8000 Walton Parkway, Suite 110
New Albany, Ohio 43054
614 939-6060
Dispatches from the network and updates from the Foundation.
Hirsh is an alumnus of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship Program, Class 2 and is a LGSW, MSEd. He is the Education Director of ZEHAYOM, the Jewish National Addiction Recovery Network, connecting Jewish addicts and their families with resources for recovery. He also recently founded Minchas Yitzchok, a Chassidic/12 Step Shul. Hirsh and his wife Chayie, live in Silver Spring, MD. He can be reached at rabbihirsh@zehayom.org. Keeping the flame alive in
Sep 2011
Shuli Passow is an alumnus of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship, Class XVI. She is a second year rabbinical student at the Jewish Theological Seminary and serves as boardchair of the Jewish Meditation Center of Brooklyn, www.jmcbrooklyn.org, She can be reached at shuhead@gmail.com Facing a difficult challenge at work, I launched an effort to solve the problem. I thought things over for several days. Wrote in my journal. Consulted with friends
Sep 2011
Larry is a Wexner Heritage Milwaukee alumnus. He is a financial advisor and a blogger for the Huffington Post and at www.larrygellman.blogspot.com. Larry now lives in Tucson and can be reached at larry.gellman@gmail.com Recently, I completed my three-year term as Chairman of the Board of CLAL, an organization that continues its legacy as the primary promoter of pluralism and the relevance of Jewish wisdom as important tools for living a
Sep 2011
Don Seeman is a Wexner Graduate Fellowship Alumnus of Class IX. He is an Associate Professor at Emory University, and holds a joint appointment in Jewish Ethnography with the Department of Religion and the Rabbi Donald A. Tam Institute for Jewish Studies. His publications include: “‘Where is Sarah Your Wife’: Cultural Poetics of Gender and Nationhood in the Hebrew Bible,” in Harvard Theological Review 91:2 (1998); “‘One People, One Blood’:
Sep 2011
Tara is a Wexner Heritage Westchester 07 alumna and is the founder of Marketing Matters, Ltd., a N.Y. based marketing consulting firm specializing in non-profits. Tara also serves as a parent advisor to J-Teen Leadership, a teen-led community service and leadership organization. J-Teen Leadership was founded by Amanda Bilski and her mom, Tracey Bilski, a Wexner Heritage alumna from NY. Tara can be reached at tara@marketingmattersltd.com Can you imagine leaving
Aug 2011
Benjamin Samuels is an alumnus of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship, Class VI and has served as the rabbi of Congregation Shaarei Tefillah of Newton Centre, Massachusetts for the past sixteen years and teaches widely in the Greater Boston area. He can be reached at ravbensam@shaarei.org. This summer, I have been leading a Shabbat afternoon Tanakh study, “Responding to the Call: Divine Commission and Reluctant Prophets.” In our sessions, we have
Aug 2011
Tricia Hellman Gibbs, alumna of the 2008 San Francisco Wexner Heritage Program, is the co-founder of the San Francisco Free Clinic, a clinic providing free care to the medically-uninsured. In the fall of 2011, she will begin the Masters program in Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA. She can be reached at triciagibbs@comcast.net “He (who delights in Torah) is like a tree planted beside streams of
Dr. Rela Mintz Geffen is a Professor Emerita of Sociology and the Past President of Baltimore Hebrew University. She can be reached at Rela1@aol.com. My son Ami, now himself a father, was a very active and social child. From quite an early age, and certainly by the time he was in elementary school at Solomon Schecter Day School in Philadelphia I would caution him about certain behaviors with the rabbinic
Aug 2011
Pam is a Wexner Heritage Toronto alumna. She is a lawyer and artist, who now edits ”think: The Lola Stein Institute Journal” (http://www.lolastein.ca/050~Think_Magazine/). She can be reached at pamelams@mac.com. Girls are female beings, b’tzelem elokim. They are not adaptations of men. Thinking about bat mitzvah rituals, I was uncomfortable guiding my daughters towards any reworking of the male model. My sons had had b’nei mitzvah, and it felt disrespectful to
Aug 2011
Searle, a Wexner Heritage alumnus from Baltimore, is outgoing Chair of the Jewish Federation’s Hillel Council and a Vice Chair of JESNA. A real estate and business attorney, he is the former president of the Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School and Beth Tfiloh Congregation. He can be reached at smitnick@gfrlaw.com Three years ago, I was in Hell. I managed to escape. Why would I voluntarily return in early May, 2011?