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Dispatches from the network and updates from the Foundation.
Feb 2014
We are always looking for the next great Jewish idea. Funders are looking for innovation and originality. Federation is often the last thing on this list. This is unfortunate, because our Jewish communal network is the envy of every ethnic community in America. We ignore what we have: a network than can restore and revitalize communities, rescue populations in danger, absorb immigrants, and educate people returning to their Jewish
Jan 2014
In photo: Eric Fingerhut, CEO and President of Hillel International, spoke about the challenges of leadership and his optimistic vision of the Jewish future with Wexner Graduate Fellows and Davidson Scholars at their Winter Institute. Here he engages Fellows who are interested in careers in Hillel. “Having the opportunity to speak with Eric Fingerhut was especially encouraging in the midst of our days spent on leadership skills-building. Seeing that a
Instead of asking, “Is there a blessing for the Czar?”(Fiddler on the Roof) WexnerLEADS asked a few of our alumni whether there were leadership lessons to be found in this other kind of Yom Tov that some Americans observe. Feel free to add your thoughts below. “I wear many hats. I’m not talking about wife, mother, educator, rabbanit, etc. I literally wear a large variety of hats in color, style,
Top from left: Matt Reingold, Yoni Pomeranz, Avi Miller, Michael Emerson, Sarit Horwitz, Maital Freidman, Sara Meirowitz. Middle from left: Shira Billet, Evelyn Baz Enright, Justin Rosen Smolen, Ruthie Warshenbrot, Reuben Posner. Bottom from left: Julie Finkelstein, Liz Piper-Goldberg, Miriam Farber Wajnberg, Jared Matas, Jeni Friedman, Tova Katz. Not Pictured: Aviva Richman. The Wexner Graduate Fellowship Program’s Winter Institute devoted to cohort-based leadership learning ended yesterday. Class 23 (pictured
It has often been observed, sometimes ironically, that the one thing on which all Jews agree is that we don’t like to agree. Jews love their machlokot (conflicts). The question is: how do we manage those conflicts in a constructive and productive manner? The Talmud recounts the story of the initially peaceful and constructive conflict between the students of Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai some 2,000 years ago that tragically
Jan 2014
Most of us were in our early 20’s and 30’s when we walked through the gates of the Prime Minister’s Office, accompanying Ariel Sharon to his first days in office, in March of 2001. Those were difficult days for Israel, with the Second Intifada surging, and hundreds of dead in horrific terror attacks. Sharon’s Chief of Staff, who orchestrated an orderly transition of power from the previous administration, had two
Jan 2014
Wexner Colleagues: I am excited to tell you that I’ve joined the Friends of Israel’s Environment, a group of concerned Americans who support the work of Adam Teva v’Din – the Israel Union for Environmental Defense. Adam Teva v’Din (ATD) is Israel’s leading non-governmental advocacy organization seeking to improve environmental protection and enforcement of environmental laws. Over the past decade, ATD has helped many thousands of Israelis tackle life-affecting environmental
Jan 2014
(Pictured) In Ashkelon, a wall with ”Path to Peace” written on it in Hebrew — a message of peace, which protects a community of Jews (some of whom save Palestinian lives for a living) from sniper fire out of Gaza. On the recent Israel Institute I learned that the issues impacting Israel are very rarely black and white. There is a whole lot of gray. In that gray however, hope
Jan 2014
An excerpt from a seventeen-year-old’s college application essay: “I want to go to a college…where the academics dictate the social climate, where discourse and debate are encouraged not for the sake of convincing the other, but to teach the other, and where scholarship – my core value of Judaism – is the core value of the institution.” This was the conclusion to my answer responding to the prompt, “Why Swarthmore?”
Jan 2014
Six months ago on a stage in Tel Aviv, with the sun sinking into the Mediterranean behind us, I and several dozen classmates from San Francisco, Columbus and my hometown of Miami, received our certificates of completion from the Wexner Heritage program. A few months prior, sitting in a bank boardroom, our Heritage classroom for the past two years, we had been told that our Jewish experiences were rare and