Abstract
“…the first recorded instance of evaluation occurred when man, woman, and serpent were punished for having engaged in acts which apparently had not been among the objectives defined by the Program circumscribing their existence” (Perloff et al. 1976). Since that bit of Divine retribution, evaluation research has become commonplace, but one may occasionally wonder how far it has advanced from its apparently punitive origins. In an article published in a recent issue of the Journal of Jewish Communal Service (Winter/Spring 2013) devoted to “big ideas and bold solutions” in Jewish communal life, Leonard Saxe, our honored Sklare Award winner, and Fern Chertok proposed the “big idea” that Jewish organizations rely on data—evidence—to drive communal decision-making (Saxe and Chertok 2013).