8000 Walton Parkway, Suite 110
New Albany, Ohio 43054
614 939-6060
Dispatches from the network and updates from the Foundation.
The Community Foundation for Jewish Education of the Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago (CFJE) is tasked with, among other things, improving support for some 50 congregational education programs in the Chicagoland area. I have long been concerned that congregational education is not engaging kids with meaningful curricula and compelling teachers. I know there is great work being done across the Wexner network on improving what we all formerly referred
Jan 2016
Photo: WGF Class 25 celebrates their graduation after four years in the Wexner Graduate Fellowship (not pictured: Dalit Horn and Raysh Weiss). The following remarks – originally started with a joke – are excerpted from a talk Jeremy gave during last week’s WGF Winter Institute in Fort Myers, Florida. According to the Pew Study, 42% of North American Jews think that having a sense of humor is an essential part of
Jan 2016
Jan 2016
I wrote “The Tide is Rising” after being asked to lead a song at Coming Together In Faith On Climate, an interfaith service at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC during Pope Francis’s visit. Raised in the folk scene, I have experienced the power of music to move groups of people and inspire shared vision and identity. “The Tide Is Rising” has gone viral in the climate movement, and I’m
Jan 2016
Last week’s Wexner Graduate Fellowship Alumni (WGFA) Institute was focused on the theme “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: Sharing the Teachings that Animate our Work and our Lives,” planned by WGF alumni Miriam Heller Stern (Class 13), Scott Meltzer (Class 4) and Devin Villarreal (Class 18). Alumni had opportunities to share what they have learned from the giants in their life. As part of the Institute, Miriam Heller Stern
Jan 2016
If you want to influence someone’s behavior, it helps to ask who they know. Thanks to the groundbreaking research of Nick Christakis and others, there is now a mounting body of evidence showing that a range of our behaviors and attitudes are influenced by our social networks. Your friends help shape whether or not you smoke, if you can lose weight, how happy you say you are, where you live
Jan 2016
Opening night of the Miami Jewish Film Festival is tonight! We will be screening 80 films over two weeks and are almost entirely sold out. I am especially proud that we will be screening the North American premiere of Natalie Portman’s new film, A Tale of Love and Darkness. This is her directorial debut and she stars in the movie, too. Most people don’t know that she was born in Israel
A familiar Wexner leadership lesson teaches us the value of “standing on the balcony.” As we approach MLK weekend, I am reminded of how, just a few short months after graduating from the Wexner Heritage Program, I found myself standing on a balcony with a very different view. This time, it was a real balcony in Memphis, Tennessee, on the very spot where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life came
Three and a half years ago, while finishing my Wexner Heritage program in Israel, I visited Yad Vashem on a free afternoon before Shabbat. I wanted some reflective time in a place that has long been important to me as the son of a Holocaust survivor. After touring the museum, I settled at a computer to search the database of victims of the Shoah for my relatives that had lived
Jan 2016
CONGRATULATIONS TO: Foundation Partner Alisa Doctoroff on being named to the 2015 Forward 50. Vicky Glikin, WGF Alum (Class 22), on her appointment as Senior Cantor of Temple Emanu-El in Dallas, TX. Jennifer Gorovitz, WHP Alum (San Francisco 06), on joining the New Israel Fund as Vice President for Operations and Administration. Jamie Hackel Hyams, WHP Alum (San Francisco Pro), on joining the Hebrew Free Loan of San Francisco as