The Latest From The Foundation

Jeni S. Friedman is a current Wexner Fellow/ Davidson Scholar.  She is a PhD candidate in Education and Jewish Studies at NYU.  Jeni can be reached at rabbijenifriedman@gmail.com  It started the other day because I made a new friend.  I wasn’t really planning it – it just sort of happened.  I finished a consulting meeting at a synagogue, and one of the teachers and I found ourselves on the same

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

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

Tobey Barus is an alumna of the Wexner Heritage Program Denver 08 Group.  She is an active volunteer in the Denver Jewish community through her work with Jewish Mosaic, Allied Jewish Federation and the Jewish Community Center’s Family Programs.  She can be reached at tborus@gmail.com.  Last spring a census taker visited our home. (We weren’t dodging the census—it just never showed up!) As he rattled off the list of questions

As part of my summer reading, I picked up two books: one old, one new. My father, a retired English professor, found the first at one of my favorite used book shops: Hillel: The Book Against the Sword, written in the 1950s by Ely Pilchik, the founding director of University of Maryland Hillel. In this biographical study, Hillel the scholar comes alive with his teachings in narrative form. The second

Josh is is the Campus Rabbi at Fiedler Hillel at Northwestern University and an alumnus of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship Program. Josh can be reached at rabbijosh@northwestern.edu. Recently I co-chaired a conference sponsored by Hillel with funding from the Jim Joseph Foundation called Toward a Third Space: A New Dimension in Jewish Education for Emerging Adults. While Hillel and JJF were the official conveners of the gathering, many of us

Rabbi Marion Lev-Cohen is a Wexner Heritage Alumni from NYC. She is currently the Director of Adult Education at Central Synagogue. Marion was the former chair of the Commission on Jewish Identity at UJA Federation and on its Executive Committee. She served on the boards of the JDC, the Jewish Agency and the Foundation for Jewish Camp. She currently serves on the boards of American Jewish World Service, Synagogue 3000,

You would imagine, for a Jew, living in Israel, being Jewish is a non-issue. Israel, the birthplace of our ancestors, the land they walked upon, lived out our biblical stories – just breathe the air, feast your eyes on the scenery and tread upon the land. You speak and read the newspapers in Hebrew, the street signs are the names of heroes, biblical characters, famous sages and rabbis; your kids

Gary Aidekman is President of United Jewish Communities of MetroWest, New Jersey and a MetroWest Wexner Heritage Program Alumnus.  Gary can be reached at gaidekman@ujcnj.org. Sometime after the publication of the National Jewish Population Survey of 1990 a sense of dread spread over many American Jews.  The survey revealed a steep increase in intermarriage and Jewish leadership grew fearful that Jewish identity would weaken and with each new generation American

Ramie Arian is a a consultant who works with Jewish camps, youth movements and other agencies concerned with building Jewish identity and commitment. He was a senior member of the Wexner Heritage Foundation staff for nine years, ending as Vice President in 1998. He can be reached at ramie.arian@gmail.com.  The reordering of priorities which was recently approved by the Board of Governors of the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI) has