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Dispatches from the network and updates from the Foundation.
Dec 2009
Rabbi Asher Lopatin is an alumnus of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship Program and a rabbi at Anshe Sholom B’nai Israel in Chicago. He can be reached at rabbi@asbi.org. Just a few days before beginning negotiations on a new eight year contract at my modern Orthodox shul, I agreed with a supporter that I would not push for an innovation – women carrying the Torah: Why shake things up before contract
Aaron Dorfman is a Wexner Graduate Fellowship Alumnus and Vice President for Programs at American Jewish World Service. He can be reached at ajdorf@gmail.com In the late 1990s, I was serving as youth director at a synagogue in Northern California. I had worked hard to build up the seriousness of the youth program, including re-instituting having the youth-group president serve on the synagogue’s board, a practice that some adult board
Dec 2009
Daniel Segal is a Wexner Heritage Alumnus from Philadelphia. Dan is an attorney at the firm of Hangley Aronchick Segal & Pudlin and is a member of the International Board of the New Israel Fund. He can be reached at dsegal@hangley.com I have spent most of my career as a lawyer focused on commercial litigation, representing clients in their business disputes. However, I have spent the last ten months professionally
Dec 2009
Deen Aranoff is an assistant professor of medieval Jewish studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA. She teaches courses on Jewish society and culture in medieval and early-modern Europe. She can be reached at daranoff@gmail.com There was no way to anticipate the transformation that would take place as I took my seat as a student of yoga with Dana Flynn. I began to study yoga with Dana two
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” –
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.