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Dispatches from the network and updates from the Foundation.
Dec 2010
Rabbi Kenneth Carr is an alumnus of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship Program (Class III). Ken is in his tenth year as the rabbi of Congregation Or Ami in Lafayette Hill, PA. He can be reached at rabbi.carr@or-ami.org. As I sat in my mentor’s office, feeling swamped by all of my rabbinical responsibilities, his office phone began to ring. I expected him to answer the phone, but he just kept speaking
Dec 2010
Carrie Harris is an alumna of the Wexner Heritage Program, NewYork/Wachtel. Carrie is a member of GoldmanHarris LLC, a law firm specializing in zoning and historic preservation. Carrie is active in Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, writes occasionally for The Jewish Week, and has created a multimedia (photography/poetry/dance) program about Jews in Spain. She can be reached at charris@goldmanharris.com. When I finally got married four years ago, it was to a Jewish
Dec 2010
Reckler Cohn is an alumna of the Denver 2008 Wexner Heritage group. She is Executive Vice President and General Counsel for Aimco, a publicly held apartment REIT headquartered in Denver, CO. She can be reached at lisa.cohn@aimco.com. B’tzelem elohim – each of us is created in the image of G-D. This is easy enough to understand – except perhaps when applying it to someone carrying a sign reading “Your Rabbi
Dec 2010
Lisa Lisser is an alumna of the JWI-MetroWest Wexner Heritage Program. Lisa lives in Short Hills, New Jersey where she has been actively involved in the MetroWest Federation for the last 10 years. She currently chairs her community’s Partnership 2000 program with the Israeli communities of Ofakim and Merchavim in the Negev. Lisa can be reached at lzlisser@verizon.net Lately, I’ve been thinking about Jewish Peoplehood. I chair our MetroWest New
Dec 2010
Annie Tucker is an alumna of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship Program (Class 12) and Associate Rabbi of The Jewish Center, a Conservative congregation located in Princeton, NJ. From 2005-2006, Annie served as student rabbi to congregation Beth Israel in Biloxi, MS, witnessing some of the destruction of Hurricane Katrina firsthand. She may be reached at atucker@thejewishcenter.org. Every so often a very special thing happens at the bi-weekly meeting of the
Rabbi Akiva Herzfeld is a Wexner Graduate Fellowship alumnus (Class 16) who serves as rabbi of Congregation Shaarey Tphiloh in Portland, ME. Akiva recently attending the Wexner Heritage Alumni and Wexner Graduate Fellowship/Davidson Scholars Alumni Study Day in Philadelphia which was held at the National Museum of American Jewish History. He can be reached at rabbiherzfeld@gmail.com. PORTLAND — The Jewish holiday of Hanukkah begins this year at nightfall today and
Nov 2010
Shuli Passow is a Wexner Graduate Fellowship Alumna. Her pastoral care field work as a first year rabbinical student at the Jewish Theological Seminary inspired these reflections. Prior to JTS, Shuli served as the Director of Community Initiatives at the Jewish Funds for Justice. She can be reached at shuhead@gmail.com Above my desk, in my former office, was a print of a phrase that expresses a foundational concept of my
Nov 2010
Rabbi Abby Sosland is an alumna of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship Program. She is the Morah Ruchanit (Spiritual Teacher) at Solomon Schechter High School of Westchester, but she is proudest of her role as a member of the Judaic Studies Faculty. She can be reached at rabbisos@aol.com. When I left my job as the assistant rabbi at Town and Village Synagogue in lower Manhattan, I felt ready for something different.
Nov 2010
Rabbi Seth Goren is an alumnus of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship Program. Rabbi Goren serves as the Associate Chaplain and Director of Jewish Student Life at Lehigh University. He can be reached at seth.goren@lehigh.edu. As part of a course on race I was teaching a couple of years ago, we took some class time and examined a variety of media materials with an eye toward how race was reflected and
Nov 2010
Dear Fellow Jews, I never thought I would be saying this, but I think we have become too tolerant. I love my intellectual, open-minded people very much, but sometimes, (well, often), our obsessive need to consider all sides of an issue is working against us. Not every option deserves real consideration. For years we have been bending over backwards trying to make Judaism fit every different taste and 51% of