jewish creativity and providing additional support for arts organizations undertaking this crucial work.
A Growing Arts Community
The 10 Amplify grantees join a cohort of 21 CANVAS grantees across the Jewish arts and culture ecosystem. In 2026, CANVAS is recommitting support for organizations that together represent excellence in three of CANVAS’s core strategic focus areas: strengthening emerging networks of artists and creatives, supporting distribution platforms for new work, and expanding media coverage of the sector. Organizations span disciplines across North America, from literary to film to visual art to theater and performance, including the Ashkenaz Foundation, Ayin Press, Jewish Film Institute, Jewish Book Council, and Yetzirah: A Hearth for Jewish Poetry.
A full list of all CANVAS grantees is at bycanvas.org/current-grantees.
From CANVAS Leadership
Lou Cove, Founder and President of CANVAS, emphasized the purpose behind the new Amplify program, and the importance of increasing philanthropic investments in this sector:
“At a time of great division and anxiety, receiving 185 proposals to present Jewish creativity to secular audiences is one of the most hopeful things I have witnessed in the last two years. Amplify grants are designed to support the current flourishing of new Jewish art, and respond to the challenges of our times by encouraging cross-cultural programming. Artists want to be free to tell their stories, and allies are looking for ways to build bridges. Amplify can be a model for all of us.”
“Six of the 10 most popular ‘practices’ of American Jews involve arts and culture. Yet, by our count, Jewish funders give less than 0.3% to Jewish arts and culture. By contrast, the CANVAS Collaborative Fund commits 100% of its grantmaking to nonprofit organizations within this thriving yet–severely under-resourced sector.”
About CANVAS
CANVAS is a collaborative fund supporting the ecosystem of contemporary Jewish arts and culture. Through pooled grantmaking, leadership development programming, and sector advocacy, CANVAS strengthens the organizations, artists, and cultural leaders driving a 21st-century Jewish cultural renaissance. Since 2020, CANVAS has committed more than $5.5 million in grants to the ecosystem of contemporary Jewish arts and culture in North America. For more on CANVAS, please see bycanvas.org.
