Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2018 by Becca Thomas
"I think this was the first time that we gathered as a group of Wexners at HIGA. We had a very boisterous and friendly breakfast with some fun inter-class rivalry about who has the best class and whose class has become the most famous. For me as a Class 10 alum, it was also great to meet some of the newer Wexners serving in the Hillel world. Looking at this picture, I smile as I see many of the people I often seek out for conversation and advice - and know the others pictured will also soon be o…
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Posted on Tuesday, December 18, 2018 by Wes Gardenswartz
The leadership team of Blockbuster was in the throes of a principled disagreement. Some believed that the wave of the future was to promote streaming and subscription-based DVD rentals. Others believed that the company needed to double down on what it had always been, a video rental company where a customer picked up the video from a store and paid laid fees if the video were returned late. The side that said double down on videos, stores and late fees won that battle but lost the war. Blockbust…
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Posted on Monday, December 17, 2018 by Goni Duchin
Recently three friends of mine – Ruth Kaplan, Elana Markovitz and Lorri Owades –came over for brunch. We crowded in my tiny kitchen and enjoyed shakshuka, pitas with za'atar and Israeli salad. We chatted about life, our families, and kids – all the usual stuff. After a while, as always with them, we turned to discussing the best ways to connect the American Jewish community and Israelis, how to get the two communities to know and enjoy each other as friends, person to person. …
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Posted on Friday, December 14, 2018 by Jessie Goldberg
On Sunday, December 2, we met up at the Family Mentor Foundation to organize and pack Buddy Boxes for children in need. We split up into teams and created an assembly line to make the process smooth and efficient. We assembled, packed and checked the boxes to make sure they had the correct number of items in each box. The first round of food was sponsored by Kroger, as part of Kroger’s Zero Hunger, Zero Waste program in partnership with the Family Mentor Foundation. When we finish…
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Posted on Wednesday, December 12, 2018 by Jill Jacobs
Last Thursday, I had the honor of speaking on a panel with former President Jimmy Carter and Imam Omar Suleiman (Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research) about faith and human rights, in commemoration of International Human Rights Day and the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR.) It was especially powerful to sit next to the man who had just become the oldest former president (and who had flown to and from President Bush's funeral earlier that day.) Much of t…
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Posted on Tuesday, December 11, 2018 by Wendy Newberger
Good evening, I am Wendy Newberger, Wexner Class of 1999 and Founding Board member of Chicago Jewish Day School. I am honored to be welcoming you here this evening. This may be the first Wexner Reunion of its kind here in Chicago - and we are thrilled to have such a wonderful turnout of Wexner Heritage and Wexner Fellows from across so many years. You may be wondering what the impedance for this reunion was…and you may be surprised to learn that it did not come from the Wexner Foundation…
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Posted on Monday, December 10, 2018 by Chelsea Feuchs
What is Hanukkah all about? In the United States, the wondrous nature of the holiday is emphasized. A small amount of oil lasted for eight days, the period of time necessary to properly rededicate the Temple. We light candles together in memory of this miracle, enjoying the way their light helps to illuminate some of our longest and darkest winter nights. This image is beautiful and comforting, but it is hardly the whole story. In the same way that the violent final chapters of the Purim megila…
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Posted on Monday, December 10, 2018 by Jonathan Spira-Savett
Last year, of around 150 alumni of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship who came to the annual Institute, there were less than a handful of Conservative pulpit rabbis like me. How different from 25 years ago, when almost everyone in the fellowship was heading for synagogues, day schools and Federations. Much of our network today is in new niches and disrupters. In my own career I have moved from the new sector back to the synagogue. I believe that even a traditional shul that is not urban, hip or cen…
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Posted on Sunday, December 09, 2018 by Judd Kruger Levingston
When I began my new job at Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy nearly ten years ago, I was surprised to learn that as much as my colleagues were interested to work with me on the curriculum, they also were interested to work with me on raising student awareness about honesty. According to one study that I read that was included in James Davison Hunter's book from 2000, The Death of Character, between 10-20% of high school age students are willing to cheat on a test or paper. Thus, even if our student…
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Posted on Friday, December 07, 2018 by Becca Thomas
After a tough year filled with tragedy close to home and in the wider world, Wexner Heritage Members Alana Ballon (San Francisco 18) and Tammy Hepps (Pittsburgh 18) were talking about ways to make the holidays fun in middle of such darkness. Tammy mentioned a menorah-making contest she’d heard a day school was doing in Pittsburgh and Alana thought about a poetry seder she’d seen for Passover, and then the idea to elicit “Hanukkah Haikus, Limericks and Short Poems” was bor…
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