The Latest From The Foundation

Aaron J. Hahn Trapper is a Wexner Graduate Fellowship alumnus and the Co-Executive Director and Founder or Abraham’s Vision , a conflict transformation organization working with Jews, Muslims, Israelis, and Palestinians. He is an Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of San Francisco, where he is the founding director of the school’s new Jewish Studies and Social Justice program. He can be reached at aaron@abrahamsvision.org “The Muslims are

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

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

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

Marcia Cohodes is a a Wexner Heritage Alumna from Minneapolis and member of the Wexner Alumni Forum She is retired from a career in investment banking.  She is an advocate for individuals with disabilities in the Jewish community and a member of the UJC Disability Workgroup.  She can be reached at macohodes@earthlink.net. In 1993, our oldest child was born and, as I held this tiny miracle of life, I imagined

Hindy Poupko is a Davidson Scholar completing her double masters in Public Policy and Israel Studies at New York University. She is the Executive Director of the Council of Young Jewish Presidents and the Director of Israel and International Affairs at the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York.  Hindy can be reached at hindypoupko@aim.com Shortly after getting married, when my aspirations for working within the Jewish world crystallized, I

Caron Blau Rothstein is a Wexner Graduate Fellowship alumna and the Outreach & Engagement Coordinator of Congregation Neveh Shalom in Portland, Oregon.  She can be reached at caron13@comcast.net. Over the years, I have had to learn how to balance my leadership in varied professional situations with my other life roles—wife, mother, adult daughter, friend, congregant, volunteer, etc.  I thought I was pretty adept at the work-life balance until I was

By Rafi Cashman is a Davidson Scholar beginning a PhD in Education at the University of Toronto in the fall.  He can be reached at raficashman@gmail.com.  Next to the mass grave of Tikochin in Poland, I told a story to the student-participants of the March of the Living, for whom I was the rabbi, where I tried to inspire them to reflect on the possibilities and opportunities life made available

Avi Killip is a Wexner Graduate Fellow who has just completed an eighteen-month rabbinic internship at Conservative Synagogue in Atlanta and will begin studying at Hebrew College Rabbinical School in the fall. He can be reached at avikillip@gmail.com. There is a man at synagogue named Hirsch who occasionally, after practicing his layning, will accidentally put the Torah back upside-down. Let me start over. There is a man at synagogue who

Rabbi Howard Stecker is a member of Class I of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship program and the senior rabbi at Temple Israel of Great Neck, NY. He can be reached at hastecker@gmail.com. We had an amazing concert planned for Israel’s 60th Anniversary. Three outstanding performers, local politicians and complimentary falafel balls were in the offing. For a variety of reasons, I thought it would be a great idea to hold