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Nov 2009
Rabbi Jethro Berkman is a Wexner Graduate Fellowship alumnus. He teaches Tanakh and creates experiential education programs at Gann Academy – The New Jewish High School of Greater Boston. He can be reached at jethroberkman@yahoo.com During my last two years of rabbinical school I worked as the Jewish Student Advisor at Swarthmore College. As the only official Jewish presence on campus, I had a wonderful opportunity to exercise leadership and
Dr. Jennie Rosenfeld is an alumna of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship (Class 14). Jennie made aliyah last year and is currently a Junior Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute where she is writing a book on sexual ethics for Orthodox singles, and a Talmud teacher at Havruta, the Bet Medrash for students of the Hebrew University. She can be reached at eishlavan@hotmail.com I didn’t anticipate linking my thoughts on the
Sacha Litman is an alumnus of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship Program. He is the Founder and Principal Consultant of Measuring Success, a strategy consulting firm dedicated to developing quantitative tools and models to enhance organizational effectiveness. Sacha can be reached at: sacha@measuring-success.com. As organizations I work with suffer losses in membership, enrollment, or donors; I hear time and time again that it is out of their hands. The conclusion tends
Oct 2009
Rabbi Brett Krichiver is a Wexner Graduate Fellowship Alumnus. Brett is the Senior Jewish Educator for Hillel at UCLA. He can be reached at brett@uclahillel.org. Recently I was reminded of a famous statement made by Abraham Joshua Heschel: “What we need more than anything else is not textbooks but textpeople. It is the personality of the teacher that the pupils read, the text they will never forget.” I find this
Oct 2009
We at the Foundation have long known that Wexner constituents thrive on innovation. Whether it’s the leadership aspect, the confidence that comes with a strong Jewish identity, the exposure to other innovators, or all of the above, Wexner alumni are often at the forefront of new ideas to impact the Jewish world. We are pleased to profile below 3 Wexner alumni, representing each of the Wexner leadership initiatives, who have
Oct 2009
Ellen Bob is an alumna of the Wexner Heritage Program from San Francisco. She co-owned bob and bob fine jewish gifts and books in Northern California for 26 years. Ellen is working for Camp Ramah in California to create a camp in the Northern half of the state. She can be reached at ellenbob@gmail.com. One of the things I love about the stories of Genesis is that we often learn
Angie Atkins is a current Wexner Heritage member from MetroWest, NJ and can be reached at angieolami@comcast.net. My slight worry that the Wexner Summer Institute in Israel would be either a very basic Tourism 101 or the Zionist Rally version of a Club Med Vacation was immediately put to rest by the first day’s border tour: the lines at checkpoint Atarot; the taller-than-Babel-security wall on the road to Bethlehem; and
Oct 2009
Joey Asch is an alumnus of the Wexner Israel Fellowship Program, Class XVIII. He can be reached at joey@justice.gov.il. In his book “The Lost: The Search for Six of Six Million,” author Daniel Mendelsohn describes an encounter he once had with an Australian Jew. When she told him that she was going to be light (meaning “late”), it dawned on him that there really are Jewish people in places other than
Oct 2009
Elise Bernhardt is President and CEO of The Foundation for Jewish Culture. Elise can be reached at ebernhardt@JewishCulture.org. Sh’mini Atzeret, coming as it does on the day before Simchat Torah, is the point for me when the year really ends and begins anew. The transition is so physically marked: the unevenness of the Torah scrolls and then the rewind. The year begins in the same place and yet is fundamentally
Margy-Ruth Davis is Executive Director of the Aleph Society, Inc. mrdavis@steinsaltz.org and Rachel Weiss-Berger, Project Director, Global Day of Jewish Learning (rachel@steinsaltz.org. Please visit www.1people1day.org to learn more. For a moment, imagine the Jewish people assembling at Mount Sinai. In the 21st century. It is difficult to imagine that all Jews would converge at the foot of a single mountain. Instead, there would more likely be congregations dispersed in locations