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Dispatches from the network and updates from the Foundation.
Oct 2011
Yehuda Kurtzer is an alumnus of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship/Davidson Scholars Program, Class XV. He is the President of The Shalom Hartman Institute which is a center of transformative thinking and teaching. They address the major challenges facing the Jewish people and elevate the quality of Jewish life in Israel and around the world. He can be reached at yehuda@shalomhartman.org. I suppose it is common, when starting something new, to
Dr. Starr served as Charles R. Bronfman Chair in Jewish Communal Innovation, and Visiting Associate Professor of Jewish Studies, at Brandeis University and is a faculty member of the Wexner Foundation. Dr. Starr can be reached at thedavidstarr@me.com. This year I taught a Wexner Heritage class in Baltimore. I enjoyed it, how could I not, given the lovely people: they were bright, enthusiastic, appreciative and generous. I’m still in touch
Oct 2011
Rabbi Avraham (Avi) Weiss, a long time Wexner Heritage Faculty Member, is Founder and President of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School and Senior Rabbi at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale. He is also National President of AMCHA – the Coalition for Jewish Concerns. Gilad Shalit has come home. Is this a time for euphoria or upset? The head tells us that this is a terrible deal. The lopsided exchange may
Oct 2011
Laura Sheinkopf is an alumna of the Wexner Graudate Fellowship, Class IX and a graduate of Columbia University and Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. She is the Director of Publicity at Bright Sky Books and lives in Houston with her two children Max and Isabel. Rabbi Sheinkopf can be reached at rabbilms@yahoo.com. As I made my way to the drag queen club that evening the line from “Angels in
Oct 2011
Noah is a Wexner Heritage Atlanta alumnus. He retired from the Jewish Federation of Atlanta after 30 years of service to the community. This D’var Torah was written for the JFGA Weekly in August. Noah can be reached at l_noah@bellsouth.net. As we begin Deuteronomy with the reading of D’varim, we notice that for a man almost 120 years old Moses can’t always remember his facts, especially since he was speaking
Artie is a Wexner Heritage Program alumnus from Columbus. Artie teaches creativity to corporations and at The Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business. He leads brainstorms at artieisaac.com. Artie can be reached at artieisaac@gmail.com. Excerpted from a sermon presented at Temple Israel, Columbus Ohio. The folks in my congregation think I understand prayer. Kippah topped, tallit swaying — boy, do I have them fooled. I have nearly no idea
Oct 2011
Rabbi Smuly Yanklowitz is an alumnus of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship, Class XIX. Shmuly is the Founder & President of Uri L’Tzedek, the Director of Jewish Life and the Senior Jewish Educator at the UCLA Hillel, and a 6th year doctoral student at Columbia University in Moral Psychology & Epistemology. Shmuly can be reached at Rabbi Shmuly@utzedek.org. There were times, when I was one of three students that would stay
Sep 2011
Rabbi Any Doren is a Wexner Graduate Fellowship alumnus of Class I. He currently serves as Assistant Rabbi and Director of Religious Education at Temple Emanuel in Greensboro, North Carolina. He previously worked as Program Associate for the Wexner Foundation from 1995 to 1998. He can be reached at akoren@tegreensboro.org It was the fall of 1993 and I was starting my career as a Rabbi. I was working as the
Sep 2011
Allison is the Coordinator of the Wexner Israel Fellowship Program and is based at the Harvard Kennedy School. She can be reached at: ashapira@wexner.net I married into the Holocaust. Though I have Polish roots, my family came to the Americas before the Nazis started deporting Jews to ghettos and concentration camps. As such, while the Holocaust affected me as something that happened to my people, I never felt it as
Sep 2011
Jonathan Spira-Savett is an alumnus of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship, Class III. He is Rabbi of Temple Beth Abraham in Nashua, New Hampshire and has been a teen educator and active in the Jewish teen philanthropy movement. Jon blogs, he shares Torah, and podcasts at rabbijon.com. He can be reached at spirasavett@yahoo.com. For my first thirteen years after ordination, I was either about third in the hierarchy of a day