The Latest From The Foundation

My wife and I arrived in Budapest, Hungary days for an unforgettable Shabbat and three day World Jewish Congress (WJC) Plenary Assembly held on May 5 – 7, 2013, which we attended as part of the 18-person Canadian delegation.  This was our first time visiting Budapest and although it seems to be a rather cosmopolitan city, certain of its elements were reminiscent of a past Soviet era.    The WJC

Jacob is an alumnus of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship/Davidson Scholar program, Class 16 and is an advanced Ph.D. student in Jewish Studies and Education at Brandeis University.  He is the director at Camp Ramah in Wisconsin.  Jacob can be reached at jcytryn@gmail.com. For ten years now, shortly after Memorial Day I have made my way north to summer camp to serve as a member of the hanhalah (senior leadership team)

The population of the New York Jewish community has grown nearly 10 percent since the previous study in 2002, according to UJA-Federation of New York’s Jewish Community Study of New York: 2011, released June 12th. More than 1.5 million Jews now live in the eight-county New York area, a total that surpasses the combined Jewish populations of the metropolitan areas of Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. In

Dara is a Recruitment Consultant for DRG and has more than a decade of experience working with Jewish non-profits.  Her work at DRG is focused in the areas of both informal and formal Jewish education, and in identifying a next generation of Jewish professional leadership.  She can be reached at dklarfeld@drgnyc.com  In the Jewish community, the crisis of executive leadership is very acute. Hundreds of Jewish organizations will, in the

Menashe Bleiweiss is a Wexner Graduate Fellowship alumnus, Class III. He is a rebbe in Derech, a division of Ohr Somayach Yeshiva, a licensed tour guide, and directs a tour guide training program at Machon Lander. He lives with his wife and eight children in Telzstone, near Jerusalem. Menashe can be reached at jsisrael@netvision.net.il Pluralists tend to feel alienated by the many hierarchies in Torah and Jewish law. They prefer

Gordon is an alumnus of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship Program, Class I. He is currently serving in his twentieth year as Rabbinic Director at the Milken Community High School of Stephen Wise Temple. Gordon can be reached at gbernat- kunin@milkenschool.org Imagine a highly accomplished Jewish day school senior on her way to her Harvard interview. As she reviews her activities and achievements, pondering what might make her stand out, her

Lisa, a member of the East Bay 10 Wexner Heritage Program, is an editor at Literary Mama . She serves as Board Secretary of the Contra Costa Jewish Day School in Lafayette, California.  She is also a member of the Jewish Federation of the East Bay’s Women’s Philanthropy Board.  Lisa can be reached at llmo@yahoo.com. Put 40 Jewish education leaders in a room and surround them with good food

Liz is a current Wexner Graduate Fellow (Class XXIII) and a second-year rabbinical student at HUC-JIR in New York.  Liz can be reached at lizraeli@gmail.com. I have been thinking about what makes a text holy. At my core, I am a librarian’s daughter. So during winter vacation, when I reorganized all of the books in my room, I arranged them topically, like a microcosmic and eclectic Dewey Decimal system. Various

Barry is a Wexner Graduate Fellowship alumnus and currently serves as the Head of School at Fuchs Mizrachi in Cleveland. OH.  Barry can be reached at bkislowicz@fuchsmizrachi.org  When it comes to day schools it seems that the buzz word of the moment is Sustainability: the rising price of tuition, the inability of families to afford our day schools, and the struggle for institutional fundraising to keep up with the cost

Jacob is a graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis. He is writing his dissertation on Jewish-state relations in communist Czechoslovakia. He lectures regularly at the St. Louis Holocaust Memorial and Learning Center.  Jacob can be reached at labendz@gmail.com. The results of a recent study shocked the Israeli Army (http://tinyurl.com/7337tob).  It seems that their program of sending officers to visit Auschwitz backfired among a significant cohort, actually diminishing their