The Latest From The Foundation

Ayala Parag, an alumna of the Wexner Israel Fellowship Program, is Chief Physiotherapist of Israel in the Ministry of Health. She participated in the Wexner Foundation’s Mifgash to Eastern Europe in April; below are her reflections. She can be reached at ayala.parag@moh.health.gov.il As I think of the impact of our quest to Eastern Europe, I return to the theme of a drasha I gave on our first morning together in

Jane Scher, an alumna of the Wexner Heritage Program from San Diego, and a member of the WH Alumni Forum, participated in the recent Wexner alumni mifgash to Poland and Hungary. She shares some of her thoughts below. She can be reached at janescher@schers.us  We were all fed and warmly dressed with coats and scarves and boots and gloves in Poland in spring. And we were chilled to the bone.

Searle Mitnick, a Wexner Heritage alumnus from Baltimore, is Chair of the Jewish Federation’s Hillel Council and a board member of JESNA. A real estate and business attorney, he is the former president of the Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School and Beth Tfiloh Congregation. He can be reached at smitnick@gfrlaw.com The Parsha for this coming Shabbat is Emor. In this Parsha, all of the biblical holidays are enumerated and described.

Nadine Greenfield, an alumna of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship Program, is Associate Director of the American Jewish Committee’s Washington, DC Chapter. She can be reached at nadinegreenfield@yahoo.com Thanks to the Wexner Foundation, we all know what it means to “network”—to be able to pick up the phone/keyboard and call on someone for guidance, expertise or just more information. We also have had the opportunity to deepen our understanding of Jewish

Jessica Marglin is a Wexner Graduate Fellow/Davidson Scholar.  She is studying for a PhD in Judaic Studies at Princeton University.  Jessica can be reached at jmarglin@princeton.edu. This past summer, I spent two months in Morocco studying Arabic.  The students lived in close quarters with our Moroccan teachers and I delighted at the opportunity to spend so much time speaking Arabic.  My desire to practice Arabic constantly, combined with my limited

Evan Segal, a current Wexner Heritage Member from Pittsburgh, is the Chairman of the Florence Melton Communiteen High School, a member of Hillel Board of Governors & Directors,  and active with the UJF Pittsburgh, Community Day School & AIPAC. He is also an Executive-in-Residence at the CMU Tepper Graduate School of Business. He can be reached at evanjsegal@aol.com One of the biggest issues confronting us today is Jewish Continuity. In

Shira Levine is a member of the Wexner Heritage Program San Francisco 06 group.  She is the Community Marketing Director for Prosper.com, an online person-to-person lending platform.  Shira can be reached at shira_levine@yahoo.com. In 1993, I had the opportunity to travel with a Hillel program called Bridges of Understanding to Austria to forge relationships between young American Jews and our Austrian non-Jewish peers. Before the trip, I was just another

Rabbi Akiva Herzfeld is an alumnus of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship Program. Rabbi Herzfeld serves as the Orthodox Rabbinic Advisor at Harvard Hillel, and is the rabbi of Congregation Shaarey Tphiloh of Portland, ME. He is married to Michal Herzfeld, a student at Harvard Law School. He can be reached at akiba183@yahoo.com. This editorial was first published in the Portland Press Herald. In early November of the year 1620, a

Eliot Goldstein is a member of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship Program. He works for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. Eliot can be reached at ebg243@nyu.edu Jewish tradition and the Ten Commandments stress honoring our mothers and fathers. This is clearly a “biggie” in Jewish life – but not one of the most easily defined mitzvot. My father is a very active lay leader in a large metropolitan Jewish community.

Dr. Lila Corwin Berman, an alumna of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship Program, is an assistant professor of history, religious studies, and Jewish studies at Penn State and is spending this year as a fellow at University of Michigan’s Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies. She can be reached at lcberman@psu.edu. *This piece first appeared in The Forward.  I had to apologize to my younger self when I agreed to teach