The Latest From The Foundation

The following remarks were made at a dinner of graduating Class 26 and a group of Bostonians who hosted the Israelis for various activities during their year ​at Harvard: On the first day of our Wexner Israel Fellowship experience we sat in this very room at Harvard as Brian Mandel and Elisha Gechter welcomed us with a huge stack of papers and forms. There was a letter signed by the

By way of introduction, on Tuesday night, May 26, our current class of Wexner Israel Fellows (Class 26) prepared a lovely end-of-the-year thank-you dinner for all those in Boston who had welcomed them so warmly. This was followed the next day by a graduation brunch for the Fellows and their families, as well as key staff and faculty, including President Elka Abrahamson, Vice President Cindy Chazan, Program Manager of the

A can’t-miss event. That’s what our SF ’08 Shabbaton reunion felt like this past weekend, as we came together in Sonoma for the sixth year in a row to rest, relax and study together. Nearly 90 percent of our class was present, with spouses (who have long been integrated as part of the group) and children (who are now friends). Those who couldn’t be there had excellent reasons: living far

Some of the participants of the Wexner Senior Leadership Program during their month at Harvard (after the fifth snow storm). From left to right: Alon Levavi – Deputy Commander of the Central District of the Israel Police, Michal Shalem – Chief of Staff in the Jerusalem Municipality, Kobi Barak – Commander of the IDF’s Technology and Logistics Branch, and Michal Fink – Senior Director of Strategy and Policy Planning at the

Tammy Dollin, WGF, Class 1 What struck me immediately was the magnitude and the import of the event. I entered the ballroom filled with 1200 people, all gathered in gratitude to recognize and communicate the impact of the nearly $1 billion investment in Jewish leadership made over the last 30 years by Les and Abigail Wexner. The room was filled with enormous potential, an electric energy, ideas born and nurtured,

These last few days, I have been thinking of Elisha crying after Eliyahu, “My father, my father!  Chariot of Israel!” as the prophet is seized from his pupil in a whirlwind.  To me, and to thousands of his students and followers around the globe, Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, zt”l, was the gadol hador – the greatest rabbinic personality in the world, and his departure from us Monday morning is an upheaving

“Once in a while you get shown the light In the strangest of places if you look at it right.” Jerry Garcia/ Robert Hunter I remember well my Bar Mitzvah. It took place May 22, 1965 and was one of the happiest weekends of my life. My parents, humble people from modest backgrounds, were so proud of the event and equally proud that they had just completed, in time for

The dishes I planned for Seder would have gone well with rice, were it not Pesach and were I not Ashkenazi. Little potatoes would be okay, too.  But upon learning that quinoa is not chametz, I thought, “Perfect. So healthy, so organic, so trendy, and so pretty with its red curls, it could symbolize the Red Sea.” Standing in the pasta aisle of my currently-being-renovated Key Food Store, where they

I came home from the alumni institute this week feeling a small pit of sadness at saying good-bye to such a special experience, like it was the end of camp.  I still find it a little incredible that I actually met people, made friends, and was able to participate in meaningful conversations despite my fears that none of these hopes would really materialize for me.  But they did. I reconnected

On January 23, the Wexner Heritage Washington DC 13 class had the wonderful opportunity to join more than 450 members of the DC community in welcoming home Alan Gross, who was imprisoned for five years in Cuba.  Gross, an international development contractor, was convicted for crimes against the Cuban state while delivering computer equipment to Cuba’s small Jewish community.  He was released on December 17, 2014 as part of a