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Dec 2009
Dr. Michael Kay is an alumnus of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship Program (Class 16). He is the Director of Judaic Studies for the Upper School of the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Rockville, MD. He can be reached at makay@post.harvard.edu. In our circles, we speak often about the notion of “community leadership.” And while we spend a great deal of time analyzing the ways in which “leadership” has
Dec 2009
Harry Nelson is a Wexner Heritage alumnus from Los Angeles and an attorney at Fenton Nelson, a healthcare law firm, in Los Angeles. Harry can be reached at harry@fentonnelson.com. “Vayeishev Yaakov B’Eretz Megurei Aviv …” “Jacob dwelt in the land of his father's sojourning….” (Gen. 37:1) Buried in the opening verse of this week’s parsha are two competing ideas of how we, as children of Abraham, live. First: “Vayeishev” –
Ann Hartman Luban, MAJCS, MSW, is an alumna of both the Wexner Graduate Fellowship Program and the Wexner Heritage Program. She is currently at home raising her 3 children, and serves on the boards of the Chicago Jewish Day School and the Jewish Communal Service Association. She can be reached at annluban@sbcglobal.net I was 25 years old, still in my first job as a social worker at Council for Jewish
Dec 2009
Jason Guberman-Pfeffer is the project coordinator of Diarna and executive director of Digital Heritage Mapping, Inc., its parent 501(c)(3) non-profit. To begin your free trip -- no passport or airfare required -- explore Diarna’s website (http://www.diarna.org). Email inquiries may be sent to Jason at: info@diarna.org. “Why is a nice Ashkenazi boy leading a Mizrahi heritage project?” I have often fielded this question since August 2008 when I helped launch Diarna,
Nov 2009
Karen Farzad is an alumna of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship Program. Karen was most recently the Senior Director of Programming at Columbia/Barnard Hillel. She can be reached at karenfarzad@gmail.com. As a Hillel program director, I staffed the late-night weekly meetings of our student executive board. The students ran the meetings, with my participation where necessary. Halfway through one particular meeting, I noticed an unusual amount of tension in the room.
Nov 2009
David Abramowitz is an alumnus of the Wexner Heritage Program. He is the Executive Director of Jewish Leadership Institute, a Jewish identity-building and leadership creation program for college and graduate students. He can be reached at jli18@juno.com. Jacob is a complex character. We like “complex.” It denotes an intricacy that leads us to use our best analytical skills. The problem is that Jacob is also complicated. “Complicated” leads to, well,
Nov 2009
Matthew Bronfman is an alumnus of the Wexner Heritage Program from NY and Chairman of the International Steering Committee of Limmud FSU. Our most recent Limmud was July 1-3 in Jerusalem, for Russian speaking Israelis. In all, we will have 5 Limmuds this year for Russian speaking Jews in the US, Israel, Ukraine and Russia. I became involved in this project 4 years ago when I was in Cordoba, Spain
Nov 2009
Rabbi Shoshana Boyd Gelfand is an alumna of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship Program (Class 1). She is Executive Director of the Movement for Reform Judaism in the UK. In some ways, it was inevitable that Limmud and Wexner would intersect one day. They are, in some ways, like twins separated at birth; similar genetics, but different upbringings. For example, they differ significantly in their target audiences: Wexner is unabashedly elite,
Nov 2009
Jay Moses is an alumnus of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship Program. Jay is the Director of the Wexner Heritage Program in the Foundation’s New York office. He can be reached at jmoses@wexner.net Our armored bus rolled through the desert and turned in to the winding streets of Hevron. Wexner Heritage members and spouses were spending a day exploring the issue of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Home to over
Dr. Erica Brown is the Director for Adult Education at The Partnership for Jewish Life and Learning and the consultant for The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington. Erica is the author of the book, Inspired Jewish Leadership, a National Jewish Book Award finalist and Spiritual Boredom, and co-author of The Case for Jewish Peoplehood (all through Jewish Lights). Erica is the recipient of the 2009 Covenant Award for her work